Taking a patient home: an ICU nurse’s journey to Mount Everest

From the time she was a child, Boryana Peeva dreamed of the mountains. A lifelong athlete and mountaineering enthusiast, she was drawn to places that demanded endurance, focus, and heart. So, when the opportunity arose to trek to Mount Everest Base Camp in October 2025—a long-held bucket list goal—Boryana quietly committed herself to the challenge.

An Intensive Care Unit nurse at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center in Woodbridge, Virginia, Boryana understood what the journey would require. Everest Base Camp sits at more than 5,300 meters (17,500 feet), a destination that tests even experienced climbers. Months of specialized physical training followed, especially meaningful after a serious leg injury two years earlier. She told few people of her plans, preferring to stay focused and undeterred by doubt.

“If I say something to myself, I will achieve it,” she says simply.

What Boryana could not have known was that her journey would become far more than a personal milestone.

The day before she was scheduled to leave for Nepal, Boryana reported for an early ICU shift. That morning, she was reassigned to care for a patient, Laxmi Lama—a grandmother who was in the final stages of life. Surrounded by her loving family, Laxmi passed away. Boryana was there to support them and tend to their grandmother. The family shared that their grandmother was from Nepal.

Laxmi Lama

The coincidence was striking. Boryana gently shared that she was heading to Nepal the very next day. The family’s faces softened. They spoke of their homeland and of the mountains, revered in their culture as sacred, almost divine. In that shared space of grief and connection, a bond formed.

The family made an extraordinary request. They cut a strip of fabric from the pillowcase of the pillow that had comforted their grandmother and wrote messages of love and remembrance upon it in Nepali. They asked Boryana to carry this piece of cloth with her to Everest Base Camp and leave it there. To them, it would mean bringing their grandmother home.

Boryana accepted without hesitation.

The trek itself was grueling. Thin air, freezing temperatures, and relentless terrain pushed her to her limits. At times, she worried she might not make it high enough to fulfill her promise. But step by step, she pressed on.

At nearly 4,700 meters, surrounded by rock, snow, and ice, Boryana reached a place where climbers and trekkers had left tokens in memory of loved ones. With a Nepalese guide beside her, prayers were spoken. The strip of cloth—now part of a tapestry of remembrance—was placed carefully on the mountain. The guide explained that Laxmi’s spirit was being brought home, her soul finding peace among the sacred peaks.

When Boryana returned, she shared photos and video of the moment with the family, assuring them she had kept her promise. Days later, she received a message from Laxmi’s granddaughter.

“Ms. Boryana, thank you so much for taking her home with you so she didn’t have to make this journey alone. We will always be grateful,” she wrote. At the grandmother’s funeral, the family shared the story of the nurse who carried her spirit back to Nepal.

For Boryana, the experience affirmed everything she believes about nursing—and about life. She was meant to care for that patient. Meant to meet that family. Meant to carry a piece of their love to the roof of the world.

What began as a personal dream became an act of profound compassion, faith, and human connection. On the slopes of Everest, an ICU nurse did more than reach base camp—she honored a life, fulfilled a promise, and reminded us all that healing sometimes takes place far beyond hospital walls.