(Disclaimer: Though not the goal of this post, if you are a person who easily gets queasy, you might want to hop out now)
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What's worse than pooping in a bucket?
1. Pooping in a bucket outside.
What's worse than # 1?
2. Pooping in a bucket outside when it's 37F.
What's worse than # 2?
3. Pooping in a bucket outside when it's 37F at night.
What's worse than # 3?
4. Pooping in a bucket outside when it's 37F at night and you have explosive diarrhea.
What's worse than # 4?
5. Pooping in a bucket outside when it's 37F at night and you have explosive diarrhea and strong vomiting at the same time.
What's worse than #5?
6. Going to bed at 10pm, but then waking up suddenly at 11:30pm to run outside and do it all again!
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Welcome to the Exciting Intersection of Early-Days Mobile Living and Food Poisoning!
Though self-diagnosis is similar to the situation of a person deciding to be his own laywer, and so questionable, I have had occasional experience with food poisoning over the years and have learned to recognize the signs and symptoms. The account below is pretty typical.
At noon yesterday, I was fine and meandering around in high spirits in my other house -- Home Depot (HD). By 1pm, I started to feel unexpectedly weak and dizzy. Within 30 minutes, I got nauseated. Located a Coke machine, bought one, and took a seat. Drinking Coke usually helps me when I have an upset stomach -- this time it didn't help. Red flag. I spent the next 30-60 minutes sitting on a ladder cart in HD, with labored breathing, alternately holding my head in my hands and staring at my shopping cart which now seemed an insurmountable task.
I finally got myself out of HD, and hopscotched my way home, stopping at various places to use the toilet. Stopped at CVS to load up on symptom medicine. Got home, and then the story at the beginning of the post began.
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Lessons Learned or Recalled
1. Even though you'll be feeling really bad, before you need it, get the bucket toilet and toilet paper ready. There will be no time later.
2. My truck box is nearly totally full with no space for a "bathroom" at the moment. You can leave the toilet outside, with a normal bucket lid resting loosely on it, but I strongly recommend bringing the luggable loo seat _inside_ where the heat is. Then, grab that seat and take it outside when the "alarm" rings. Made a big difference.
3. In all cases of food poisoning I've had, the progression is like this: Start feeling sick suddenly, gets worse quickly, no medicine helps, finally my body "explodes", and after that, I start to feel better. It usually only requires one of those explosive episodes to begin the recovery process. This time, it was two.
4. I don't know what I got, but the symptoms match E-coli. Standard prescription is to monitor, treat symptoms, and rest. If it gets worse, go see a doctor. Resolves within a week. My experience tells me that after a night of hell, the next day I feel a lot better. For example, I now have the strength and interest to type this post.
5. Ironically, taking "don't puke" and "backdoor trot" medicines (and even drinking Coke) tends to speed up the explosion. I think it just adds to the stuff that one's body wants/needs to reject. Every instinct tells you, in this situation, to suppress vomiting. That is wrong. Let it come as soon as it can. It is the beginning of the recovery, and there will be extended misery and no recovery without it.
6. Don't eat or drink anything normal or interesting during this time. After the explosion, start sipping water and eating Saltine crackers.
7. Weakness is normal. Try to rest a lot.
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Toilet Tidbits
* Luggable Loo Seat: I recently purchased one. Nice concept, but it seems to be designed for very small adults or children. I'm not a particularly big person, but it is really too small for me. To give you a practical sense of it, imagine trying to crap through a hole in a dinner plate. It's a bit better than that, but not much.
* Cat Litter: I forgot that I hate everything to do with cat boxes and cat litter, especially the smell of it. If that's the case with you, that makes the experience of using a bucket toilet worse. Pick some other absorbent material with a better smell (wood shavings, coconut fibers, etc).
* Spaceman Spiff (member on CRVL forum) knows his stuff when it comes to bucket toilet design and method. It was mostly what I determined from commonsense beforehand, but he clarifies it nicely. I've been following his method and it has worked well. You can find his best description in some thread related to toilets and $15 as I recall. Sorry, I don't have the link at the moment. Maybe someone can add it to this thread.
----------
I'm not really a "silver linings" guy, but there was one this time -- I had never before seen Orion on a crystal clear night ... from my toilet.
I hope this will be informative for any similarly afflicted soul who "trots" in my footsteps.
Vagabound
-----------------------------------------------------------
What's worse than pooping in a bucket?
1. Pooping in a bucket outside.
What's worse than # 1?
2. Pooping in a bucket outside when it's 37F.
What's worse than # 2?
3. Pooping in a bucket outside when it's 37F at night.
What's worse than # 3?
4. Pooping in a bucket outside when it's 37F at night and you have explosive diarrhea.
What's worse than # 4?
5. Pooping in a bucket outside when it's 37F at night and you have explosive diarrhea and strong vomiting at the same time.
What's worse than #5?
6. Going to bed at 10pm, but then waking up suddenly at 11:30pm to run outside and do it all again!
----------
Welcome to the Exciting Intersection of Early-Days Mobile Living and Food Poisoning!
Though self-diagnosis is similar to the situation of a person deciding to be his own laywer, and so questionable, I have had occasional experience with food poisoning over the years and have learned to recognize the signs and symptoms. The account below is pretty typical.
At noon yesterday, I was fine and meandering around in high spirits in my other house -- Home Depot (HD). By 1pm, I started to feel unexpectedly weak and dizzy. Within 30 minutes, I got nauseated. Located a Coke machine, bought one, and took a seat. Drinking Coke usually helps me when I have an upset stomach -- this time it didn't help. Red flag. I spent the next 30-60 minutes sitting on a ladder cart in HD, with labored breathing, alternately holding my head in my hands and staring at my shopping cart which now seemed an insurmountable task.
I finally got myself out of HD, and hopscotched my way home, stopping at various places to use the toilet. Stopped at CVS to load up on symptom medicine. Got home, and then the story at the beginning of the post began.
----------
Lessons Learned or Recalled
1. Even though you'll be feeling really bad, before you need it, get the bucket toilet and toilet paper ready. There will be no time later.
2. My truck box is nearly totally full with no space for a "bathroom" at the moment. You can leave the toilet outside, with a normal bucket lid resting loosely on it, but I strongly recommend bringing the luggable loo seat _inside_ where the heat is. Then, grab that seat and take it outside when the "alarm" rings. Made a big difference.
3. In all cases of food poisoning I've had, the progression is like this: Start feeling sick suddenly, gets worse quickly, no medicine helps, finally my body "explodes", and after that, I start to feel better. It usually only requires one of those explosive episodes to begin the recovery process. This time, it was two.
4. I don't know what I got, but the symptoms match E-coli. Standard prescription is to monitor, treat symptoms, and rest. If it gets worse, go see a doctor. Resolves within a week. My experience tells me that after a night of hell, the next day I feel a lot better. For example, I now have the strength and interest to type this post.
5. Ironically, taking "don't puke" and "backdoor trot" medicines (and even drinking Coke) tends to speed up the explosion. I think it just adds to the stuff that one's body wants/needs to reject. Every instinct tells you, in this situation, to suppress vomiting. That is wrong. Let it come as soon as it can. It is the beginning of the recovery, and there will be extended misery and no recovery without it.
6. Don't eat or drink anything normal or interesting during this time. After the explosion, start sipping water and eating Saltine crackers.
7. Weakness is normal. Try to rest a lot.
----------
Toilet Tidbits
* Luggable Loo Seat: I recently purchased one. Nice concept, but it seems to be designed for very small adults or children. I'm not a particularly big person, but it is really too small for me. To give you a practical sense of it, imagine trying to crap through a hole in a dinner plate. It's a bit better than that, but not much.
* Cat Litter: I forgot that I hate everything to do with cat boxes and cat litter, especially the smell of it. If that's the case with you, that makes the experience of using a bucket toilet worse. Pick some other absorbent material with a better smell (wood shavings, coconut fibers, etc).
* Spaceman Spiff (member on CRVL forum) knows his stuff when it comes to bucket toilet design and method. It was mostly what I determined from commonsense beforehand, but he clarifies it nicely. I've been following his method and it has worked well. You can find his best description in some thread related to toilets and $15 as I recall. Sorry, I don't have the link at the moment. Maybe someone can add it to this thread.
----------
I'm not really a "silver linings" guy, but there was one this time -- I had never before seen Orion on a crystal clear night ... from my toilet.
I hope this will be informative for any similarly afflicted soul who "trots" in my footsteps.
Vagabound
