Content warning: This post talks about death and dying, and mentions both assisted and unassisted suicide.
The Weather is Here, I Wish You Were Beautiful
Yeah, that’s a Jimmy Buffett reference. Sue me.
I completely lost track of time today, and I blame the weather.
Oklahoma is dealing with Winter Storm Fern, just like much of the country. Northeastern Oklahoma was expecting up to 14 inches (35 cm) of snow with a layer of freezing rain included. We missed out on the rain so far, which is a good thing, because our electrical grid just isn’t made for that. Freezing rain drops power lines and trees, and that latter part takes down more lines. It can get crazy.
So far at Wayfarer’s Refuge we’ve only seen about two inches (5 cm), but the second round of snow started falling around 5:30 PM Saturday night.
Temperatures are really the bigger issue. It’s currently about 15° F (-9° C), and this part of the country does do cold like that well. Houses aren’t usually well insulated, and lots of places have open crawlspaces with exposed pipes. The plumbers are going to make bank next week, I’m afraid. It’s not supposed to get above freezing until mid-week.
We did as much prep as we could, which involved checking the generator, getting extra gas for it, and stocking up on a few supplies. That last thing was the fun part. We usually make one big shopping trip for the month and top things off each Sunday. With the weather coming and potentially being snowed in on Sunday, I decided to go to the store Wednesday, expecting the shelves to be emptied if I waited until Thursday.
I should have gone Tuesday.
Walmart was a madhouse.
No bread. Like, none. Most of the breakfast breads (bagels, English muffins) were gone. Down to less than 20 cartons of eggs. No water, not even distilled water, though they were bringing a couple of skids out when I left. Milk was pretty picked over. TP was getting low. I kind of laughed at all these people panic-buying food. Oklahoma doesn’t do ice well, and when the power goes out, how are people going to cook all of this food they just bought?
At this point, we’re in pretty good shape.
Riding The Storm Out
I noticed today, though, that it was very easy to lose track of time. I couldn’t really tell what day it was. We didn’t get mail, so that made it feel like a Sunday. But Diana didn’t go to the store, so it couldn’t have been Sunday.
We kept all the blinds closed today, too, to help regulate the temperatures in the house. We’re maintaining about 70° F (21° C) as opposed to our normal 73-74° F (22-23° C). But keeping the blinds closed takes away all the normal visual cues about life “on the outside” like sun and shadows and wind. Sure, I can look at the weather station and see that winds are 5 MPH gusting to 12, but I don’t see the leaves blowing across the yard or the branches waving in the breeze.
I took Athena out a couple of times and walked the property to check for downed trees. Everything seems fine in that aspect, but the quiet from the fresh snow threw me.
Turns out there’s a scientific aspect to that peace and quiet. The dendrite snowflakes trap soundwaves in their six arms, dampening the sounds of the world as they fall. And as snow accumulates on the ground, on tree branches, on cars, and so forth, it continues to absorb soundwaves for the first few hours.
It’s not unlike standing in a soundbooth where the only thing you can hear is your own breathing.
Medical Aid in Dying
Five years ago, a friend of mine died after a fire. I’ve written about his death a few times, mostly around the idea of advanced directives for healthcare.
Folks, it is absolutely critical for you to have the difficult conversations with your family about how you want to die. You’ve got to make sure they understand what heroic measures you want or don’t want taken as you get close to the end of your life.
But what about when you want to take complete control of when you die?
What about when you’ve been fighting cancer for years and years, and you just don’t have the energy left for one more round of chemo?
What do you do when ALS cripples you, stealing all ability to move, swallow, speak, or breathe?
You could jump off a bridge. But your body might not ever be found, and what would that do for your family members?
You could use a firearm or a knife, but that will traumatize whoever finds you after as well as whoever has to clean up the scene.
Ditto stepping in front of a vehicle, which will traumatize the train crew or the truck driver or the people on the bus.
And let’s not forget the first responders who have to deal with the aftermath.
You could overdose if you have access to the right drugs. If you don’t, though, or they’re not the right kind, or not pure enough because of your source, you could end up in worse shape than where you started.
Shouldn’t there be another option?
There is. We just don’t like to talk about it because of that weird societal block about talking about death and dying.
Medical Aid in Dying. Some people call it assisted suicide or euthanasia, but it’s different from those options. Both assisted suicide and euthanasia involve someone else administering the end-of-life medications. Medical Aid in Dying, or MAiD, at least in the 13 US states that have some form of it, requires the patient to self-administer the meds.
Most states require the patient to have less than six months of life left. And I get that that’s a subjective standard. I’ve heard of people surviving on hospice for up to a year. Doctors can’t predict when you’re going to die, even with various advanced diseases. A friend of mine died six weeks after his cancer diagnosis, and the doctors thought he’d have months.
This is another one of those painful but important conversations about end-of-life care that we need to have as a society.
A person should have the right to control how they die.
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