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I'm sorry? I thought it was just teeenagers that had seances in darkenend college buildings!!
I had once worked in a chest hospital.
You may be pleased to be over there rather than here when I tell you the following. I've been trawling my step-pa-in-law around as he goes for tests etc, he was xayed and told that subesequent to the prostate cancer he had had and beaten, he now had suspicious shadoes on his lungs but 'not to worry'. Then got hauled up to Tooting for exploratory ops to be then told they weren't on the lung interior but exterior and to toddle off home and await the results. Which he duly did, coughing and spluttering all the way home (in my car) as he doesn't do well with breathing tubes and bracheoscopys (or therabouts) and had a sore throat.
He had recall yesterday to have the consultant gaily announce that he didn't have lung cancer after all but did have TB and 'could have had it for years, so pop these tabs and run along old chap' Nurse said 'Don't worry, all will be well'.
I'm sorry?
So nursey nurseys, should we all be running screaming for the chest clinic?
It's somewhat terrifying that TB, once thought to have been erradicated in the UK is now one of the fastest growing illnessess in the UK! Most of us get given anti - TB shots at school - Is it BCG - that one that goes all nasty and leaves you with a scar on your arm... (I passed out when given mine, and weirdly have no scar at all - others had terrible times with yellow and green puss coming forth from the injection site!)???? My brain has gone into a large spinning top - well I have, so am off driving AGAIN, and am parked in bed, with steroids about to be shoved in my arm if it continues for the next 4 days.. argh and all the weight I have lost! Steroids are so crappy!
There is only one part of the anatomy I can't cope with - and you will think I am totally mad (well it's a forgone conclusion anyway!) I can't "DO" belly buttons! ugh, the thought alone has me stretching away from the computer and feeling rather sickly.....
Give me sputum, faceces, blood, injections, cathertisation, ANYTHING but belly buttons.
UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOt to go and calm myself down now!
ugh!
Off topic but maybe not, given the nature of this forum.
My grandmother died of TB in the 1930's and my father in law also had TB and died in the 1960's. I never met either of them but my wife claims that if you have TB antibodies, then the injection never takes and you get no scar. Or is the the other way round?
Mention of belly buttons reminds me of a TV series in the black and white days, which started off with an tiny undulating scarf which gradually grew larger until it filled the whole screen. May have been Quatermass but I can't remember.
My sister and I used to go into hysterics imagining other things which would grow enormous, the most hysterical being a belly button.
Little things please little minds, I suppose, we were both under 10.
Talking of TB, we were mass x-rayed in the 50s. Accompanying the x-ray was a procedure which I never quite understood -- a T was written in some cream on your back, and it either produced a reaction or it didn't. Before it was applied, the skin had to be roughened slightly. New boys were scared with stories that the area in question had to be sandpapered till it was raw.
I'm sorry? I thought it was just teeenagers that had seances in darkenend college buildings!!
Gerrie! "Occult blood" just means that it's not visible. If it's in a urine specimen it's quickly spotted with a dipstick via routine ward testing. But lots of specimens of all varieties may need to go to the lab to be tested for occult blood.
I thought the other day that I would like my ashes scattered in the place where I was happiest - the garden of my S London childhood home - but I'm not sure if there are regulations which prohibit such a thing. Certainly no vastly expensive mahogany coffin with brass handles - what a waste!
Mary's mother's arrangements sound just lovely to me.
"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing "Cunning plans are here again.""
There are rules about where you can scatter ashes in public areas, re polluting water courses etc. but not too many. However a back garden which now belongs to someone else (I presume) is different. I have all the info on my computer at home so will post links later.
My Mum's funeral was in April and my Dad still has her ashes in the wardrobe, not for any morbid reason but getting my sibs together to scatter them is proving difficult. My brother lives in Durham and getting back to Sussex is difficult for him, now compounded by the fact that his Mother-in-law died yesterday. His wife was so impressed by Mum's funeral that she is suggesting something similar for her Mum.
"If a man speaks, and there isn't a woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"
I get very concerned about having death wishes, especially as the likelihood of someone expressing their dismay at not having their last wish carried out, is remote.
As far as I am concerned, when I go, the decision is up to whoever in the immediate family is still alive. If they want to bury or cremate, that is up to them, as is where they leave my remains. They are the ones who are going to have to visit or not as the case may be.
The only possible reason for leaving instructions is to reduce family bickering, but they'll do that anyway, at least my family will.
I would suggest that they spend money on themselves rather than me, as I won't be able to put it to much use.
Life should be about the living, not the dead or nearly dead. But that does not preclude respect for the elders, although respect should be indiscriminate.
Reading through all the obits that go in the Old Blue, I am always amazed by what people get up to, and always relieved when the service is one of celebrating a life well spent rather than one of mourning.
I've just suddenly remembered that JR isn't well - hope you're feeling a bit better? Get well soon!
"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing "Cunning plans are here again.""
My mother's wish was to minimise cost and ground space and be green. I am sure she would have been just as happy wrapped in a sheet under a tree somewhere. One thing she, and Dad agrees stipulated was "family flowers" only as they have always said flowers are for the living not the dead. And Dad took the wreath off the coffin and split it between us, so we all have a pressed lily/carnation/rose.
Donations were given for the NSPCC. She started being a Health Visitor around the time of the Maria Colwell case, the first of these high profile, where did we go wrong? child abuse cases 30 years ago. Baby P is not alone.
"If a man speaks, and there isn't a woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"
My mother was buried in a basket-work coffin, made of local willow by a local craftsman. (Ecological but more dignified than cardboard.) We did the funeral ourselves, mostly. From my brother's house, where an informal meeting with music was held, then the mile to the village cemetery, using my VW Passat Estate (uniquely washed for the occasion) as a hearse (it's done many things in its 21-year life). The undertaker's men had dug the grave and explained to us what to do. ("We'll be round the corner, sir, in case you need help" (I hate to think...)) When we returned a few hours later, it was all filled in, with flowers on top.
Going back to the BCG/TB thing, they no longer do BCG routinely in nice middle class areas like Amersham, never mind that all the kids (wherever they come from) are crammed into concerts/lecture theatres and various other places and visiting their friends and doing whatever kids do regardless of race creed or class. Well mine are anyway.
"If a man speaks, and there isn't a woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"
michael scuffil wrote:My mother was buried in a basket-work coffin, made of local willow by a local craftsman. (Ecological but more dignified than cardboard.) We did the funeral ourselves, mostly. From my brother's house, where an informal meeting with music was held, then the mile to the village cemetery, using my VW Passat Estate (uniquely washed for the occasion) as a hearse (it's done many things in its 21-year life). The undertaker's men had dug the grave and explained to us what to do. ("We'll be round the corner, sir, in case you need help" (I hate to think...)) When we returned a few hours later, it was all filled in, with flowers on top.
That sounds lovely, our local undertaker helps with this sort of thing and once I know where I am going to retire to I may get something sorted.
The pastor who did the eulogy at my Mum's service had been asked by her within two months of moving to her church in 1983. He left in 1990 but didn't move far, then went to Liverpool for 14 years until last year. In all that time they kept in touch and when they moved back South and Mum became ill she called him and reminded him of her request, and he was at her bedside the day before she died, cracking jokes about her awful cooking etc.
"If a man speaks, and there isn't a woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"
I am terrified of being buried alive, so am opting for cremation and a small stone in a Jewish Cemetry. Then I want everyone to go and have a jolly time, as I don;t want ANYONE crying over my shell - I will be away in spirit and able to look at the spirits and souls of those gone before and those still alive - so I want a CELEBRATION not a funeral. No dark clothes, really loud and fun music.
The people left behind are the ones who suffer - my children know my wishes, and I hope they carry them out, I will only ask that they and my friends do not cry at my passing. It is only the body that dies, the soul lives on and watches. so Happy funeral will be my motto!
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts. To Learn - read, to Know - write, to MASTER - Teach
