I don’t know if anyone else with an ostomy experiences this phenomena, or if it is just me, but  when I lie on my back, my stoma is better able to release gas. In fact, it releases so much gas that the sounds get confusing. Is it a stampede of horses? Is it an alien? No, it’s jus gas.

I have a history of bowel obstructions/abdominal blockages, and with these comes pain from the stool and gas trying to push its way out of my stoma.

Even on days when I don’t have a blockages, I find that lying on my back releases pressure inside my abdomen and improves my digestion. Therefore, most days after work, I come home and lie on my back. That is easy enough; however, I’m not always in the comfort of my own home to relieve abdominal pressure. 

Sometimes I’m outside or in a crowd, so I have to grin and bear it through the pain until I can find somewhere to lie down. 

My friend Abi was in town visiting recently, and her visit reminded me of the importance of good adventure partners with whom I feel one hundred percent comfortable. While she was visiting, we decided that we were going to do a 10 mile ski in the afternoon, camp out, and ski back the next morning. We anticipated the ski to be fairly straight forward, so we ended up dilly dallying and didn’t actually get started until 2pm. We started out from the Eagle River Nature Center while the Icy River Rampage fat bike race was finishing up.

It was fun to see the bikers riding by as they headed toward the finish line. We dropped onto the river by Rapids Camp. It was a chilly afternoon and we felt the temperature drop as we skied onto the river. We stopped and chatted with one of the race volunteers for a few minutes and then headed on up river. We enjoyed the sights and the warnings that there was going to be a -35 wind chill the next day. We knew. We were prepared for the cold.

What we weren’t prepared for was how open we found the river. We had expected a few open spots and some overflow based on accounts from friends who had been out there recently. But this particular day, it seemed like things were more open. We started our first bushwhack to avoid some open water, and I realized it had been a long time since I had bushwhacked with skis. After clambering through the alders, we crossed the first tricky section and skied back out onto the frozen river. We made it up river a bit more, following old tracks until the tracks disappeared into the woods. That’s when we started our second bushwhack. That’s also about the time that I could tell my intestines were a bit unhappy. But I figured we’d get to camp soon and then I could lie down, relax, and take care of things. After following some wolf tracks through a clearing and hopping over more trees we busted out onto the frozen river again. We crossed some flats and spotted another set of faint ski tracks. One more section of light bushwhacking led us to another open water crossing where we had to toss our skis across and climb across a fallen tree to make it to the other side. We started across the flats and came to another crossing.

At that point, the sun had set and we knew dark was encroaching. We talked about options and recognized that we still had 3 miles to go to make it to our destination, and we would likely be skiing there in the dark, not knowing how much more bushwhacking or how many more river crossing we would have. At that point, we decided to ski the 7 miles back to the nature center in order to get most of the reverse bushwhacking out of the way before dark. On the way back, we realized that we didn’t really need to do 75% of the bushwhacking we had done on the way in and found a sliver of land to ski on at the edge of the river. The downfall was that we were skiing on rocks. We finally made it through the last bushwhack and knew we were home free. Except for the cold. As the dark crept in, the temperature dropped significantly. We put our heads down and charged ahead towards Rapids Camp where we figured the temperature would be slightly higher in the woods. 

I knew my intestines were quite upset by that point, but figured I could make it back to Rapids Camp before I would have to take action. By the time we made it to Echo Bend though, I had slowed down and had to take breaks to attempt to relieve the pressure from gas building up inside my intestines. Finally, I decided that despite the cold, I had to stop. I shouted ahead to Abi and said, “I have to lie down.” I took off my pack, popped out of my ski bindings and lay down on my back on the snow covered river. It took a couple of minutes, but finally, the gas released from my stoma and I felt much better. I hopped up, brushed the snow off, and started moving quickly to build up my body heat again. 

We finally made it off of the river and by the end of the night, my more relaxed state and ability to spend more time on my back made my intestines feel much better, if not back to normal. The next morning, we skied out along the frosty trail back to the Nature Center.

Overall, we had a fun misadventure in the cold. Every trip is an opportunity to learn more about terrain, gear, decision making, and bodily needs. 

So if you ever come upon me laying on the ground somewhere, don’t worry. I’m not trying to become more in-tune with nature and I’m not injured, I’m just trying to fart the best my body will allow.