Fever, gut, heat, and cold
Most homestead deaths after the first week are water, fever, heat stroke, or a chest that nobody watched.
Drink this, not that
Blood in the stool, black tar stool, a stiff neck with fever, a purple rash that does not blanche when you press a glass on it, or a person who cannot keep sips down for a day — that is not a crock-pot problem. Those used to kill households.
Oral rehydration is the medicine you can make. One liter of clean water, 6 level teaspoons of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Taste it — it should be like tears, not seawater. Sip often. This is for diarrhea, heat, and the flu.
Broth, weak tea, and a banana or a potato help when they can eat. Milk and grease make a sick gut worse.
Diarrhea and vomit
- 1.Assume the water or the hands. Boil the next pot. Everyone washes.
- 2.Rehydration, not ‘stop the diarrhea at all costs.’ The body is dumping something.
- 3.If you have loperamide (Imodium) and there is no fever and no blood: it can get an adult through a wagon ride. Do not give it to a small child, and do not use it for bloody stool.
- 4.Vomiting: sips every 5 minutes, not a glass. If they cannot keep sips, cool cloth, side-lying, and hope — dehydration is the danger.
Fever
Fever is a tool. Cool the room, light clothes, water. Acetaminophen or ibuprofen if you have them and they can swallow — not both stacked in a panic, and never aspirin to a child or teenager with a viral illness (Reye’s).
A baby under 3 months with a real fever, a seizure, a fever with a stiff neck or a purple rash, or a fever that lasts past three days in anyone who is getting worse: that used to be why you hitched the wagon. In the field you can only support and watch the breathing.
Note. A cheap oral or axillary thermometer in the kit is worth more than a fourth knife. Write the number and the time on a scrap of paper.
Heat — July in this county
Cut wood at dawn. Midday in August is how men drop in the woodlot. Check on older neighbors on US-50 and the ridge roads when the index is over 100.
| What you see | What you do |
|---|---|
| Heavy sweat, cramps, tired, still making sense | Shade, water with a pinch of salt, rest. Heat exhaustion. They recover in an hour if you stop the work. |
| Hot, confused, passing out, skin may be dry or still wet, not making sense | Heat stroke. This kills. Strip clothes, soak, fan, wet sheets, ice in groin and armpits if you have it. They need to come down now. No more field work that day, or that week. |
Cold — January in this county
Shivering, mumbling, clumsy hands: get them out of wind and wet. Warm sweet drink if they can swallow. Skin-to-skin in dry bags. Wet wool off, dry wool on.
They stop shivering and get sleepy: this is late. Handle gently — a cold heart can fibrillate if you jar them. Warm the trunk first, not the hands. No alcohol. No ‘walk it off.’
A person pulled from Laughery in winter: assume they can be saved longer than they look. CPR if no pulse, and keep going while you warm.
Chest, stroke, allergy, breath
Carbon monoxide from a generator or a sealed stove looks like flu plus headache in the whole house. Get everyone into air. The treatment is air, not a blanket.
Crushing chest pain, pain into the jaw or left arm, sudden sweat and fear: sit them, loosen clothes, a regular aspirin to chew if they are not allergic and not bleeding. Quiet. You cannot stent a heart in Dillsboro. You can keep them still.
Face droop, arm drift, speech that falls apart, sudden worst headache: note the time. Lie them on the weak side. Nothing by mouth.
Anaphylaxis — bee, peanut, unknown — trouble breathing, throat, hives, collapse: epinephrine if they have a pen, into the outer thigh, hold 3 seconds. Then antihistamine. They can crash again in 20 minutes. A second pen if you have it. This is why you stock two.
Asthma: their own inhaler, sit up, calm voice, steam if that is all you have. Blue lips and one-word sentences means the inhaler is not enough.
Poison, pregnancy, a baby coming
Heavy bleeding after birth that soaks rags and does not slow, or a mother who goes white and distant, is the old killer. Rub the uterus hard, keep her flat, keep her warm, and use every hand you have. There is no home trick that replaces a unit of blood.
Eaten the wrong plant or mushroom: do not make them vomit unless Poison Control (1-800-222-1222) still answers and says to. Save the plant. Activated charcoal only if you already own it and someone who knows the dose is there — it is not a kitchen experiment. See the Alert plates.
A baby coming with no midwife: let it come. Do not pull. When the head is out, feel for a cord around the neck and slip it over if it is loose. Dry the baby, skin to skin on the mother, cover both. The cord can wait — tie in two places a few inches from the baby when it stops pulsing, cut between if you must. The afterbirth will follow. Rub the mother’s belly if she bleeds heavy. She must eat and drink after.