Rantings and Ramblings for Tuesday

Rory Bore at Ink Interrupted hosts the Tuesday Coffee Chat, and this week she starts the discussion by saying, Get something off your chest.   No, don't throw your bra at me: unless it's after 7 pm and you're home for the evening, because Yes! 

There will be no bra throwing here, it's not the Flora-Bama Bar.  Yes, if you are there, it's considered perfectly acceptable, once you reach a certain state of feeling good, to sow your wild oats by throwing your bra up into the rafters.  It remains there until the bar gets blown out to sea by the next hurricane, and then when the bar is rebuilt, you may go throw in another if you choose.

But i digress, as i often do.

Please note that the following might be upsetting if you are sensitive about medical topics.  If you are, then you might just want to skip this section.

What i need to get off my chest today is a rant about something i do not normally rant about -- health care.

It's not what you think, though.  No politics.  More the state of health care of the chronically ill and end of life issues.

A dear friend of mine has been going through the wringer over the last 3-4 weeks.  Both she and a good friend of hers have chronic health issues.  Her friend, whom i will call S, has battled several infections, as well as other things.

Almost 4 weeks ago, S went from being fine one day to deathly ill with sepsis the next.  She fell and injured herself as well.  Once in the hospital and stable, she became delusional and would not eat.

S has no family that she trusts, so she made my friend her person for the medical people to talk to and make decisions for her.  My friend begged them to put a feeding tube into S.  They wouldn't until it was too late.

The upshot of all of it is that S is now in ICU with no brain activity.  After all of their refusals to put in a feeding tube, letting her go 3 weeks without eating before doing so, they are now refusing to let her end be peaceful.  They keep coding her.  They've broken her ribs.  They are keeping a corpse going now, when they should be letting go, just as they should have been treating her this aggressively two or three weeks ago, and she would probably have been out of the hospital by now.

It makes me furious when people demand that medical personnel "do everything" to save a person who is terminal.  That is simply delaying the inevitable because of a selfish desire not to have to go through the grief of loss.

It makes me equally furious when medical personnel refuse to aggressively treat someone until it's way too late, then try to be heroic and save someone they allowed to get beyond saving.  S deserved their consideration weeks ago when it was still possible to not just treat her infection and fall injury but to get her as well as she could get and send her home.

She didn't deserve to end up like this, and my friend didn't deserve to be put into this position, first having to beg for treatment, and now not being allowed to label S as a DNR because even if she was made a medical proxy, she isn't actual next of kin.

It's sad and it's a shameful reflection on the medical people involved.

Rant over, thank you for letting me get it out.

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And now, a bit of random news from around here, linking up with Stacy's Random Thoughts at Stacy Uncorked. 

For the past several weeks, i've been trying to get our ISP to send someone over to replace our router.  Yes, i'm willing to have them ship me a new one, and i will ship the old one back, but that's not how they roll.  The router has been having trouble off and on (mostly on), but every time i called i got someone who obviously spoke English as a second (or maybe third) language.  Each time, i could not convince the person that unplugging and replugging it in wasn't working.  Finally i got someone to agree that the continuously flashing red light meant a need for a new router, he asked could they come Tuesday afternoon (today).

Of course, i don't have to be at work Tuesday afternoon.  Except that, of course, Ms. JAI decided to ask me to come on Tuesday afternoon.  That's fine, Sweetie will be home!

Yes, he should get home just in time.  The Big Boss, from whom we barely hear any more now that he's married, wants errands run this morning.

These calendar collisions happen to me all of the time.  In the same way that there is no traffic on the highway until i get to the stop sign and want to turn out, so there's nothing to do on the calendar until everyone wants to be on the calendar at once.

There's a good calendar collision coming up this Friday.  Ms. M and her daughter, precious Gracie, have moved back to town, and i am going to babysit.

The people in charge of rEcess are having a volunteer appreciation night then, so Gracie is coming with me.  She will get to play with Aiden, a child of one of the volunteers, who is her best running buddy.

We are going to have a great time, i just know it.  Those are the kinds of happy accidents i enjoy, when i can combine several things i like into one event.

(For those unfamiliar with the stories, Gracie spent the first two years of her life in a crib in a Bulgarian orphanage, and was unable to speak and had all kinds of  labels when Ms. M adopted her and brought her home.  Last Sunday, at Sunday school, now 7-year-old Gracie told me, "I'm reading Peter and the Wolf, by Sergei Prokofiev!" and indeed she is reading it, by herself.  She used to attend rEcess, the program where we babysit special needs kids and their siblings so the parents can go out for a date night.  She doesn't need the rEcess program now, but they have happily said she can come with me to the volunteer appreciation barbecue.)

Today is:

Anguilla Day -- Anguilla

Arrival Day -- Trinidad and Tobago

Dia de Canarias -- CN, Spain (Canary Island Day)

Dia de las Madres -- Nicaragua(Mother's Day)

Duanwu -- China (Dragon Boat Festival Day)

Einherjar -- Asatru (Modern Norse Pagan) Calendar (a memorial for the war dead in Valhalla)

Feast Day of St. Joan of Arc (Patron of captives, martyrs, opposition of Church authorities, people ridiculed for their piety, prisoners, rape victims, soldiers, WACs, WAVES; France)

Heirloom Seed Day -- While i can't find the history of this one, it's a good one to celebrate, we need to raise awareness of and preserve heirloom seeds

Indian Arrival Day -- Trinidad and Tobago (anniversary of the 1845 arrival of the first Indian laborers to Trinidad)

Lod Massacre Remembrance Day -- Puerto Rico

Loomis Day -- because if we are going to honor Marconi, we should also honor the Washington, D.C., dentist Mahlon Loomis, who patented a wireless telegraphy system before Marconi was even born

My Bucket's Got a Hole In It Day -- this one may be listed on another day as well, since no two sites agree; mercy, just go get a new one already! or go get out your HanK Williams records

National Mint Julep Day

Shavuot -- Judaism (Feast of Weeks; begins at sundown, through sundown on June 1)

St. Walstan of Bawburgh's Day (Patron of agricultural workers, farmers and farm workers, field hands, husbandmen)

Tano (Dano) Festival -- Korea (start of a 3 day traditional festival of spring and farming, with summer food offered at the household shrine of the ancestors; 5th day of 5th lunar month)

This Day -- Fairy Calendar

Water a Flower Day -- no sponsor or reason given for this day, except that the spring rains are slowing and you don't want your garden to wilt

Anniversaries Today:

Henry VIII marries Jane Seymore, 1536

Birthdays Today:

Blake Bashoff, 1981

Trey Parker, 1972

Wynonna Judd, 1964

Tom Morello, 1964

Ted McGinley, 1958

Colm Meaney, 1953

Stephen Tobolowsky, 1951

Meredith MacRae, 1945

Gale Eugene Sayers, 1943

Michael J. Pollard, 1939

Keir Dullea, 1936

Clint Walker, 1927

Benny Goodman, 1909

Mel Blanc, 1908

Countee Cullen, 1903

Peter Carl Fabergé, 1846

Czar Peter the Great, 1672

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Paperback Writer"(Single release), 1966

"War Requiem"(Britten Op. 66), 1962

"Odisséia de uma raça / Odyssey of a Race"(Villa-Lobos Symphonic poem), 1954

"Prodana nevesta / The Bartered Bride"(Opera), 1866

Today in History:

Titus and his Roman legions breach the Second Wall of Jerusalem; the Jewish defenders retreat to the First Wall, 70

19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal, 1431

In Florida, Hernando de Soto  lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal of finding gold, 1539

Publication of La Gazette, the first French newspaper, 1631

The Pennsylvania Evening Post become the first daily paper in the US, 1783&

John Francis attempts to murder Queen Victoria, 1842

Westminster's Big Ben rang for the first time in London, 1859

Decoration Day (the predecessor of the modern "Memorial Day") is observed in the United States for the first time, 1868

New York City's Gilmores Garden is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public, 1879

The Treaty of London, 1913, ends the First Balkan War and Albania becomes an independent nation, 1913

In China protests erupt against the Great Powers infringing on Chinese sovereignty, 1925

A dike along the flooding Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon within minutes, 1948

The Auckland Harbour Bridge, crossing the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, New Zealand, is officially opened, 1959

launch of Surveyor 1 the first US spacecraft to achieve landing on an extraterrestrial body, 1966

At the Ascot Park in Gardena, California, daredevil Evel Knievel jumps his motorcycle over 16 cars lined up in a row, 1967

Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: the 33-foot high "Goddess of Democracy" statue is unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators, 1989

272 days after the September 11 attacks, closing ceremonies are held for the clean up/recovery efforts at the World Trade Center site in New York City. The last remaining steel beam is removed and transported to the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, 2002

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel pledges to end all nuclear power within 12 years, 2011