07:27 – Barbara’s dad will be released from the hospital today and return to the Brian Center. I was surprised yesterday when Don, our UPS guy, endorsed the Brian Center. He mentioned that he hadn’t seen me over there for a couple of days. I hadn’t realized that the Brian Center was on his route, but he said he’d seen me over there every day until the last couple of days. I told him that Barbara’s dad had been over there, but had been in the hospital for a couple of days. Don said he’d been delivering there for 10 years or more and knew just about all of the staff. He has a very high opinion of the place.
Barbara says they’re getting Hospice and the palliative care group from the hospital involved in managing her dad’s care. Dutch is in both congestive heart failure and kidney failure. The next time there’s a crisis, which could be in a day or a week or two, rather than transport Dutch to the hospital they’ll transport him directly to Hospice, assuming there’s a room available. There’s nothing that can be done to fix Dutch’s problems, so at this point the goal is to keep him as comfortable as possible. Heroic measures would simply extend his suffering. Barbara is very happy with the palliative-care doctor who’s now managing her dad’s care, and trusts her advice about how best to proceed.
10:26 – I just talked to Barbara, who asked me to pick up a six-pack of Pepsi and a couple cans of Mandarin oranges for her dad. He’s not eating much, so Barbara and Frances are trying to figure out what might temp him to eat a bit more. Dutch knows he’s going back to Brian Center today, and he’s not happy about it. He apparently likes it at the hospital, where he has a nice single room and gets constant attention.
Sad to hear about Dutch’s condition. 🙁
He sounds like a remarkable man. You are lucky to know him.
Take Care,
Rod
Yeah, Dutch reminds me a lot of Monty Python’s Black Knight. Of course, he is a Marine.
Is Dutch in the loop on these decisions? Just curious. I assume someone in the family has a medical POA and a HIPAA waiver in place also. (And a durable POA also…..)
Dutch isn’t in the loop simply because he’s no longer competent to make decisions about his own care. He’s been told repeatedly that he’s in severe congestive heart failure and renal failure, not to mention a persistent severe C. difficile infection, but he simply refuses to believe that he’s ill at all, let alone dying. He’s convinced that he’ll soon be strong enough to return to the independent living apartment and that everything will be fine.
Barbara and Frances both have full PoA’s, HIPAA waivers, etc. In fact, Barbara just executed a DNR yesterday. They’ll continue to administer Dutch’s normal drugs and antibiotics, but they won’t resuscitate when it comes to that. Frances is uncomfortable with the idea of a DNR, but I think Barbara finally convinced her that death is not Dutch’s enemy; continuing to live is. I think Barbara conveyed pretty graphically to Frances what the result would be of using shock paddles, let alone chest compression, on Dutch at this point.
Thanks for reminding me that I need to have a conversation with my mother regarding her wishes with regard to a DNR. I’m supposing that for my 86 year old mother the chest compressions of CPR would be counterproductive.
Marines are tough. My son told us a few stories about basic training over the weekend. One week, they got issued four MREs for the field training. He carefully rationed two of the MREs and then someone stole his other two MREs. They caught another guy stealing MREs and beat him so badly that he got medivaced out. BTW, Marine MREs are smaller than Army MREs, only 25oo calories.
My uncle was a naval aviator during Vietnam and has 4,000 carrier landings with the Distinguished Flying Cross. Back then, Marines taught the Naval Aviators their basic training. He is 71 and still hates his DI with a passion. I call that an accomplishment.
“They caught another guy stealing MREs and beat him so badly that he got medivaced out.”
Did anything happen to the guy/s who administered the beating?
Miles_Teg says: “Did anything happen to the guy/s who administered the beating?”
Awarded the guy a Marine Achievement medal! 😉
Steve, somewhere in Colorado
Did anything happen to the guy/s who administered the beating?
No. Why do you ask? These are men. These men will be told to follow an officer up a beach or up a hillside at some point in their career. There will be machine guns firing on them. It will be bad, very bad. Given Dutch’s age, he was probably in WWII with the Marines taking the Pacific islands. That was horrible duty but the Marines did it.
I have an 88 year old friend who landed a B-24 on Iwo Jima the day after the Marines took it. He was shot at by a sniper at landing but the Marines took the guy out by following him down six levels of tunnels. You cannot teach that persistence.
“No. Why do you ask?”
Lynn, since you brought the topic up I thought I’d ask. And I don’t see the relevance of what follows “No. Why do you ask?” to anything else.
Because it is hard to be a team when you cannot trust your team members. BTW, the guy did not have any broken body parts, just bruises. Fairly severe bruises, enough so that he got bounced back to a squad two weeks behind them when the DI noticed him. Apparently a sock full of quarters really hurts but does little permanent damage. Just saying.
OFD served with Marines and Green Berets in SEA a very long time ago and was very impressed by both groups and the leadership exhibited by their NCOs and officers, who did all the same shit and more that their troops were asked to do, unlike, sad to say, too many of their Army and AF counterparts that I also knew.
I note also that the Marines and Greenies were quite appreciative of our FAC, rescue/airlift and close-air-support activities throughout my time there and to this day have received thanks for same. There is the team on the ground that goes down into those tunnels and there is a much larger team, worldwide now more than ever, that works together to protect each other and The Mission, whatever that may be. As the former Seal with whom I roomed at the VA hospital complex several years ago told me several times.
77 here in Retroville today, fourth day of showers, humidity and strong wind gusts; we are planting flowers, tomatoes and peppers today. While OFD waits for a second FedX delivery of fingerprint cards to do OVER AGAIN locally so I can send them AGAIN down to Arlington. What a huge PITA; hell, they have my prints from 1971! Correct me if I’m wrong, wizards, but those never change, right?
Dutch did serve in the Pacific, although he was stationed in Hawaii for most of his time there. Of course, at the time, it wasn’t entirely clear that Hawaii was a particularly safe place to be. For a long time, they still considered Japanese invasion to be a serious threat.
Correct me if I’m wrong, wizards, but those never change, right?
They will if you sit around and scratch your ass too much.
A lot of what government contractors do is nothing more than to increase their billable hours back to the government. When I worked for a sub-contractor my pay rate was $25.00 an hour. My contractor billed the prime contractor $50.00 an hour to account for overhead. That contractor then billed DOE (as the prime was a contractor with DOE) at $100.00 an hour. DOE then billed the US Navy at $200.00 an hour. Everyone was happy as everyone was making lots of money for doing very little. That is except for me who spent an hour a day filling out the time sheet accounting for every minute so the government would not pay more than they should.
My boss was porking the prime contractor secretary almost every day. We found their mat in one of the empty, locked rooms. We went over the ceiling and sprinkled itch powder all over the mat. She scratched her ass for hours.
Meanwhile the person for the prime contractor that was in charge of our band of misfits spent three or four hours a day sleeping, and that was a productive day. His assistant spent the day doing crossword puzzles hidden under sheets of paper so if anyone came into his office he could flip the sheets down and look busy.
Yep, the government got their money’s worth out of them. Meanwhile I implemented an instant messaging system and email system between the 247 installations world wide that we serviced, plus job scheduling. This was back in 1988 before anyone knew such systems would work. I should have filed a patent. I earned my $25.00 an hour, well maybe only $18.95 an hour worth of work.
For a long time, they still considered Japanese invasion to be a serious threat.
Ever been to Hawaii? A Japanese invasion is still a serious threat with all the tourists from Japan. They are pushy, rude and generally not pleasant as they push and shove their way around with a queue being a completely foreign concept.
“A lot of what government contractors do is nothing more than to increase their billable hours back to the government. ”
Of course. Thanks for restoring my temporarily misplaced usual harsh cynicism; I feel much better now!
“His assistant spent the day doing crossword puzzles hidden under sheets of paper so if anyone came into his office he could flip the sheets down and look busy.”
That’s pretty intellectual; don’t see how anyone could complain. Nowadays of course the assistant would be spanking the monkey as he looked through scads of porn sites or he’d be doing the online poker gambling thang. Or playing whatever the latest PC game is, I’ve lost track.
“They are pushy, rude and generally not pleasant as they push and shove their way around with a queue being a completely foreign concept.”
Maybe we need another Doolittle-type raid on Tokyo, jog their memories a bit?
Of course. Thanks for restoring my temporarily misplaced usual harsh cynicism; I feel much better now!
Your optimism can be infectious.
I note also that the Marines and Greenies were quite appreciative of our FAC, rescue/airlift and close-air-support activities throughout my time there and to this day have received thanks for same
My son was a BIG fan of close air support in Iraq. He loved seeing the A-10s come over the horizon and hearing that big gun sound off. Made a bad day into a good day.
[snip] OFD served with Marines and Green Berets in SEA a very long time ago and was very impressed by both groups and the leadership exhibited by their NCOs and officers, who did all the same shit and more that their troops were asked to do, [snip]
A close friend of mine was stationed in Egypt some years ago, helping to train their military. He expressed his contempt for the higher ranks, saying that Egyptian officers don’t run with their men, how can they be expected to lead? And the SEALs weren’t allowed to inculcate their ethos in the way they wanted.
” Made a bad day into a good day.”
Make it RAIN!!! Yep, glad to do it, homies. (some of OFD’s last few months in SEA were on Spooky). A variant of which is still apparently in use Over There. Amazing.
“And the SEALs weren’t allowed to inculcate their ethos in the way they wanted.”
Of course not. Das ist verboten. Same deal with us and ARVN. Officers sucked rocks, and usually in cahoots with Charles.
The ARVN leadership, and South Vietnamese leadership in general were so very corrupt that further aid was wasted. The US cut right down on their aid, not for the right reasons, but because by this time the lovely Bella Abzug and her accomplices were running the
withdrawalwar from the Capitol.Which reminds me; thanks always, for the support and comradeship of our Aussie and Kiwi allies in that war and the previous 20th-C capers; never to be forgotten.
Most of what I know about the Vietnam War comes from Decent Interval, by Frank Snepp. Born in 1943, he joined the CIA to avoid going to Vietnam (as a grunt). Of course, he ended up doing two tours there as an analyst and interrogator and saw at first hand the corruption of the upper levels of the South Vietnamese military and government, and the culpable stupidity (to varying degrees) of the ambassador, Graham Martin, Kissinger, Ford and the CIA head of station Thomas Polgar.
“… thanks always, for the support and comradeship of our Aussie and Kiwi allies in that war…”
The Vietnam War was wildly popular in 1966 in Australia. The Liberal (=conservative) and Country Party government won a huge election victory over Labor on the issue, which was opposed to the war. By 1969 the tide was turning, there was a huge swing back to Labor, and in 1972 the government (led by the incompetent William McMahon) fell.
During paht of my time at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai AFB in the northeast provinces there, I lived off base in a former Aussie special forces compound; the locals remembered them fondly. They called it “Kahn-Kamp-Austray-lee-AH”.
I have an 88 year old friend who landed a B-24 on Iwo Jima the day after the Marines took it.
My father was in the Corps in WW-II, made it as far as Guam. He said that after the Marines took Iwo Jima the Air Corps would do anything for them, which in my father’s case meant he got a joy-ride in a bomber.