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7915. judithathome - 9/14/2014 6:40:24 PM On Monday, I stopped taking the pills I've been I've been taking for almost 5 months and for the past 6 days, I haven't had one symptom...not one...it has been GLORIOUS!!!
I would flush those suckers down the drain but I fear putting that poison in the water system. 7916. judithathome - 9/14/2014 6:41:07 PM (the pills for my colon that gave me severe side effects) 7917. Ms. No - 9/14/2014 6:56:18 PM Congrats!
I looked at my cabinet the other day and thought "When did I become a pill popper?"
My entire life I've been one of those people who has to be reminded about the existence of aspirin when I've got a headache. In my twenties I started a daily anti-depressant, not to be avoided, but I just looked at it like a vitamin....a really, really, necessary vitamin, but still only once a day thing.
Five years ago I had to add a hormone pill for my non-functioning thyroid. Then two years ago a daily allergy pill as well as a nasal steroid.
Last year I started taking L-Theanine so that I could turn down the volume of my thought-cacophony at night so I could fall asleep.
And now it's glucosamine for joints and L-Theanine in the middle of the night when I wake up thinking I'm in the middle of class without a lesson plan. Add to that panic attacks and mood swings from rage to despair and I'm probably looking at an anti-anxiety drug.
When the HELL did all this shit get so out of control?
And my next thought is: Anyone ever notice that CBT means both "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy" and "Cock-and-Ball Torture" or is it just the wide array of company I keep that informs my acronymic associations? 7918. judithathome - 9/14/2014 7:14:16 PM It's probably something you picked up from AARP members...it's called A.G.I.N.G. 7919. arkymalarky - 9/14/2014 8:31:36 PM mose, stan and I have all had it to deal with in our own ways, and Stan and I don't have to any more, but when Stan was teaching his doc told him he had teacher patients who took medication only during the school year. Being at one place several years does wonders for stress in teaching. When it's a new job it has the same effect as any other new job. My first eight years I changed schools six times. Once Delight felt like home the main stressor was my work load as a married parent. That and money. 7920. iiibbb - 9/14/2014 11:50:35 PM My MiL had her array of pills in a cereal bowl when I was visiting. I asked her if she was going to eat that dry, or with milk. 7921. judithathome - 9/15/2014 5:44:42 PM Ha!
I used to make fun of my auntie who took tons of pills all throughout her life...now I take 4 prescriptions but also take a lot of vitamins and herbal ones, too.
Normally, I am very healthy but this last year, I've gone to pot.
Oh, I do that, too, on occasion. ;-) 7922. robertjayb - 10/13/2014 5:48:38 PM Breakthrough Replicates Human Brain Cells for Use in Alzheimer’s Research
My time as a flack in academia leads me to distrust claims of breakthroughs. But this is cool, weird, and important.
Read all about it in the NYTimes and elsewhere. 7923. robertjayb - 11/3/2014 8:59:17 PM Sad but glad...
A tragic circumstance but death with dignity is an issue that should have coverage and conversation.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Brittany Maynard stuck by her decision.
The woman with brain cancer who revived a national debate about physician-assisted suicide ended her life Saturday by swallowing lethal drugs made available under an Oregon law allowing terminally ill people to choose when to die. She would have been 30 on Nov. 19.
Maynard had been in the spotlight for about a month since publicizing that she and her husband, Dan Diaz, moved to Portland from Northern California so that she could take advantage of the Oregon law.
7924. iiibbb - 11/3/2014 9:26:43 PM Not while opponents call it "death culture".
I read the discussion boards below articles about her and I just get angry at the world. 7925. judithathome - 11/4/2014 1:28:56 AM I linked to a great interview with her last week on my forum...it was from Lawrence O'Donnell's interview with her. (Will copy it over...)
She was a brave soul...
7926. robertjayb - 11/4/2014 7:17:02 PM A legacy...
...of Brittany Maynard's courage. Progress will be glacial.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Brittany Maynard's last days started a national conversation about whether it's OK for a terminally ill person to end their own life.
Now that she has died, it's time to see whether the millions of clicks and views she generated online trigger more than just talk.
Advocates for expanding right-to-die laws beyond a handful of states expect attention from the young woman's story to carry into the new year, when state legislatures go into session.
7927. judithathome - 11/4/2014 9:34:17 PM Glad she was able to find peace...I watched her last interview on Thursday night and that was one brave woman.
7928. wabbit - 11/5/2014 1:50:27 AM Back in the 1980's I knew a man who had a hereditary and debilitating brain condition. He watched his mother become more or less insane and yet continue to live in mental agony while all around her suffered with their helplessness. He chose another path.
He and his wife made an appointment to interview my ex and I to see if he was comfortable with having us treat his cats. It was a long interview. Toward the end of the evening, while he spoke with the hubby, his wife quickly and briefly clued me in as to his condition. She and I subsequently spoke at some length, but that night he deemed us compassionate enough for his furchildren.
Over the next two or three years his condition worsened. He divorced his wife and gave her everything they owned. He had planned - he did not want her to go through what he knew was coming. He moved to a small cottage on a farm along the Delaware River with three of the cats.
One day I got a call from his landlady. She was shouting and very angry - angry, not distraught. She heard a loud bang and went to the cottage and found him on the kitchen floor. The one phone number he had left was mine at the vet clinic, so she called me before the police. I tried to calm her as best I could and said I would call the police and his wife. Which I did. The police call wasn't difficult, filled them in and let them know there were three cats that I would collect when they were done with their work. His wife wasn't surprised so much as deeply sad. She later told me she had been expecting the call and was glad it was me, that was what he had wanted. He was such a gentle soul, as was she. It sucked.
The next day the NJ State Police called me, could I pick up the cats? Of course I could. When I got to the farm, the landlady was hollering, but the cop asked her to leave us be so we could get the cats. He then asked if I was going to be alright and I assured him I was. Into the kitchen we went. The poor man had put a shotgun to his head. I won't describe the kitchen, but the landlady's issue was why didn't he go into the cornfield.
I managed to corral two of the three cats that day. They were terrfied, as you might imagine. I located the third the following day, she was hiding in the basement. His wife took them all and over time they were fine. She and I remained good friends for many years, but she always seemed sad to me. I don't know how many people knew about her husband, but I suspect not many.
And I wonder if, had he had the option, he might have stayed married to a woman who was devoted to him, rather than go the way of the shotgun. 7929. arkymalarky - 11/5/2014 5:01:15 AM What a heart wrenching story. Sometimes there just aren't good options in a really bad situation, and you have to pick out the best path you know how under the circumstances. Everyone ought to respect that. 7930. judithathome - 11/6/2014 8:53:49 PM Maybe he wanted to leave her before she could grow to resent him...so sad, whatever the reasons.
You're a truly good person, Wabbit...knew it before; know it now. 7931. wabbit - 11/7/2014 1:13:11 AM Thank you JaH, but actually, *he* was the good person. So was she. She would have stayed to the end and did not want the divorce, but he wanted to do what he believed was right for her. He wanted her memories to be good ones. He didn't want to bankrupt her or have her become a caretaker, but most of all I think what he really didn't want was to have her be the one who found him. He knew. He made his plan while his mind and emotions were clear. 7932. Trillium - 11/7/2014 2:54:09 AM Gregory Pence is a well-known medical ethicist who wrote a textbook used in many college classes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Pence
In the 7th edition of his popular textbook, he warns against using guns (and poisons, and several other popular methods) for ending a difficult life by choice, because these can slip up and just make a person more miserable than before.
Instead, Pence notes that the safest and most effective exit, is to simply stop eating.
The book costs too much -- almost $80 new. And, I have a lot of disagreements with him. All the same, the topics covered in that book should be common reading at book clubs and church groups, because there is such a huge intersection of medical ethics and politics. 7933. robertjayb - 11/8/2014 6:21:56 AM HNGN.com poll:
Should "assisted suicide" (the "right to die" or "death with dignity") be an international unalienable right for all adults?
Yes, absolutely. 50% 1237 votes
Yes, but only for the very old or ill 23% 581 votes
No way. 19% 472 votes
I'm not sure. 6% 153 votes
7934. arkymalarky - 11/8/2014 4:58:07 PM And it goes beyond that in ways that are IMO just inhumane. I read an article some time back describing how they do pointless surgeries (not for symptom or pain relief) on the elderly, in one example wheeling a bedridden 90something year old man who had terminal cancer to have surgery. Stan's mother had a similar experience being sold a procedure with a high success rate on paper (you live and the valve works) with a low one in reality--recovering from the surgery to a quality of life. she was a statistical success who went quickly from the or to the nursing home with a miserable existence as a result of the surgery.
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