Re: Feminists

In article <JJ7CsE.4C7@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

In article <pagemail-DD40C7.23563205062007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Crowfoot <pagemail@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <JJ75uu.JIL@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

In article <pagemail-DE883A.20333905062007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Crowfoot <pagemail@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Not always; how long you live is supposedly largely a matter of
your genetic inheritance in this respect, apart from accidents,
smoking, and risky behavior, at least in the West. You can be
treated badly and live to 100 with beat-up systems, complaining
all the way that you wish to hell that your body would stop being
so stubborn and let itself die, already (spent any time in nursing
homes for the aged? It's enlightening in a whole lot of very
uncomforting ways).

I have. When I was recovering from pancreatitis I spent two
weeks in a nursing home which was unofficially divided into two
sections. Half of the patients were, like me, middle-aged people
busy recovering from something -- frequently, hip replacement
surgery or something along those lines. The other half were old
people who would never leave the place except feet first.

I had run out of pain by that time, and was no longer on paid
medications, and I used to walk around and around the halls (the
place was built on an open square), dragging my little IV bottle
behind me on its wheeled trolley. Around and around; in half the
building the corridors would be empty except for the occasional
nurse: the patients were inside sleeping or reading or doing
therapy or whatever. Then the other half: the patients would be
sitting out in the hall, or in the doorways, sitting in their
little wheelchairs staring blankly into space. They weren't
complaining about anything. They weren't aware of anything.
They didn't know where they were or who they were or what was
going on. There must have been some who were ambulatory, since
the doors of the place were locked even from the inside lest some
Alzheimer's patient suddenly took it into his head to go for a
walk; but I never saw one.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx

You'll probably just have more wrong with
you and generally worn out than a rich person of the same age,
but if the genetic grounding is strong, you'll hang in whether you
want to or not.

SMC

The home my mother-in-law spent her last decade in was
kinda posh, I guess -- people were pretty aware. And every time
we visited (after she passed 90) she'd look at us and say, "Why
am I still here?" She had a tough body and a tired spirit. She
lived to be 100. My Dad, who finished up in a much more
plebeian home, was stoically furious the whole time (except for
the 6 mos he was in love with a one-legged lady, and I do mean
lady, from St. Louis). He hated every minute of it and couldn't
wait to get gone, which he did at 84 -- pretty good for a smoker
and drinker and general depressive. A lot of the inmates there
were working class folks who had lots of family visitors and who
were a whole lot more lively than the other, more genteel crew.
They used to sneak out (very slowly) for smokes or walk away
looking for whoever they thought would take them in til they
croaked. They knew they were past their sell-by date . . .

But maybe that's more fiction-maker's fancy than reality. I
was a visitor, not an inmate.

Well, I was an inmate, but on the other side of the building and
for the short term. My perception, and it may have been wrong,
was that none of the people on that side of the building were
furious, or in love, or lively, or even aware. If any were, I
didn't see them.

Actually ... I had a pretty nice time there. Hal brought me my
laptop, and since I didn't have a roommate there was a spare
telephone to which he was able to hook up a modem. When I wasn't
reading netnews, or playing a CD, I was sewing: the nursing home
provided the usual open-backed gowns, which are no use if you
want to walk around. But I couldn't wear ordinary clothes,
because I had a PICC line in my arm that was never removed and
that had the most scrupulous procedures done on it to keep the
site sterile. So I had my husband bring me my small sewing box,
and my daughter (who then worked in a fabric store within walking
distance of the nursing home) bring me fabric and snaps, and I
made my own hospital gowns with snaps up one arm and shoulder and
closed up the back. The staff thought I was really neat: they
didn't know how to sew even with a sewing machine, and here I was
making my own garments (in assorted prints with kitties all over
them) by hand, and my room was generally full of Gregorian chant.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx

Gowns that don't a) gap in the back so your *** doesn't
hang out and b) don't give the nurses fits because they can't
get at you the way they want to? Sounds like a business
opportunity to me . . .

SMC
.