Tag: camping

On the Road

Published on by ostomyoutdoors9 Comments

When Doug and I became a couple during college, our very first group purchase was a spatula. We were heading out on a camping trip and realized we would have no way to flip the pancakes we were making for breakfast the next day. We stopped at a grocery store en route to the park and pooled our funds to acquire the best turner that $1.99 could buy.

Our next group purchase was a bit more substantial — a slightly beat-up 1985 Toyota 4×4 truck. The lakes of northern Wisconsin, wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and craggy climbing areas outside of Madison were calling us, yet we had no reliable way of getting there. The truck became our key to adventure. Every weekend we would load it up and head out to the wilds. During a couple of college summers we hit the open road of the western United States for months on end — living out of the back of the pickup and stopping at every climbing area we could find along the way. Those weeks of roaming freely and opening the map each day to decide where we wanted to go next provided some of our most beloved memories together.

One of the things I longed to do most after surgery was to go on a climbing road trip again. I wanted to remember what it felt like to climb all day, cook up dinner at camp, talk about the day’s adventures over a crackling campfire, and then get up to do it all again the next day. Last summer, I wasn’t quite strong enough to rock climb. After training and gaining strength over the winter, my body finally felt ready to spend day after day doing climbing routes. In the beginning of September, Doug and I set out on a 17-day adventure that would include a week of climbing at City of Rocks in Idaho and several days of climbing at Smith Rock in Oregon. While in the Northwest, we also planned to spend time with some good friends who lived in Bend, as well as meet up with my parents for some sightseeing.

As we were traveling and climbing, I noticed that quite a few things had changed since our road trip days long ago:

  • There is now something called the internet. In our college days, I carried a small leather address book and actually wrote to my friends on paper while on the road.
  • Cell phones have replaced pay phones. We used to have to to load up our prepaid calling cards and look for a pay phone to let our parents know we were still alive. Now we just searched around Almo, Idaho, until we discovered the cell phone reception sweet spot. (It was pretty good at the northern-most table on the patio of the Rock Stop general store.)
  • Our trip food budget expanded to include things other than rice and ramen noodles. Though we still cooked most of our meals on this vacation, it was nice to have enough funds to enjoy the food and drink at some of Bend, Oregon’s great brewpubs with our friends.
  • We looked at some of the climbs we did at these areas in our early 20s and wondered how we had the nerve to get up them.
  • Our truck has been replaced by a tiny, fuel-efficient Toyota sedan. It is amazing how much camping and climbing gear we squeezed into that little rig. However, we did bottom out on some three-inch-tall rocks on Idaho’s back roads.
  • I now had an ostomy.

It was easy to forget about this last big change because things felt so much like they had in the past before I had gotten sick with UC and before I had surgery. I was just out there having fun and my stoma did not diminish the joy of a road trip one bit. Other than changing or emptying my appliance, or having to drink extra water to prevent myself from getting dehydrated, I hardly thought about my ostomy at all. It proved to be no trouble during long days on the road, while living in camp or while climbing long routes.

We shot a lot of footage on our road trip and will be putting together a video about the adventure soon. Until then, the following photos share some of the great times Doug and I had on the trip.

Climbing Theater of Shadows on Jackson’s Thumb at City of Rocks. This was my very first lead climb after surgery.
Rappelling off of a route at City of Rocks in Idaho.
Our very cool campsite at City of Rocks.
Sketching at camp.
I love donkeys. We encountered this cutie while walking near our friends’ house in Bend, OR.
Showing off a fresh wound after a full day of climbing at Smith Rock, OR.
Enjoying the McMenamins salt-water soaking pool in Bend, OR.
Spending time with my parents at Crater Lake.
Exploring the mile-long Lava River Cave near Bend, OR.
No road trip is complete without at least one stop at a giant roadside sculpture. Doug and I getting silly during a major windstorm at the huge Conestoga wagon near John Day, OR.

Memories of harder times

Published on by ostomyoutdoors8 Comments

Last year at this time, I was just beginning my downward spiral into my final severe Ulcerative Colitis flare. Each day of the next few months will be an anniversary of something UC-related, and the flashbacks to those harder times will be abundant: there are the dates of my multiple ER visits, the admission for my 16-day hospital stay, my first Remicade infusion, the day I came to realize that surgery was my best option. It seems like reminders of my past illness are lurking around every corner. But then so are reminders of my amazing recovery.

Healing physically and regaining strength follows a fairly logical and direct path; recovering emotionally is a bit more circuitous. Sometimes it is hard for my brain to grasp all that has happened in the past 12 months. How in the world did I make it through the tough events of the year to get where I am now? It all seems to have gone by so fast, and I don’t believe my mind has fully processed everything yet.

Waking up from surgery on November 8th, 2010

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A Case of 14er Fever Requires a Lot of Water (feat. new video)

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On a three-day backpacking trip this past weekend, my husband and I finished our fifth and sixth 14ers  (a peak above 14,000 feet) since the beginning of July. Most summers before this, I was lucky if I did one or two. I have definitely caught the 14er fever. Hiking these peaks has provided me with the perfect opportunity to get outdoors and challenge myself physically while still babying my abdominal muscles. Indoors, I do a battery of  physical therapy exercises that safely strengthen my core. In concert, these two activities will prepare me for the more rigorous demands of technical rock climbing in the future.

While hiking these peaks, I have been amazed at how quickly I am progressing and getting my strength back. While I walked the first one at a turtle’s pace, I am now hiking the peaks briskly and with little fatigue. All these successful peak hikes have also made me realize how well I have adapted to my ileostomy. Managing my appliance on the trail using both closed-end and drainable pouches has become second-nature. Moreover, changing my wafer outdoors, which is one of the things I was most fearful of, has proved to be very similar to doing it indoors except that I must pack out the trash (and the views while changing are more spectacular).

However, one aspect of my ileostomy that still baffles me is figuring out how much water to drink. One function of the colon is to absorb water. When it is removed, the small intestine is able to adapt and take on some of this role, but not as well. Because of this, ileostomates must drink more water to avoid dehydration. It has not been unusual for me to drink 8+ quarts of water on some of my all-day hikes. Up to this trip, I have not had any issues with dehydration. However, conditions were different on this excursion. The temperatures while making the strenuous uphill hike to camp were in the 80s which is warm for the elevation we were at. Despite drinking almost 3 quarts of water (some of which included a sport drink mix) and eating plenty of snacks along the way, I got to camp with a headache and bad nausea. Before we proceeded to empty our backpacks and set up our tent, I sat in the shade and drank some more fluids. In about an hour, I felt better. I upped my water intake over the next two days and did not run into the problem again.

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Starting to forget my ostomy is there

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After doing many backcountry adventures this season, Doug and I decided a fun weekend of car camping was in order. It was time to have a more luxurious trip complete with a larger tent, a cooler stocked with cold beer and soda, a guitar to make music, and pancakes and eggs for gourmet breakfasts.

Gluten-free pancakes!
No camping trip is complete without a little music

Some good friends from our original home state of Wisconsin were vacationing near Gunnison, CO, so we chose to camp along the nearby Taylor River so we could do some activities together. One of these was a three-hour zip-line adventure that I will write about in a future post. We also enjoyed fly fishing and mountain biking.

Suited up to begin my zip line adventure in Crested Butte, CO
Mountain biking on the Lower Loop Trail in Crested Butte, CO

Despite sweating in my waders for hours, bouncing down the trail on my bike, or wearing a harness when zip-lining, my appliance stayed on just fine. Making s’mores also had its benefits due to the output-thickening-power of marshmallows. I found that it was a wonderful excuse to eat many of these gooey, delectable treats.

Honestly, I hardly thought about my ostomy the entire time. In fact, on one afternoon fly fishing excursion, I forgot to bring along my toilet paper and other supplies in case I needed to go into the woods to empty my pouch. Fortunately, I was able to wait until I got back to camp that evening with no problems. Not the smartest situation, but it did prove to me that I am sometimes starting to forget my ostomy is there!

On the last day of the trip I had to change my appliance. The campsites were fairly close together, and we had a campground host that loved to stop by at random times. Therefore, I decided to head into our small pyramid-style gear tent for the change. It was the perfect spot to spread out my supplies and work, and before long I emerged with a new pouch on my belly, ready for the day’s adventures.

Changing my appliance in the gear tent

So, if you are not ready for a backpacking excursion, at least head out on a car camping trip. It is loads of fun. And as an added bonus, you will have a weekend free of splashback while emptying your ostomy appliance in the wonderfully deep campground pit toilets:)