Hmmm.... Stuffed Up At Philmont

When I was a Scout on of the trips we were lucky enough to do was Philmont. I have many stories from my 10 days on the trail at this wonderful camp. This story is about one of the Scouts that went with us on this trip.

The first few days went by normal enough until it was learned that this one Scout had not gone poop yet. Well the leaders stepped in but by this point in time it was to late the Scout was well stuffed up. None of us Scouts would sleep with him because well his gas was like a toxic waste dump. The leaders tried a few remedies we had possible on the trail, short of feeding him campsuds. At each camp we reached that was staffed our leaders asked for help. At these camps the staff tried things like ex-lax, etc but nothing worked. Finally we made it back to base camp and he was taking to the base camp medical center in some discomfort from being so stuffed up. The doctor at base camp ended up having to flush the Scout who I happened to meet on his mad dash across camp to the bathrooms.

At the time it was kind of funny to teenager me. But now looking back this was a somewhat serious and deficiently sensitive issue. I really don't who our leaders could have handle the situation any different. We were in the backcountry, staff was aware of the problem, etc. Maybe your thoughts and comments on this story can help other if they are ever in a similar situation.