Iowa Specialty Hospital

Notes from Steve

February 23, 2017

I read this thing on being polite and not wanting to make a scene.  Basically, it can kill you.* The third rule of Larry** is that if “I am resting comfortably, and you try and bother me or pick me up, I will scratch and bite your arm – you will bleed and probably cry.”  He is neither polite, nor cares about making a scene.  “You get what you deserve” is his motto.  We respect each other’s space now.  I do believe that nice guys finish last, and making your wishes known (hopefully, without scratching and biting) is a good survival rule.  

It’s about accepting fate.  I have a friend who always tried to create her own path.  Wouldn’t listen to others and plowed through with what she wanted regardless of other’s feelings.  She cast aside other’s ideas and avoided taking other’s opinions or direction because it wasn’t her idea.  She’s moving to “alone and bitter-ville”.  If she reached out and accepted help when it was offered, maybe her life would be better; happier.  Who knows?  Maybe.

In our endless pursuit of happiness, remember that we are a society.  We are a group of interconnected souls that build on each other all the time, and the more we lean on each other, the higher and stronger our community can become.  

Bottom line – if you are choking, becoming brain damaged, or dying is much more of a buzzkill than asking for help.  It takes a village, people.  Ask for help.

 

*The Heimlich maneuver, in the nearly 50 years since Dr. Henry Heimlich established its protocol, has been credited with saving many lives. But not, perhaps, as many as it might have. The maneuver, otherwise so wonderfully simple to execute, has a marked flaw: It requires that choking victims, before anything can be done to help them, first alert other people to the fact that they are choking. And some people, it turns out, are extremely reluctant to do so. “Sometimes,” Dr. Heimlich noted, bemoaning how easily human nature can become a threat to human life, “a victim of choking becomes embarrassed by his predicament and succeeds in getting up and leaving the area unnoticed.” If no one happens upon him, “he will die or suffer permanent brain damage within seconds.”

**my evil cat (who also goes by Buddy and Fred) 

 

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