Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

I think you missed the whole point.  No one is asking you for sympathy. 
Folks were simply asking that you consider that your "opinion" is not a fact 
carved in stone.  Contrary to what you and Gene were saying, "sometimes shit 
happens."  Period.

And, you are leaping again because when that "sometimes shit happens," 
doesn't mean that folks necessarily "throw two steaks on the grill."

Sometimes, such as the case of DH who got colon cancer even though he ate no 
red meat, ate tons of veggies, tons of fiber, drank tons of water, worked at 
physical labor and exercised and did not smoke, he didn't "throw two steaks 
on the grill," we did our homework and figured out some other things that 
might have contributed and removed them from our lives.  We did our 
"homework" and came up with a plan that worked better than the odds that the 
doctors gave him (2 to 5 years and only if he did things exactly there way 
and it is now 9 years down the road and we didn't do it their way).

You have a real pissy view of people in general, which is sad.

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 4:41 PM
Subject: [Homestead] Triage - was insurance


> > This is fine if you're looking at large populations, but it doesn't
> > address individual cases,
>
> This has been a good thread.  It hasn't changed my mind but it has changed 
> my
> range of views.  The new view is appalling and disturbing to me, but it's 
> one
> I hadn't actually achieved before.
>
>
> Marie's comment above was the catalyst.  That's right.  At the point you 
> are
> facing and accident of disease, all bets of odds are called off.  If you 
> are
> heading at highway speed toward the car that has just run a stop sign, you 
> ARE
> going to have an accident and statistics suddenly lose all meaning.
>
> We are viewing, I'd say, the population as a triage in it's original 
> useage,
> not just the prep room in a clinic or such.  During war the medical teams 
> set
> up the preliminary examinations to divide the wounded into three groups 
> 1)
> Those who would likely survive even if they didn't get immediate attention 
> 2)
> Those who were unlikely to survive even if they did get immediate attenton 
> and
> 3)  Those for whom immediate attention meant living or dying.  The first 
> two
> groups waited while the doctors worked on the third so as to best use the
> limited medical capacity on large numbers of people.
>
> Similar to that, there are problably some people who just aren't going to 
> get
> this or that disease no matter what.  Some who are going to get a disease 
> no
> matter what they do.  And the third group, just like the third triage 
> group,
> might get the disease but prevention is likely to avoid that.
>
> How big are those groups?  The literature I read and the examples I know
> would tell me that the third group is quite large, I'd say over 99% of the
> population for any given condition.  My suspicion is that many 
> participating in this
> thread would put the number much lower.  But that's of no real importance 
> to
> my point.
>
> What about individuals?  What about the person who despite of taking every
> precaution and making very prudent choices still falls victim to some 
> malady?
> Likewise what about the person who flaunts all caution to the wind and yet
> lives a charmed life?  And that's were I had such a boggling time focusing 
> on the
> point because it is so foreign to me.
>
> The thing is, there's no accounting for it.  It happens, we all know it 
> and
> have witnessed it.  Who hasn't, as way of comparison, planted some beans 
> or
> cabbages in the garden and one day several of them just die.  Can't tell 
> why,
> they just die.  Who hasn't gone to their coop to find a chicken, young and 
> doing
> fine the day before, just keeled over dead.  Likewise we have a cat that 
> early
> this year got into (and lost) so many fights he was nothing but a mass of
> open sores, swelled and inoperative joints, and could not stand.  We made 
> him
> comfortable to let him die in peace and gave him no treatement of any 
> kind.  He's
> fine now and besides a small notch in one ear, you'd never know he'd ever
> left the porch.  Things happen for no reason and things happen in defiance 
> of all
> the stats and rules.
>
> But in what way do those events speak to how we raise cabbages or chickens 
> in
> our normal season to season operation of a farmstead?
>
> Likewise when looking at, and I own it a good thing that a body does look 
> at
> it, the things that contribute to the prevention of accidents and disease,
> what does the exception that defies the precautions have to say to us? 
> It seems
> (and this is the view of which I was speaking)  that there is one view 
> that
> if an individual has the misfortune of some malady, suddenly all the
> precautions for preventing or worsening that malady are called off, null 
> and void, not
> to be considered.
>
> Yes Marie is right, the things I've been citing apply to large 
> populations.
> I happen to be a member of a large population, that is, a human being.  At
> least one who so far as he knows does not have any of those 
> predispositions nor
> maladies.   But noting, for example, that colon cancer is more prevalent 
> in
> people who eat a lot of red meat by few vegetables, and yet I knew a 
> strict
> vegetarian who got colon cancer, would I throw another steak on the grill 
> ....
> because of his individuality?   But more to the point here, if I found 
> that I had
> the precancerous condition for colon cancer, would I then throw two steaks 
> on
> the grill because ..... I'm an individual case and all the stats are 
> suddenly
> called off?
>
> That's the view I am struggling to focus on.   But here's my view:  For
> people who really try to promote their health and make all the right 
> choices and
> still get sick, I have all the sympathy and support possible.  I am truly 
> sorry.
> But those who wreck their health and flare up in indignation that they
> contributed to their sickness ... and (this is the part) refuse to give up 
> the bad
> choices because after all they are an individual and the prevailing wisdom
> doesn't apply to individuals ... I have .... less sympathy.
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