More on Hard Decisions edited

Sorry, BLOGiste is a her, not a him.

A Blogger in Egypt picked up my Blog on Living Wills.

As he was writing a similar story, he asked if link to my Blog, which of course I agreed to.

His Blog, BLOGitse, is in Finnish I think, and seems to have generated a lot of response.

If you can read Finn, follow this link and read more.

I guess this just shows how small this planet has become, and how we all suffer the same trials.

DJW

This is cool, Bloggers Without Borders!

Hard Decisions Made Somewhat Easier

I am not the first person to lose a Parent.

I am not the first person to have to suspend life support.

I am not the first person to watch as a loved one passed away.

Things were made somewhat easier by my Parents.

A few years ago, they made a Living Will.

Dunno how Ma got that past Pa, but she did. Will's and life insurance are something Pa is wary of, due to superstitions passed down from generations of Coal Miners. She gave a copy to my Sister and I, and made us sit there and read it in front of her.

If we hadn't had that document, I don't know what would have happened.

The rest of my family have long known what she wanted, and more importantly given the circumstances, what she didn't want. When the Doctor called on Friday and gave us the ultimate prognosis, it wasn't what we wanted to hear.

But we knew we had to do what she wanted. To do anything else would be selfish and wrong.

When I came home from talking with the Doctor, M.D.B. and I sat the girls down and told them what was going to happen. It wasn't easy, but its part of being an adult.

Then we told them that we loved them, and we didn't want them to have to make the hard decisions if weren't able to. We made our wishes clear to them, and as soon as the dust settles, we too will make it a legal document. We love our girls, and to put them through unneeded trauma at a time of crisis would just be cruel. I urge anyone reading this to create a living will. If you don't want to pay a lawyer, you can get kits and software at most office supply stores, and getting it notarized is as easy as going to City Hall.

Living Will's are an expression of love.

Ma loved us enough to make the decisions for us.

Thanks Ma.

M.D.B. shares her views at This is Wonderland?

As Luck Would Have It

It was a sunny Thursday.

I was working just north of Oakville when I got the call.

My Mother was being rushed to a Trauma Center in a nearby city. An aneurysm in her abdomen had burst. At least a 9.7 on the scale of the worst phone call you could get.

As luck would have it, I was only five minutes from my car.

Ma was born into a farm family, in the middle of the 1930's. As one of twelve children, they all had to take care of something on the farm. When Grandpa went into the Army, everyone had more to take care of. As luck would have have it, the family farm was near Camp 20 in Brantford where Grandpa served as an M.P. The eldest children took care of the farm, the younger ones took care of the even younger ones.

As luck would have it, Ma was near the middle of the pack and took care of her younger siblings.

In those days, it was quite normal for women to marry in their teens and start families of their own. As luck would have it, Ma had children of her own to look after by the time she was in her late teens.

That was her job, to look after people. As luck would have it, she was pretty good at it.

She was a stay at home mom before that was an option. I'm the youngest of the gang, and she never worked outside the home until I was in school. Even then, she made sure that there was a lunch ready for me when she couldn't be there.

As luck would have it, somewhere near that time, a friend who's husband was terminally ill needed help. They had no children to look after them, so Ma did. That's what she did. She held her friends hand while her husband died. Many years later she held her friends hand while she died. That's what she did.

Ma was not without health issues over the years. In the 1970's, she underwent a series of surgeries. One of the few things Pa never did master was cooking. In an emergency he could fry plain hamburger and some potatoes, or pork chops and french fries. So Ma made a series of meals, labeled them and put them in the freezer for emergencies. Even when she was sick, she took care of us. That's what she did.

As we got older and had children of our own, Ma wouldn't hear of daycare for her grandchildren. Or her great-grandchildren. She would take care of them, that's what she did. As luck would have it, we kept her well supplied with people to take care of.

A few years ago, as Pa's health started to fail, there was talk of putting him into some kind of extended care. Ma would have none of that. She would take care of him as long as she could.

That's what she did.

That's what she was doing on that sunny Thursday when she collapsed on the living room floor. She managed to get out a phone call for help. As luck would have it, my Sister was nearby and got there in time.

As luck would have it, an ambulance was literally around the corner and able to respond. As she was being wheeled out she asked for someone to call for help for Pa. She had to make sure he was taken care of.

That's what she did.

As luck would have it, my nephew worked nearby and could stay with Pa until the nurse got there.

As luck would have it, I beat the ambulance to the Trauma Center. I commented to her that there were other ways out of the family picnic slated for that weekend. She laughed. A good sign.

As luck would have it, the on-call Vascular Surgeon is the Professor for such things at McMaster Medical School. The surgery went well and quicker than expected. She had lost a lot of blood, and her kidneys, liver and pancreas had been blood starved for some time.

As luck would have it, the whole family was in the area for the picnic. A rare occasion as my one Sister lives in California and my one Brother travels a lot for business.

As luck would have it, her mind was damaged by lack of blood flow and her kidneys didn't respond to treatment. She never regained consciousness and never knew what was going on around her. She hung on long enough for everyone to say goodbye. Even as she was leaving us she was making sure we weren't inconvenienced.

She was taking care of us. That's what she did.

She slipped away peacefully.

It was a rainy Saturday.

As luck would have it.

DJ and his Family thank everyone for thier support.
We have a lot of great people around us, as luck would have it.

Waiting Room Etiquette

I've spent a lot of time in a waiting room this past week.

The ICU waiting room at Hamilton General has 54 seats. I've had plenty of time to count them. That's roughly one per bed. ICU visiting hours are 24/7 there, understandably. With only two family visitors at a time, 54 seems like a reasonable amount.

They also recommend that one family member act as a spokesperson, and wrangle who comes when to keep traffic down and allow them time to give treatment.

This also seems reasonable.

Now, I am also well aware that everyone who is in there has a loved one in critical condition, we all do. And they all want to be there to show support.

Completely understandable.

I am very thankful for the support I've had.

But...

...support can go overboard.

This weekend, there were two families that commandeered the waiting room beyond belief. One family went and bought bags upon bags of groceries and set up a complete Deli on one of the coffee tables. Another family had what seemed like a catered affair with pans of lasagna, cannelloni, garlic bread and salads. All that was missing was the wine and the music and we could have had a wedding.

We ended up in the hall.

By we I mean three of us. It was my Brothers turn to visit. We gave up our seats so that they had somewhere to put the salad bar.

Ferchristsakes, it's the frigging waiting room! I did a mental calculation; if all the people at the Italian wedding went in, two by two, for twenty minutes each, it would've taken six and a half hours for them all to go through.

Un-friggin-believable and im-friggin-possible!

We all have loved ones in distress, and we all want our turn, but for crying out loud have a little courtesy and compassion.

DJW

DJ and his family thank everyone for their continued support.

The Real Reason Why Men Don't Read Directions.

Ladies, if you've ever wondered why men don't read instructions, there are very good reasons for it.

Below are the instructions for a battery I picked up recently (yes, for a battery)...

Then of course, there is the actual manual:



Nuff said.

DJW

DJ did not follow the instructions to post this blog.

Some Lessons Learned

Its been a while folks.

Silly season round here.

Parades, meetings, spring cleaning and planting, yard work (some left over from last year, and the year before)

And then there's the roof.

Looming overhead.

Whats been holding my house together for 130 years.

I'm proud to say that work has begun. Some remedial repairs have been made, and some demolition and new construction has been completed.

The main part of Our Humble Castle was built in 1881 with 1881 construction methods. Post and timber framing, with pegged joints and a plank roof. An addition to the rear around 1910 added 300 square feet and a small valley to the roof profile. Methods and materials didn't seem to change much over those 30 odd years.

Fast forward to the late 1980's, when the previous owners decided to replace the roof. Instead of tearing off the three layers of shingles on the back, they decided to build a whole new roof over the existing one, taking out the valley. They did not cut back the old roof, they simply made the fascia extra wide. This produced a gap of roughly 7 inches in the middle of the valley. This is what I am now correcting.

So I have to peel off plywood fascia, and expose the old roof. Then cut it back flush, put up some extra bracing and attach new 1' x 6" fascia boards ready for cover.

Sounds easy, right?

Wrong.

You'd figure that an industrial r-saw with "demolition blades" (I got a capital Y chromosome just buying them) would go through 100+ year old planks like a hot knife through butter.

Not so.

The 1" thick planks and flat iron nails chewed these blades up like popcorn. I had to change blades every 5 minutes and soak them in kerosene to clean and cool them. The soaking also cleaned the asphalt that was clogging the teeth.

Then the genius that did the work before, hadn't properly braced the overhang, only providing support every four feet where joints occurred. So someone has to install them.

130 year old plank roof.

So, as with every project I get involved with, there was much more work than I had figured.

In the end, 25 feet of demolition and and remedial construction took me roughly 18 hours over two days.

Lessons?

That 130 years ago, things were built to last. I wonder how many of the new 'manufactured' homes will be around 130 years from now.

That you will need twice as many 'demolition blades' as you figure.

That 130 year old planks, while tough to cut, make excellent coals for cooking bratwurst.

DJW

Somewhere, the men that built this house are laughing at DJ.