Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

siegemode wrote: »

Does anyone else eat strawberries with bread and butter ?

Never had them, but I do like banana butties. :cool:

manchestermargo

Delurking to say as a child I remember eating tinned fruit salad with bread and butter!

Love reading all your posts.

MM

wondercollie

Grey Queen: On several of the units I've worked on people have been kept alive that should have been allowed to drift away. I remember one patient who insisted on having surgery even though the surgeons refused. The family went all the way to the hospital ethics board who approved it. Long story short, he died a terrible death 18 days post op. Every time I walked onto the ward, the family would ask if we thought tonight would have be the night he died. All because they felt that science/medicine could and should fix him. The patient didn't want to go home, restrict his diet and live out his life with his additional diseases. He could have spent a nice Christmas and died probably six months later. Instead he died three days before Christmas with multiple organ failure and tubes coming out of every orifice, because he and his family knew best.

I'm a great believer in just because we can doesn't mean we should. The level of sickness on the average ward has increased dramatically. What would have been an ICU patient 15 years ago is now on a general ward, and the same patient would have been dead 25 years ago.

Our emergency dept has a saying. Darwin was wrong. The stupid will survive because they have 911 programmed in their cell phones. It's true. They also show up at emerg for everything and anything usually by ambulance (ambulance service here cost $350 for a pickup, even in accidents).

GreyQueen

Couldn't agree more, wondercollie.

Was talking to Mum yesterday afternoon and she was telling me about Uncle. We think Aunt is accepting that this is the beginning of the end. She is 10 years younger than him and has probably always understood she is likely to survive him.

Uncle has spent approx 68 of his 82 years smoking and drinking heavily and had been very well until summer last year and that bliddy chiropodist. He is a Korean war veteran and active in the Legion. He has three children, and grandchildren. He's spent the years of his retirement having a lovely time socialising with my aunt as they played bowls at tournament level, travelled a bit, dined out etc.

Mum and I were in agreement that there are worse things than being dead. I have many nursing professionals among my friends and acquaintances, and hear stuff. It scares me that you can now be kept alive in conditions you would be prosecuted for forcing an animal to endure. * shudders*

Friend and neighbour SuperGran was a theatre sister in the NHS and has nursed for the Red Cross in war zones, and nursed her own parents through their final gruelling illnesses. Like many healthcare professionals, she is pragmatic and understands that death is something which comes to us all, and is of the age where her peers are dropping off their perches with increasing frequency.

************

On a happier note, the sun is shining from a clear blue sky, there is a refreshing breeze, I have eaten and have the rest of the day to do with what I will.

Current plans are to finish this cuppa, turn the pooter off and head out to the allotment for a few hours grafting.

mardatha

Totally agree with the collie and GQ re death. Maybe we've come to expect eternal life and everything to be "fixed" just like we've come to expect all mod cons and a car and easy credit etcetc lol.
I think the secret of life is to be content. Not pushing or demanding or forcing things to happen (or not happen). Doing our best quietly and calmly. And to me, death is a normal part of life. If that doesn't sound mad.

[Deleted User]

Thoroughly agree with both of you, an ability to be content with enough and not to be caught up in the great acquisition race that engulfs most of humanity these days is the way to a better quality of life. At 65 I am aware that more has been lived than is left of my life, but that doesn't mean I won't enjoy to the full every single second of every single day I have left. I enjoy it all, life in its full panoply of variety is sweet and generous if you can find pleasure and happiness in things that just are there along your own personal pathway, death as far as I am concerned is the last really BIG adventure and holds no fear, just curiosity!!! Cheers Lyn xxx.

pineapple

GreyQueen wrote: »

Mum and I were in agreement that there are worse things than being dead.

On TV last week were two young men. Well 30 + actually but that's 'young' to me!
One had an aggressive form of dementia (Pick's disease) and needed 24 hour support, the other had MS and could no longer talk - formerly he had been an athletic fitness instructor. He needed round the clock care too.
Really my house could collapse (I hope it doesn't) but it pales into significance in comparison.

vanoonoo

I need to try out some different porridge recipes me thinks! gotta get me oats

pineapple

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Never had them, but I do like banana butties. :cool:

Sorry but banana fritters with golden syrup are the way to go!

Confuzzled

GreyQueen wrote: »

Bob, blinking glove sizes craze me, too. I'm approx the median height for a man in this country and have large bones. If I put my hands alongside most male friends' hands, mine are as big, if not bigger, and never smaller, than their hands.

Small or medium household gloves are useless to me, and I guess it would be the same for disposable gloves.

i have a similar problem greyqueen, whilst my hands aren't quite as wide as a mans hand (unless they are quite short, usually) but i have serious issues with my finger length, mine being longer than all but the tallest men i've compared them against. at this point i HAVE to buy mens gloves, fortunately, mens gloves tend to be cheaper but it does pose problems for rubber gloves so if i find large or extra large i stock up. i also can never ever wear those tiny gloves they include with most hairdye so i've been known to use rubber gloves for this purpose, awkward but doable

normally i have been lucky finding large or extra large gloves in those dark tiny random household supply type shops, or the little convenience store + household supplies stores. also sometimes i've seen them in pound stores so it's worth keeping an eye out in places like that, i don't know that i've ever found the really big gloves at the likes of morrisons or tescos i'm afraid