Prudent Prepping: To Live and Die In Glacier Bay

Me, on better days than this week

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping. 

Yes, I'm feeling better now. I'm not at 100%, but at least I'm vertical.

This will be a short report on what happened this past week, to the best of my recollection. That is, if I can remember. Things were a little fuzzy, and not just my tongue.

Glacier Bay

What Happened
I started to feel a little poorly Sunday and still went in to work on Monday. By Tuesday noon I was really feeling crappy (heh!); once I got home everything went south at once -- vomiting and diarrhea combined. It was so bad that I ended up sitting all night on the bathroom floor, wrapped in a blanket, because every 30 minutes I needed to be in there anyway, so why not get comfortable... for certain values of comfortable, at any rate.

What I Did

• I made sure that my friends knew I was sick -- but not dying, no matter what it sounded like from my end of the house! 
• I drank small amounts of water, even if it wasn't going to stay around long, to prevent 'dry heaves' which can damage internal organs if they go on long enough.
• I did not try to take any anti-nausea medicines at this time, because nothing was staying in long enough to take effect.

What Helped, part 1
After most of the vomiting stopped, I did take some anti-diarrhea medicine which helped a little. How much, I'm not exactly sure. I keep ginger beer here a regular mixer, so I tried to drink some after shaking it up to knock out the carbonation. Some good old-fashioned saltine crackers were washed down with small amounts.

What really helped was being able to sleep in a bed for about 10 hours straight without running to the bathroom.

What I Did Next
I kept on trying small amounts of ginger beer and crackers until Thursday night, when I made oatmeal. Plain, no milk or sugar, just steel cut oats. That was my first real food in a while.

What Helped, part 2
After making sure food was going to stay in longer than an hour, I started looking for things to get my stomach back to as normal as possible as soon as possible. Since I like ginger soda, I also have ginger teas here.

If you don't know, ginger is a folk medicine that has a world-wide reputation for calming upset stomachs. Along with that I have black tea, which when allowed to cool is also good for stomachs. I was reminded of this by a commenter on the Blue Collar Prepping Facebook page!

I then added Gatorade to the mix to restore minerals that I lost. Normally I have the powder in my kit, but it was getting close to expiring so it was donated. Some plain yogurt was added to the oatmeal for an additional boost to rebuilding my digestive system. So far, everything is staying where it belongs.

I went to work today, still feeling tired and very much dehydrated, but vertical and able to do my job.


Thanks to everyone who offered advice and suggestions on how to recover. I will be taking it to heart and modifying my at-home meds with anti-diarrhea pills and some different sports drinks, one without sugar this time.

You all are the best!