I ran into my friend's bathroom and sat myself down on the can. It was not such a crapping emergency that as soon as I sat I exploded -- I had exactly one second. And in that second I put the garbage can in front of my face because I was sure I needed to puke, too. Then it hit: a small solid nugget plug like fired out of a musket, followed by a lot of goo and gas. I was sure there was so much that it shot out between the toilet and toilet seat. It was so loud and obnoxious I was also sure that Pete and my friend's sister heard it -- there is no way they could not have. What else was there to do but laugh? So I did. I let out a big laugh, and about halfway through the laugh it hit me.
I have never in my life had a simultaneous evacuation. It felt like I was being pulled inside-out from both ends. This continued on and off for about twenty minutes or so. When I was finally able to clean up a bit, flush a few times, and open the window without worry of having to sit down again or hold a can to my face, I stood. I just about passed out and fell over -- I was so drained from the experience that I had to use my hands on the wall to walk myself to the kitchen.
As I had suspected, my friends had both heard my experience. They asked if I was okay, and I could only reply with a no, because seriously, I was not. I slept for the rest of the afternoon, getting up a few more times to hit the can. Luckily I did not have to puke anymore.
The last thing on my mind was that in less that twenty-four hours I would be on a five-day trip in the mountains, including a twenty-two kilometer hike into base camp with a seventy-pound pack on my back. I assured my friend (who at by this time had alerted the other hiking partners to my situation) that I would not be missing a trip that had been planned for months -- not for this I wasn't.
After I was rested enough to stand and sure that I could spend at least twenty minutes away from a toilet, my friends drove me home. I spent until three AM getting up every half-hour to drip out stomach acid from my poor destroyed O-ring.
This was going to make for an awesome trip.
My alarm went off at five AM as planned. The morning was not getting off to a good start. Nearly twenty hours without food or even water had taken its toll on me. I had barely enough strength to lift my gear, let alone think about marching out as far as I needed to that day. Pete picked me up, and we made our way to the store where we were meeting our friends.
We got there a bit early, so I went inside and bought some water and a little tub of trail mix. I was hopeful that I could keep some food down, and that this trail mix would be healthy enough as to not cause any adverse effects. I still had a horrible feeling in my stomach -- not sick so much as just pain. Eating solid food, however, didn't bring back the sick.
I reassured all my friends that I was not going to wuss out.
And I didn't. About three-fourths of the way along the base camp hike I regained my appetite and started eating again. When we arrived we set up tents, and I ate an IMP.
I will stop the story at this point to tell you about IMPs. I have a background with Army Cadets as well as a lot of friends currently serving in the armed forces, so I am no stranger to Canadian IMPs. Just like American MREs, Canadian military food is ideal for camping and hiking -- it is pre-packaged and ready to eat, requiring no cooking nor even any water. Just open and eat. They are packed with calories -- one Canadian IMP contains enough energy to sustain you for one whole day. I had packed enough to eat two a day -- one for breakfast and one for dinner.
Anyone who has been in the military or read this site knows that IMPs and MREs pretty much stop your digestive system right in its tracks.
There at the base camp, the IMP did not go down easily. It caused a lot of cramps, gas, and general discomfort in my stomach. But because I was so worn out from the hike, I promptly fell asleep.
I woke up to the hot morning sun cooking me inside my tent -- not the feeling I needed to wake up to.
The hike that day was kept simple for my benefit -- we explored close to camp and came back for the evening. No mountain climbing today. Over the course of the day I regained my old composure, my appetite, and my strength by eating properly, although it was a fight to do so.
It was not until the third day that things started feeling heavy. Though IMPs were designed to make a person hold out under normal conditions, I really doubt they were tested for my circumstances. On that third day we made a long hike and discovered a really great glacial stream. It was getting close to thirty degrees Celsius outside (86ยบ F), and the ice-cold glacial stream was welcomed with open arms and open Nalgine bottles. That is when I realized that the grogan beast growing in my stomach wanted to be birthed.
I let the group know, grabbed my toilet paper, and went off a ways from the stream so that I could do my thing. What I gave birth to out there was probably the largest and most discolored turd I have ever dropped. It was about eight inches long and equivalent in girth to a soda can. The thing that made it special: it was half-and-half colored. The first half was black, pitch black -- then it abruptly changed to a normal brown.
I am never really one to stare at my own work. I usually have a look and flush it away. But because this was in the bush, out in the open, and not going anywhere, I stared at it for a time, wondering if maybe I had some internal damage from being so sick.
I alerted my friends to my new child and expressed my concern. One of the guys said that the black color was probably my body's way of flushing out all the contaminants in my system after being so sick. Everyone else agreed, and that is where I let it rest.
The rest of my trip went normally. After that poop I felt infinitely better, even better than I did before I got sick. The IMPs did their work and kept me going through the rest of the trip. For me, the poop story ends there.
But this saga does not. You see, my perfectly healthy friend Pete was on the exact same diet I was. And the IMPs were doing to him exactly what they were supposed to do.
We returned back from the hiking trip and the day of rest passed. The next day, I asked Pete up if he gotten rid of his IMPs yet. Nope.
One week later he had still not gone.
We were on a trip to Vancouver, stopped for food in a city called Kamloops, when it hit. We had just gotten our meals and had started to eat when Pete abruptly stopped, looked at me, and uttered, "It's time." He got up and left the table. The dude was gone for about twenty minutes.
I had just finished eating my meal when Pete walked back to the table, his face beet red, laughing hysterically. I asked him what was so funny. "Go have a look for yourself," he said. I knew that whatever he had done would probably require us to pay and leave the restaurant immediately. So I decided to have a look before we made our exit.
Upon opening the men's room door, I noticed water on the floor pooled around the only stall in the washroom. I peaked around the door. What I saw amazed me.
My friend Pete is not a big guy -- maybe five foot two and 130 pounds soaking wet. This guy produced something that I can only equate to a NFL football-sized (and shaped!) turd. Not only that, but it had its own unique tannish-manila color to it. And, surprisingly for something that size, it was floating in water that was up to the rim of the toilet.
I started to laugh as I made my way back to the table. We had a good chuckle at the Godzilla turd that my friend produced and planned to make our exit. But we felt bad for the poor bastard who would have to deal with it. So we wrote "Sorry" on a napkin in black felt pen, took the napkin into the stall, placed it on the lid of the toilet, hoped he'd see the humor in the situation, and made our exit. Life went back to normal.
