{"id":35368,"date":"2025-02-26T14:42:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T22:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/?p=35368"},"modified":"2025-02-19T17:09:15","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T01:09:15","slug":"toilet-paper-diaries-lesson-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2025\/02\/26\/toilet-paper-diaries-lesson-two\/","title":{"rendered":"The Toilet Paper Diaries, Lesson Two: Don’t Drink That! Gastrointestinal Care for Paddlers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the\u202f<\/span><\/b>Toilet Paper Diaries<\/span><\/i><\/b>, a series of lessons about… poop.<\/span><\/b>\u202f<\/span><\/h2>\n

Your professors are paddlers and their lectures combine their education, experiences, and professional insights, providing practical advice for whitewater enthusiasts.<\/p>\n

These lessons cover three essential feces-focused skills: minimizing environmental impact (water management), connecting with nature (identifying wildlife through scat), and staying safe and healthy (understanding water treatment). All foster a better understanding of aquatic ecosystems where paddlers play, strategies to stay healthy on the water, and mitigating negative impacts on nature.<\/p>\n

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When navigating whitewater, water naturally gets in your mouth, nose and eyes\u2014it\u2019s unavoidable. On multiday missions, having to drink the element we play in becomes a sort of paradox. Understanding the basics of what\u2019s in the water can help mitigate fecal fiascos. Professor Kyle\u2019s <\/span>lesson will include details about common waterborne illness and a rundown on how to prevent, diagnose and treat\u2026 the runs.<\/p>\n

Meet the Professor <\/span><\/b>|<\/span><\/b> Kyle Smith<\/span><\/b><\/h2>\n

Meet Kyle Smith, aka “Smitty” to his friends. He\u2019s a trauma nurse with a background in big water and expedition paddling. \u201cI\u2019m an adventure enthusiast with potatoes and sagebrush in my veins,\u201d says Kyle. Nurse, kayaker, DIY\u2019er and new dad, Kyle fell in love with moving water on the Middle Fork of the Salmon at the tender age of 16. But it wasn\u2019t until he started guiding on California\u2019s Kern River that he really<\/span> learned to kayak.<\/span><\/p>\n

Guiding sparked an interest in wilderness medicine and, eventually, nursing. His work as a trauma nurse<\/span> accommodates a \u201cpaddling wanderlust\u201d that has taken him all over the world, paddling (and drinking) whitewater from Chile to Nepal, India to Ecuador, East Coast USA and home to Idaho. Like most international paddlers, Kyle has plenty of gut health-related stories as souvenirs from his travels. Paired with his medical training, he\u2019s the man to teach <\/span>paddlers how to stay healthy in order to, in his words, \u201crun the sh*t, as opposed to having to take\u2026 well, you get it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n