I put on a little political rally and got better-than-expected attendance. Very gratifying, especially since I was the seed of it happening at all.
It was outdoors, masks, but no social distancing. A lot of elbow bumps. I think politicians really want to just schmooze again; people stuck around a while afterward.
Chicago next week!
Dang! That's young. He's not someone who became known to be horrible, was he? The dimples make me confuse him vaguely with Dave Foley, even though they're from very different sketch comedy shows.
Like all Canadians, I couldn't tell them apart.
This may have come up recently (if so, apologies--I haven't had the bandwidth to keep up with goings on here). I got a Facebook Memories reminder about Jesus McQueen's passing today. Have we had any word of late how the family is doing?
Raising a virtual glass in his memory.
Oh wow, a year. I haven't heard. I hope they're finding some comfort.
My mom is in the ER with stomach pain and I'm terrified that it's a return of the cancer she had 12 years ago.
My mom is in the ER with stomach pain and I'm terrified that it's a return of the cancer she had 12 years ago.
Perforated bowel. Don't know if she needs surgery yet or what condition she's in.
16: Oh no! I hope she'll be OK. How stressful. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry to hear that. You're both in my thoughts.
I'm sorry, heebie. I'll hold a good thought for her (and you!).
I'm sorry, heebie. I'll hold a good thought for her (and you!).
There's a lot of possibilities as to what's going on.
Thinking of you. I hope the surgery goes well.
Yikes, what a scary thing to happen and what a scary time for it. Hoping it all works out well.
Yikes, hoping all goes well for her. And for you.
Yikes, heebie
Meanwhile, as the NHS breaks down ... the 80 year old mother of a friend fell out of her mobility scooter in central Cambridge, about 20 minutes by bike from one of the biggest and best hospitals in the country. She was left on the ground, bleeding heavily from an obvious head injury. It took half an hour for the ambulance to reach her; when it got there, the paramedics would not let her equally old, and rather confused husband accompany her to hospital.
Once they reached the hospital, the ambulance waited, parked, for six hours>/i> outside A&E for a place to come open there so she could be admitted. Once she had been admitted to A&E, it took some further hours before she could be examined and a bed found for her. Let's say it took ten hours from the accident to the first doctor examining her. That's not unusual or unrealistic.
Two years ago, when my mother was having falls, I remember talking to an ambulance crew in the middle of the night; it turned out they had been diverted to her from a call to a prisoner who was having a heart attack in a police station fifty miles north of here. So they would get to him at least six hours late, for a condition where every minute counts.
But of course covid has made things much worse. There is a flu season coming as well. And warehouse jobs are advertised round here are 30-50% more than the minimum wage (which is what most care home staff are paid).
Hoping for the best for heebie's and NW's friend's moms. NW, the state of your description is awful. Especially surprised that the ambulance service area is so large.
I started talking to my parents again; it was a major anniversary of theirs over the weekend, so I gave them a call for the first time since I had a pre-election argument with my father. Torn as always.
Guess I haven't been posting here much. We were down in Eastbourne, a Victorian seaside resort town, the week before last. Lots of hiking along the coast and in the hills. (Pro-tip: if you're going to see one of those giant 'ancient' chalk drawings on a hillside, make sure your trail doesn't go along the ridge line. The view isn't so good from there.) Surprised by how bad the city air felt when we got back.
Heebie - thinking of you and your Mom.
30: I'm trying to figure out how much worse that is than what I've seen here in normal times. I've been outside the ED without triage after I was sent by my doctor. I had a bad bladder infection and what looked like kidney stones. I did get imaging in the end which revealed a different issue. There were other people waiting who had also been sent by doctors who looked sicker and had not seen a nurse, but I thought I saw a transfer of a stroke patient from another hospital. Presumably an Advanced Life Support ambulance would have been let through. Once in the ER, I was. On a gurney in the hallway. There was a young woman behind me with the same 1st name who appeared to have a condition that required. Multiple admissions. They were talking 10-12 hours before they thought a bed would open up. That was 9 or 10 years ago.
Major intestinal perforation, bad peritonitis. Surgeon says she'll get sicker before she gets better. But no sign of cancer or anything else.
So I'm feeling somewhat relieved, although I did find a study showing about a 30% fatality rate recovering from this surgery.
34: Sending your mom the best. Thanks for updating so I can target worrying in the appropriate direction.
34: Fingers crossed she's in the 70%.
30: All the doctors are thinking about Nicki Minaj's cousin's balls.
34: That's still a lot, but "not cancer" is great news. You're both in my thoughts.
Best wishes to you and your mom, heebie.
Best wishes to your mom, Heebie, and grateful she was able to get diagnosed and treated without delay. She timed her intestinal perforation well with respect to our COVID rates here in Gainesville.
oh heebie thinking of you and your mom. any idea what caused it?
Hoping she gets better quickly. Since it was surgery for stomach pain you should get some documentation so no one accuses you of helping her get an abortion.
Glad to hear no sign of cancer. I know I don't have to tell you to be careful with internet statistics, but I'm going to do it anyway.
Measures of what happens to "people" don't really apply to people with the advantages that I'm guessing your mother has, including an attentive daughter. Stephen Jay Gould, who lived for many years after a diagnosis with a median 8-month survival rate, wrote nicely about this.
The link doesn't even mention a daughter.
Sending positive energy to your mom and yourself, heebie.
Sympathies, and best wishes Heebie.
although I did find a study showing about a 30% fatality rate recovering from this surgery.
That is not reassuring. Hopefully she was starting from fairly good health going into this (my father recently had complications from what was expected to be simple surgery, and it was a good reminder of the risks and that we all thought he did fare reasonably well in part because he was in good shape).
Good thoughts for heebie and NW moms!
Oh, Heebie, how scary. All my good thoughts to your mother, you, and the family.
When my mother-in-law needed to be transferred from home to hospice, the ambulance came from about 60 miles away, and took FOREVER. They were lovely but I too was surprised.
I really need some basic preventative care but as they involve blood tests and I'm not actually sick, that's not happening any time soon! Ugh, the poor NHS.
Got to talk to her today, which was really good. Right now I feel 75% relieved and 25% scared. Thank you all for all the kind words and support.
I'm so glad you were able to do that. I know hospitals are a bit busy now.
All 10 fingers firmly crossed for your mother, Heebie!
NW, I need ambulance transport just to get to and from hospital these days, and last time I went for a routine appointment with a consultant, the crew that brought me home said they had been on standby for emergency calls and had been reallocated to give me a taxi service. I wondered what would have happened if somebody had been seriously injured while they were doing so. Would they have left me by the side of the road until they could get back to me? They should have, but you know it would have been the poor bugger lying at the foot of their stairs with multiple fractures who would have ended up waiting till another crew came free.
Not that I was sorry to see them: I'd been waiting two hours after the end of my 15 minute consultation. Not enough people because not enough money. Not enough money because Tories. Simple as that
||
While Brits are still up: do you know what it means to say "a car checks"? It was in Michael Gilbert's The Empty House, pub. 1978.
Since it's something the main character noticed while in a barn in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night, and followed it up with saying the car "didn't actually stop", my best guess at the moment is that it means blowing the horn before going around a bend.
|>
Shoot, I thought 49 was a result, sorry if it's not.
(I discovered a Michael Gilbert novel on my Kindle, no memory of it, purchased Dec. 2019. My best guess is it was recommended here, so thanks to whoever that was, I'm on the hunt for more.)
Hoping all the news is good from HG's mom.
Socializing away precarity is a great idea until people forget that you really do have to prevent people who don't believe in generous support for the old, sick, etc from getting into the drivers seat.
Minivet, I think from the context, it means "pauses". As in "he checked his forward movement"
Chris, yes. The statistics for ambulance timeliness are just horrendous.
Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
55: that sounds like it might have been me. If it wasn't, let me echo it
Which one?
The one on my Kindle was Smallbone Deceased, which is the best I've read so far. Since then I've added Death in Captivity and Death Has Deep Roots, and I'm in the middle of The Empty House.
Those are the three I read.
The Calder and Behrens short stories are good too...
My mom is being moved out of the ICU. :)
Yay! My parents exited ICUs a number of times, and I know it's a good feeling.
Glad to hear about your mom, heebie.
Sadly, we have a similar situation on our hands here. Yesterday Amadea's mom had a stroke, which turned out to have been caused by a massive heart attack that sent a blood clot into her brain. (This is on top of having been diagnosed with lung cancer a couple weeks ago, and having had all her teeth pulled a few weeks earlier for reasons that are unclear to us. She's in bad shape all around.)
They took her to the local hospital in the Valley (she lives in Wasilla) and she made it into the ICU, no mean feat right now. They want to transfer her to the big hospital in Anchorage, but there are no ICU beds there and, in a move that made national news a couple days ago, that hospital just invoked crisis standards of care, under which she's a poor candidate for prioritization based on the overall state of her health and the severity of her condition. So for now she's in stable condition in the ICU but the prognosis is uncertain.
Amadea was there with her for several hours yesterday and is going back today; the hospital is only allowing one visitor and it has to be the same one, so it's all on her. Her grandma came to the hospital but can't go in because she refuses to wear a mask. (Again, Wasilla.) When I heard about it I picked up the boys from school and took them out there, and we ended up waiting with them, grandma, and their older brother in the hospital parking lot until we heard that she made it to the ICU.
"Dire straits" is the term the doctors have been using for her condition. The neurological damage from the stroke seems to be relatively limited; she can't talk much but she's alert and can respond to yes/no questions coherently. The rest of her body is in such rough shape that there's a strong possibility the end could come soon and suddenly, though. In accordance with their previous discussions and her wishes expressed as best she can now, grandma gave Do-Not-Resuscitate instructions as next of kin. She may still pull through, but we're all prepping for the worst case.
After we left the hospital we went to grandma's house and the boys gathered up all their personal belongings that were still there that they want to keep, along with mom's dog. Custody is a concern; our current agreement is with mom, so if she dies it's no longer in place. Grandma is strongly in favor of continuing the current arrangement, but they do have a father out there somewhere who is not currently a factor in their lives but does still technically have parental rights that he could assert if he wanted to. We have a lot of support to fight to keep them if it comes to that, which is unlikely but you never know. Mom is still lucid enough to agree on camera to us having custody and/or guardianship, so we'll have documentation of that.
Amadea and the boys all have complicated feelings about all this. Their experiences of living under her care were not good and they left when they could, but she is still their mom and they do love her. It's just a tough situation all around.
I don't think either of my parents were ever in an ICU. Regular hospitals are stressful enough.
65: I'm sorry to hear that. Wishing the best for all of you.
Thanks. We'll make it through, one way or another.
Sorry to hear that, Teo, rough situation all around. I'm glad she at least made it into an ICU. Also, yay to Heebie's mom exiting the ICU. Thoughts with both of you.
Yay for heebie's mom.
Teo, sorry to hear it. I think the hardest thing about losing a difficult parent is saying goodbye to the hope for something better.
I think the hardest thing about losing a difficult parent is saying goodbye to the hope for something better.
Yeah, I think this is really weighing on all of them.
Yikes, Teo, that's a lot.
The custody issue, while unlikely to be a problem, seems like some real added stress to the situation.
Glad for good news about Heebie's mom.
excellent news re hg's mom! sending warm thoughts and solidarity to all of you, teo.
This is also really tough on Grandma. If Mom dies she'll have outlived all three of her children. She's about my mom's age (seventy-ish). This is what rural white working-class demographic trends look like up close: short generations and falling life expectancy.
Yeah. People who were in high school with me are dying this year.
And there were so many young people with obituaries up when my mom's was and they were not listing covid. I asked the mortician what was happening and he didn't give me an answer. I think that means opioids.
I went to high school with the mortician too.
This is also really tough on Grandma. If Mom dies she'll have outlived all three of her children.
That's so awful. The whole situation sounds rough.
Good to hear the promising news, Heebie.
Teo, I am so sorry. It sounds like a very rough situation all around.
Thanks, everyone. She's doing a lot better today and is moving from ICU to the regular hospital once she feels a bit better. Then she'll go into stroke rehab. So it seems like the stroke part of this is manageable. The cancer part is trickier and we're still waiting for her oncologist to weigh in. It's Stage 4 cancer so there's a real question about whether it makes sense to do chemo. But things are definitely looking a lot brighter than they did yesterday.
About two hours ago Amadea's mom made the decision to switch to comfort care. A few minutes later she died peacefully and in no pain, with Amadea by her side.
Oh, Teo, I'm sorry. That's rough.
Wishing you both well, and thanks for sharing here.
My condolences to you all, especially Amadea.
Oh teo, I'm so sorry for you and Amadea and your family, and truly glad you all have each other. Life can be so hard. (More remote losses are happening/echoing around me-- my mom's sister was buried today; close friends are losing a beloved and terribly young pet-- and it makes everything seem fragile.)
(I don't need condolences for either of those things, no wish to derail, sorry.)
Thanks, all. It went about as well as could reasonably be expected under the circumstances, which is a relief that helps to counteract the sadness. She went on her own terms when she was ready, with no pain and no fear.