Sunday, July 14, 2024

A Word About Yesterday

After the sad events near my hometown yesterday, I feel the need to speak my heart today.

All who have read this blog from the beginning know that I stand for living Progressive values always, and this has not changed.

As much as I find Donald Trump and most everything he stands for detestable, neither he nor anyone deserves violence.  This blog decries and condemns the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.  I am glad to hear that he was not seriously injured.

Yesterday was a sad, sad day for our democratic republic.

People, we are better than this, and we must, with great deliberate consciousness, be better than this.  There comes a time to stop in our tracks, ask ourselves hard questions, and course-correct; that time is now.

The political divisions in this country are profound.  There are issues that many of us feel deeply about, and we may disagree about them.  I have neighbors who still sport a Trump/Pence sticker on their mailbox.  But when I couldn't get my lawn mower started, there Bobby was, helping me get it running, affirming my choice of a mower with a Briggs and Stratton engine, and letting me know he was there for us.  As long as my mum was alive, Bobby's wife Denise would engage her in conversation every time she saw her, and ask me about her when she saw me.  

Our neighbors Dan and Debbie, though not out front with their political choices, are most probably also affiliated on the right hand side of the aisle.  But they have brought me food and inquired about my well-being every holiday since my mum passed.  A few weeks ago I had a survey done on my property as part of many improvements I want to make -- new deck, porch, landscaping and such.  Dan saw me outside one day right after the survey was completed, and came over to ask if I was planning on selling the house.  When I told him about the improvements, Dan, the neighborhood gardening expert, immediately volunteered his considerable knowledge and assistance.  After finding out I intend to put in a maple tree to replace the one that our borough had ripped out when they carried out a drainage project, Dan told me he will buy that tree in my mother's honor.  And he will help me optimize my soil, find the best plants and trees I want at the best prices, and though he never said so, he will probably help me put the things in, too, as he and Debbie have helped us in a million ways.  He never asked my political affiliation; I don't know his.  We just know we're neighbors, and have been for more than 30 years.  Same with Bobby and Denise.  And I hope they all know that I would help them as they have helped me, flaming Liberal that I am.

We are all neighbors in this way, whether we realize it or not.  We all need each other.  This democratic republic of ours needs us, all of us.  We must work together, do the right things, and steer our ship, our country, on a better course.  We can disagree, and we will.  We can do our work to bring about the country we want.  I believe if we really try, we can make the compromises that will be required to bring so many divergent viewpoints together.  We can make this choice, and I believe we must, every day.  I hope to see you out there!

Our country, our lives, the next generations' lives, depend on it.

Thursday, July 4, 2024

The Year Of Dreadful Moments

There is "the moment we've all been waiting for."  And the moments we dread.  The last 22 months have been full of the moments we dread.

May 7, 2023 my mother died.  

It all started August 31, 2022.  And the filing of her 2023 taxes apparently ended it.  In between, plenty of moments to dread. The last 22 months have not been fun.  Nor totally horrible.  Like life itself, the usual combination of both.  And so much more...

September 1, 2022, about 3 AM.  I am sleeping.  My mum had been sleeping much of the previous day.  Not surprising.  An insomniac, she might only sleep one day out of every two or three.  When she slept, she might sleep six hours, or most of the day.  Not a cause for concern.

Unlike September 1, 3 AM.  My mother gets up to go to the bathroom and on the way back, opens the door to my bedroom, across the hall from  her own room.  Was she disoriented, confused?  She claimed not.  She claimed she was making her way into her room holding on to the wall, because, well, she was almost 84.  That while doing, she accidentally opened my door.  And truly, my mother did shuffle and hold on to the wall and doors, usually, making her way about the house.  But something told me she was lying to both of us.  I was uneasy.  But it was 3 AM.  I decided to address it later when she got up for the day.

Except she didn't.  Quite the opposite.  Later that afternoon, she hit the deck.  Hard.

I was out in the kitchen making lunch.  I had checked on my mother a few times because she still slept.  This was unusual enough to make me uneasy, and I couldn't wait to talk to her and get a bead on her condition, a delicate process requiring tact, tact being something I labor to cultivate in the best of times.  But sleep was so difficult for her, if she was having a peaceful rest, I didn't want to interrupt it.  Then I heard my mother moving around.  Then a loud thud.  I didn't automatically freak anymore when hearing a loud thud emanating from my mother's room.  So many times after hearing one, I'd go running to my mother's room, panicked, only to be admonished for "worrying about every little thing."  I was in the middle of making lunch.  So for once I didn't come running.  Until my my mother yelled for help.  Yep, not so smart.  Maybe part of me knew, and didn't want to know.

The next hour was a blur of worrying and EMTs.  Finally my mother was transported to the hospital.  And that began nine very grim months for both of us.

When I went to the hospital the doctors informed me.  The diagnosis was sepsis, the reason for my mother's sleeping and confusion.  And her fall.  The fall, unfortunately, had resulted in a broken tibia, which required surgery.  Assuming my mother cleared the sepsis, (not a guarantee, but it wasn't my mother's first rodeo with serious infection, as she had in her life defeated C.Diff as well as MRSA -- she was a tough old bird), she then would go to a rehab facility to regain her strength and ready herself for surgery, after which she would return to the facility to rehab, with her return home set hopefully for Thanksgiving, Christmas at the latest.

My mother's doctor, a kind and sensitive soul, hastened to reassure me that it was not my fault that I had not recognized the sepsis, as it has a tendency in the elderly to announce itself subtly, then blow up suddenly.  I think this was one of the last times I was wholeheartedly happy with any of my mother's caretakers.

While she was at the hospital, I visited my mother almost daily.  I was coming off a lengthy Covid furlough and was now looking for a job.  My mother cleared sepsis quickly, and soon had surgery to have a cage inserted around her knee to stabilize her tibia until the leg was strong enough for the tibia surgery.  At this point, my mother was sent to Facility #1.

A month to the day of her fall, I went back to work.  I was hired back at The Plaza at Coffee Paradise, again a Supervisor.  But things weren't like they were before.  The barista game had gotten faster, and very intricate.  Time had passed me by.

At first, things were good for my mother at Facility #1, as far as I knew.  She had a phone in her room and I could call and talk to her every day.  Which I did, being as how it was a little far to drive.  Would it have helped if I had?  

After she had been there a few weeks, my mother began to complain about the quality of the food.  And its temperature.  But I had no idea.  Till I saw her.

The facility sent her to an appointment with her surgeon at the hospital.  I met her there, and was shocked at my mother's appearance.  "You've lost at least 20 pounds!" I said in horror.  (Come to find out later it was 28 pounds). It was then that my mother gave me the true picture of eating at the facility.  "Dog food," my mother called it.  Always cold.  

This was followed quickly by a troubling incident.  My mother had had a port inserted; it needed to be tended regularly, lest it clog.  At one point, it needed such tending.  Unfortunately, the LPN on duty did not arrive to do so, not even when my mum repeatedly pressed the button to summon her.  For more than two hours.  Of course the port had clogged and my mother had to be transported to a local hospital to have a small procedure to replace it.  My mother (remember, she was a nurse) was very furious about her treatment and sounded off, as one would expect.  One particular nurse assured her that the young LPN would never treat her again.  "I got your back!" she assured my mum, while in the meantime the staff downplayed the negligent incident, refused to tell my mum the LPN's name, and generally treated my mum like she had a little dementia, and wasn't remembering the incident properly, but exaggerating it.  Yet three weeks to the day my mother's port clogged, the guilty LPN was indeed back to treat her.  Upon seeing her, my mum exclaimed, "I remember you!  It was you that day!" And as my mum leaned forward to attempt to read the LPN's name tag, the girl ran out of the room like the devil was chasing her.  After hearing this, I investigated how to proceed and was told the name of our county's ombudsman.  After consulting with him, he plotted a date to go to the facility and pay my mum a visit.

Unfortunately, before he could my mother got Covid.

"Just a wet cough," her nurse assured me, "Could be alot worse."

I wasn't mollified.  My mother was in chronic heart failure, and the beginnings of kidney failure.  I knew she was not the favored party in a battle with Covid.  What medicine were they giving her?

Mucinex, said the nurse.

MUCINEX!  THAT'S IT?!?!  (I'm shouting here, but I'm 94.33% sure I didn't actually shout at the nurse).  The doctor didn't order anything else, said the nurse.  

Why?  I queried.

I don't know, the nurse said.  He just didn't.

Next thing, I contacted the doctor.  Please believe me, if you believe nothing else I say here, I really was tactful, just this once.  I have gone toe to toe with my mother's doctors, many times.  They have probably regarded me, at best, as a nosy, pushy troublemaker.  But this once, I remembered the many times my mother told me, "Doctors are primadonnas, they have to be handled just so."

So I asked, and I strove to sound kindly and respectful as I did, "I was just curious why you aren't giving my mother any medicine for her Covid?  I was wondering, because she does have alot of pre-existing conditions."

"You were wondering?!"  The doctor roared.  "Are you a doctor?"

"Well, no, I'm not,"  I gasped, shocked.  "Why...?"

"No, I thought not.  You know what you are -- you're just one of those people who is prejudiced against doctors!  I'll tell you why I didn't give your mother Paxlovid!  Because Paxlovid interacts badly with her heart and cholesterol meds, that's why!  Did you know that?"

There was more, but you get the idea.

Come to find out later, meanwhile, that there was nothing stopping this jerk from giving my mum Molnupiravir or Remdesivir.  But I didn't know this at the time and after having my brain figuratively blown out, I wasn't inclined to ask.  My mum did have "only" a wet cough.  She had it for at least a month.  

And was never the same after.  

Would some Covid meds have prevented the ultimate outcome?  We'll never know.  But it would be nice to know we'd tried everything in our toolbox, Dr. Jerk.  Was my mother expendable because she was 84?  Sometimes it sure as hell seems like it.

The doctor did promise to talk to my mother to see if she was as unhappy with his care as I was.  He evidently came out of the interview chastened, because he was alot more humble the next time he talked to me.  He kept me updated well, too, after.  He never prescribed my mother anything but Mucinex, though, I guess because by now it was judged to be too late to start them.

Meanwhile, news from the ombudsman gave us nothing definitive -- the Wall Of Caduceus protected the young LPN, although dietary was slapped on the wrist over the cold, disgusting food.  For the short time my mother stayed in Facility #1 after this, her food was warm, if still pretty substandard, and she was sneeringly asked if her food was warm enough.

After my mum recovered from the actual Covid infection and seemed to them to have most of her strength back, her doctors wanted to go ahead with her surgery.  It was now November, and they were afraid that if they didn't proceed with the surgery soon, my mother's leg would never heal properly, and she would never walk again.  And my mum definitely wanted to walk again.  She was very motivated.  I was uneasy.  I didn't feel she had really gotten her strength back, between the 28 pound weight loss and the Covid.  But I was outvoted.  And they, including my mum, were the medical people.  Her surgery was scheduled for exactly a week before Thanksgiving 2022.

My mother, after being evaluated by her doctors, had moved to Facility #2.  Unfortunately, she did not have a phone in her room in this place, but it was nearer, so I went to see her frequently.  For awhile, she had her cell phone, so we could talk daily, but ultimately my mother had me bring her phone home as facility employees were constantly knocking it over, accidentally unplugging it or putting it out of her reach when moving things to do their work.  If I called the main desk and asked them to pass a message along, I could never be sure she would receive it.  I tried to be understanding that they were overworked and understaffed just like every place seemed to be.  But it was hard when my mother and I miscommunicated several times.

So, the time came for my mother's surgery a week before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, Facility #2 failed to get her transport there on time, and she missed the surgery.  Her surgeon, furious, nonetheless rescheduled her surgery for the Monday before Thanksgiving.

What followed was an unmitigated disaster.

When my mother had had the smaller surgery to insert the cage, she had a reaction to the anesthesia -- delirium for several hours. We both worried about a repeat, and asked that the surgeon use another med.  Did he?  We'll never know.

What I do know is I was notified when my mum came out of surgery.  I spoke to her when the anesthesia wore off.  We had a very pleasant conversation, and I told her I would visit her at the hospital the next day.

The next day I received a call from my mother's nurse, reporting on her condition.  She mentioned (downplayed) that my mother was experiencing "confusion" today.  I explained that I would eat and shower and come in to see my mother in a few hours.  In no way was I prepared...

When I got there, my mum was lying with her eyes closed.  I woke her, and when I did, it soon became obvious my mother was more than "confused", she was delirious.  

She spoke to me, accusing the entire hospital staff, doctors on down, of being drug dealers, of having an agenda to hook everyone in the world on drugs, so we'd all become drug dealers.  She indicated she was writing a book.  As I absorbed this incredulously, she told me to call the city police department and report the drug dealing.  Not knowing what else to say, I told her I didn't think they'd be interested.  My mother replied, "They're in on it."  I told her lamely that I didn't intend to call the cops with something I had no evidence of.  My mother's rejoinder:  "You're in on it, too," and then she turned over on her side facing away from me, apparently intending to sleep.

Stunned and numb, I sat, hoping that a lucid period would descend upon her and return to me the mother I knew.  Suddenly, I understood the morass that people who have loved ones that suffer from dementia must walk though.  As I meditated upon this, a nurse came in, explaining to my now-awake mother and me that test results had come back and my mother was deficient in potassium, and that she was here to give her a supplement.  And as the nurse attempted to give it to her, my mother fought her, yelling that they were drug dealers trying to poison her, and yelling to me to call the police.  Still the nurse persisted, trying to give her the potassium, and my mother struck out at the nurse, making contact at least once.  My mother, the former nurse, who in the 80's and 90's would come home complaining bitterly of bruises inflicted by patients, had hit a nurse.  The nurse gave up and left.

My mother turned back over to sleep, saying nothing to me.  I went home as heartsick as I've ever been.  Maybe medical personnel see delirium all the time; perhaps it's de rigueur to them.  It was one of the most frightening and saddening things I've ever seen.

Meanwhile, at my job our store had been undergoing a remodel.  During the two weeks of the remodel I had been scheduled as a matron; my job was to clean the restrooms, all the tables in the lobby, the drink stations/condiment areas, and wash all the windows.  Now the remodel was finished, and our first day back, predictably, was the busiest day of the year: the day before Thanksgiving, the day after seeing my mother's delirium.

Of course, as soon as I got to work and got the lowdown on the new layout, and all the new machines, my phone began to blow up.  It was the hospital.

"Claudia, can you come down to the hospital and help us re-orient your mother?"  "Claudia, can you help us make a decision on this, that, and the other thing?"  If I had a nickel for every interruption from them...finally I explained that I was at work the first day open after a remodel on the busiest day of our year, and dammit, I am a Supervisor in an all-hands-on a deck situation, and cannot leave my crew for anything less than an abject emergency.  And hello!  My mother and I both explained to you about her weight loss and taking it easy on the anesthesia and meds.  I find it hard to believe that you tailored her anesthesia and post-op pain meds to her post-Covid weakened condition and cold/lousy food weight loss.  And if you didn't, then you need to figure this delirium out.  Not me.

After two more days of delirium, the day after Thanksgiving I heard from her medical team, asking my permission to give my mother a mild dose of a psych drug to help get her back on track.  I gratefully assented, and the medicine worked, at least to the degree that my mother quit believing the drug dealer thing.  Getting her permanently back to her mental/psychological baseline required another five weeks, which unfortunately effectively trashed our last Christmas together.

The next day, Saturday, her medical team called me to get my okay to send her back to Facility #2, as she was back to her mental/psychological baseline.  I refused to give consent until she had three consecutive "baseline" days.  Monday, they did send her back, and l hoped life would gradually return to normal, such as normal was.

During this period, my mother was at times semi-normal; at times touchy, sensitive, belligerent, at times even verbally abusive.  She hung up on me three times in two days because I needed to talk out something I was very upset about.  The last time she hung up on me was right before Christmas, followed by a contentious text exchange Christmas Day.  I was up to here between her, her medical team, Facility #2 and my job.  I went radio silent for a few days just to get some peace and quiet.  My mother had other ideas, and disregarding how plaza employees work pretty heavily during the holiday season, began to pepper me with demands that I (or "her lawyer", which she didn't have, I believe a testament to her still not being 100% cognitively) bring her her debit card, Kindle and some pens.  Unfortunately, I was getting fire-bombed with holiday traffic and call-offs at work, and was beyond overwhelmed.  Finally, after I laid a few home truths on her via text about exactly what I had been up against at different times during our long time together, including the month since her surgery, my mother apologized, and life did return to the new normal of hospital/facility life.  And it stayed that way for about a month.

Unfortunately at the beginning of February, my mum contracted pneumonia, and though we didn't know it at the time, this was the beginning of the end.  Complicating my mother's condition, while she was actively ill with the pneumonia, Facility #2's Office Manager came to my mother's room to notify her she had just about reached the end of insurance coverage, and that if she stayed there past the end of February, they could take her pensions in order to pay her bill.  At this point, those pensions were paying the mortgage, among other things.  If Facility #2 took them, unless I could find a way to come up with an extra $725 a month, we would shortly lose our house.  After conferring legalities with the lawyer, he confirmed that not only could they take my mother's pensions, but also her life insurance policy, which existed for the purpose of paying off our house in the event of my mother's death.  None of this news helped my mother's pneumonia.  And it begs the question: After all the times these stunads called me to discuss trivia and miscellany, why when there was finally something of substance to discuss with me, did they go and dump it on my seriously ill mother, and not contact me at all?

By the end of the month, my mother had beaten her pneumonia. 

Unfortunately, there was no way to beat back time, or the insurance laws.  At the end of the month, at my mother's request (and against Facility #2's advice), I pulled her out of Facility #2 and brought her home, with the idea of getting the County's Department On Aging and her insurance company to help with some cleaning and looking after my mother when I was working.  But fate had other plans...

When I brought my mother home, I was under the impression from her and Facility #2, that she would be capable of (slowly) climbing the steps to our house.  That was, after all, part and parcel of why she was in the facility in the first place, to do exercises, bear weight, walk, climb steps.  According to my mother, she was doing all that.  Unbeknownst to me, Facility #2 had no real steps to practice on.  My mother was practicing on a platform of wooden steps four inches high.  Our steps are seven inches high.

So, when I got my mother home, she couldn't even climb one step.  I had to call the EMTs to carry her into her room.  Moreover, on the third day home, it became obvious that despite diuretic medication, my mother was retaining fluid.  Alot of it.  There was no choice but to get her back to the hospital.

For the next month, the hospital tried to get my mother's body to process its fluid.  She had been in mild heart failure for several years, and had, prior to her fall, been taking daily doses of a diuretic, checking her weight daily to make sure there was no water retention.  There had been mild kidney involvement prior to the fall, but we had managed successfully with those very simple steps and medications.  For her first 2+ months in the hospital and facilities, my mother did fine, and made great progress.  Till she lost 28 pounds.  Got Covid.  Then pneumonia.  Now four months after her bout with Covid, and seven weeks after pneumonia, my mother's body was failing.  As I found out one day late in March when her PCP, who was also head of geriatrics at the hospital, and who had looked in on my mother's case, called me.

The upshot:  Claudia, we've done everything we could.  We cannot, even with the most aggressive diuretic treatment, consistently keep fluid from accumulating in your mother's body.  In short, her heart is failing.  And her kidneys are not far behind.  We (the doctors) would like to have you come over here ASAP and talk about putting your mother into hospice.  And once we get her there, the idea is that she will probably be put into palliative care and kept comfortable until the end comes.

We decided I'd go in to meet with them on Sunday, April 2nd, my next day off.

When I went to the hospital that Sunday, I was saddened at my mother's decline.  She had lost so much ground in the little over a month she had been in the hospital, even in the mere days since I had last seen her.  So difficult to awaken when I went in her room; so drowsy even then.  The nurses had alerted the doctors to my presence.  Still, I had a small window of time to talk to my mother before they got there.  I used it to break the news that she needed to hear from me and no one else, that she was dying.  Which seemed at once to surprise her, yet not surprise her.

Soon two doctors came in and sat down with us, sketched out the situation, asked my mum's preferences for care.  It was explained to us that they, the doctors at the hospital, believed that my mother was ready for palliative care, which in our state means merely care that will keep one comfortable, but nothing aggressive to try to save her life.  Of course, the doctors at the hospice care facility that she went to would have their say, and if they felt differently, if they felt my mother could still be saved, they may try, but the hospital doctors thought that was unlikely, in view of my mother's condition, and the rapidity of her decline.  About that, they were wrong...

Now my mother was wide awake and lucid.  I kept a promise to my friend "Beth", who my mother considered to be a second daughter, to call her while I was with my mum to give them a chance to talk one last time.  We spent the next hour or so talking over our time together.  I told my mother that I thought that when it was her time to pass, that her beloved father would come to take her to the next world.

"If Grandpa comes for you, go with him, Ma," I told her.  "He would never do anything to hurt you in life, and he wouldn't now, either.  Just think, soon you'll get a new body, and all your pain will be gone."

"I'll be thin again!"  And as she said this, I saw her pallor and the oxygen cannula and wanted to cry.

At the end of approximately 75 minutes after the doctors had left, my mother was tiring badly, and everything had been said that needed to be.  (For this reason I am grateful for the period that I was furloughed from my job during Covid, and that we had gotten to have so many talks that had answered questions and healed things between the two of us, making this last day so much easier for both of us).  I told my mother how much I loved her, more than anyone in my life.  My mother surprised me by telling me she loved me the most, too.  Knowing how much she had loved and missed her father, I was indeed surprised and touched.  I got up, held my mother for the last time, gave her a last kiss and a squeeze, told her I loved her again.  And left.

I managed to hold back the tears heading through the halls of the hospital, the elevator and the walk to the car.  There I let the tears come, briefly, then drove home, where I let them come freely.

I never saw my mother again.

After I had met with my mother and her doctors, I was under the impression that it would be a few days after her decisions on her end-of-life care before my mother was taken to Facility #3.  It was not even clear when I left April 2 which facility was going to become Facility #3.  The way the doctors talked, it seemed likely that Facility #3 would wind up being further away than I was comfortable driving, painfully average and nervous driver that I am.  So I had stayed and talked to my mother until she was worn out in case they sent her too far away for me to drive.

Monday, April 3, 2023, I received calls from both the hospital and Facility #3 several miles away where my mother had already been taken.  Late in the afternoon, Facility #3 sent me a form via email outlining their care and treatment plan, requesting my consent and signature.  The plan was not the palliative care designed merely to keep my mother comfortable that she had wanted and consented to the day before.  But the hospital's doctors had warned us the new facility's doctors might see things differently than they, and that we would risk losing Medicare coverage of her stay if we didn't go along with them.  Facility #3's front desk nurse informed me my mother had consented to Facility #3's treatment plan (I believe they wore her down), so technically my consent and signature were moot (although I had only their word for my mother's consent and level of lucidity).  I did not sign the document, instead I wrote "I do not consent" in my email reply.

In the next month, my mother went to a different hospital, and from there was sent on to Facility #4.  All the way until her death little more than a month later, her care was more than palliative.  My mother was reevaluated the day before she died, and in my heart I was praying she would meet the criteria for mere palliative care.  She was not improving, and there was no real hope she would improve.  Yet she still did not qualify for palliative care, was turned down, being made to suffer needlessly, basically, I felt, so the facility could reap profits.

All of my life since I have been capable of self-reflection, I have prided myself on having strength and courage, on doing the right thing.  So many times I needed to have megadoses of all three: hanging in there through all the abuse, through recovery from the abuse, through the fight to retain our house after my mother's disability, and through 22 years of her retirement and ill health.  It was a long hard road, one that many times I had wished I could quit.  But I could never quit my mother; I loved her so much.

But now after so many years of fighting for her home and health, and taking care of both as conscientiously as possible, I ran out of gas short of the finish.  My strength and courage were completely spent; and my ability and desire to do the right thing were compromised by fatigue and overwhelm.

By the time she had been in the hospital a few weeks back in March, my mother had been deeply asleep approximately 20 hours a day; this apparently didn't change at Facility #3 or 4.  I made the decision not to go see her.  I rationalized that we had said all there was to be said.  And when a voice inside said I should not let my mother die alone, I told it we all die alone, that my presence would hold my mum here when Grandpa came to lead her away.  Away from the suffering.

I told myself lots of things.  About why I needn't go see my mum again.  Why I had to.  Bottom line, I couldn't bear to watch my mother die.  Or even watch her go downhill anymore than she already had.  In my mother's and my long history, I had been able to stomach virtually everything else.  

But not watching my mother die.

In the month since her admission to Facility #3 and now #4, I received several phone calls, none with good news. Most of these calls came when I was at work, requiring me to go outside or in the back, take the call, and then go back about the business of making lattes or scrubbing toilets like nothing had ever happened.  Maybe a stronger, better person than me could keep doing that, I don't know.  But I couldn't.

I finally told the nurses to stop with the daily Bad News Bears and call me when something had changed one way or the other.  

The first few days of May, the nurse called me to let me know on Saturday the 6th, they would be reevaluating my mother vis à vis mere palliative care.  Saturday afternoon I spoke directly to a doctor who called to tell me it was the opinion of the team that my mum did not meet the criteria for palliative care.  Off the phone, I muttered to myself about dumb doctors who don't know when people are dying.

The next evening, a nurse called while I was at work.  Of course, due to HIPAA, they, as usual, did not leave a message.  It was late in the evening, I was running behind in my work.  I decided, as the tone did not seem urgent, to wait and call them back while I was at home.  The day was very busy, as was typical at The Plaza in May; buses going down to DC and wherever else, lotsa traffic eating, drinking and messing.  Especially messing.  I was exhausted, and when I got home, I rationalized that if I called, as had frequently happened, the evening shift had probably not apprised the overnight shift on what they wanted to talk to me about.  As I was off Monday, I decided to call when I got up.  

The next morning when I woke up I noticed there had been a message from them around 2:30 AM.  Swallowing my panic, I called the facility.  It turns out they had called me Sunday night because Sunday afternoon, my mother had taken a turn for the worse, and had been transported to the nearby hospital. 

 Apparently my mother died late in the evening, and Facility #4 had called to inform me overnight shortly after they were informed.  (For awhile I was under the impression that as the facility had notified me of my mother's death early the morning of May 8th, that was when she died, but a few weeks after her death I did find she had died late on Sunday May 7th, making her obituary unfortunately incorrect).

I texted my job; my boss very kindly offered to give me a week off, which I very gratefully accepted.  I made my mother's final arrangements, and during the week off I applied for her life insurance policy.  I received it almost two months later on July 6, and the next day, put in my two week notice.  (My mother was a hoarder; her room was a mess, and I had barely managed to clean out her half of the pantry and kitchen cabinets, the medicine cabinet, bathroom closet and some drawers in the two months since she had passed.  I needed to confab with a realtor to see what I needed to fix to sell the house at maximum profit, as well as how likely and in what price range I could get a house like I wanted in the location I wanted.  I needed to get my mother's will probated, pay the house off, clean her room, and go through all her stuff.  I wanted to operate efficiently, in case the conditions were right to move to a smaller and cheaper place, something to consider due to my county's high property tax.  I felt if I tried to do all that and work, I may not get done in this lifetime).  My workplace was not too happy at the news, especially with it being the middle of the busy summer, but the truth is, I wasn't capable of being a good employee anyway.  The barista game had kind of passed me by.  The drinks were increasingly fussy and intricate, and my body and brain had slowed down; the 2 1/2 years I had been furloughed during the pandemic, and everything that had happened since my mother was first hospitalized the previous September had taken a toll.  I needed a break to take care of business at home, and to heal.

I will write the deets on the cleaning of my mother's room in a separate post, but suffice it to say I got it done in 4 1/2 months, and the difference is nothing short of remarkable, if I do say so myself.  By early December, I demonstrated Right To Survivorship of my mother's estate to the bank and paid off the house.  I returned to work, this time as a matron, in January, 2024.

They say after losing a loved one, the first year is the hardest.  I was warned about how sad and difficult birthdays and holidays would be.  And that is the gospel.  Mother's Day, a week after my mother's passing, and my birthday, a month after, were the hardest.  Christmas, my mother's favorite holiday, was kind of difficult, too.

But honestly, the random moments grief sneaks up on you when you're not expecting it were (and still are), for me, the worst.  One day last October, I drove out to Aldis to grocery shop.  On the way home, it suddenly dawned on me that for the first time I would be making my mother's favorite, meatloaf, and she wouldn't be here to eat it. I nearly had to pull over for the tears.  On the way home from another grocery trip late this May, I was stunned to see daisies on one hillside.  Instantly I was transported back to my childhood on the Verona Hilltop, and the little bouquets I had picked for my mother.  Again the tears, but at least this time I had another store to stop at, and thus a parking lot to wash my face in.

Mostly I just miss my mum every day.  Memories bubble up, of both words and actions, both good and not so, because my mum and I were/are human.  In the winter, I was having a persistent, nagging pain under my left breast. Was it muscular?  An ulcer?  One night as I slept, I dreamed about the pain, and I heard my mother's voice plain as day: "Oh for Chrissake, Claudia, it's your boob!"  A muscle relaxant did fix the pain, and I had to laugh.  That is exactly what my mother would say, and how she'd say it.

I think I'll never stop missing her.  I think of her every single day, many times.  Sometimes I think she's up there, smoothing my path in many small and large ways.  And I have many earth angels, because sooner or later, if we live long enough, we all lose our parents.  We have that in common, those of us who have lost our parents, and those who know they someday will.  You earth angels know who you are:  I humbly thank you.

The story and pics of my mother's room coming in my next post.

Friday, October 28, 2022

The Death Of Our Democratic Republic

Yesterday while texting with a friend, we bewailed the sad state of America.  I told her in no uncertain terms the events that I believe have brought us to this place.  Her silence afterward could've been indicating it was nearing her bedtime and the subject was too complicated for that time.

More likely, her silence indicated disagreement.  Despite her occasional attempts to portray herself otherwise, my friend's opinions during the discussions we have had about politics reveal her to be quite Conservative.  Which is not a bad thing to be.  Also rather unaware of alot of the nuances and small details of American History from the past 75 years, which, while understandable, is a bad thing to be.  Ignorance begets more ignorance, which frequently begets more misunderstanding, fear and ultimately, sometimes violence.  At very least, ignorance has what I call the Earhart Effect, after Amelia Earheart and her final journey, which ended in her disappearance, and that of her navigator, Fred Noonan.  Though I and many others through the years have entertained ourselves with conspiracy theories surrounding Earhart and Noonan's disappearance, most likely the responsibility belongs to Earhart and Noonan.  One small navigating mistake of Noonan's was built upon by another, and when combined with Earhart's ignorance of radio communications, most likely resulted in their deaths.  Just so, in politics, as in life, small mistakes and ignorance frequently lead to other kinds of death -- spiritual death, death of rights, etc.  Compound that with the busyness of making a living, raising children, well, a person has to be very motivated to keep up with the facts and changes.  But this blogger submits that this is exactly our duty:




Submitted for your consideration, are, in my opinion, the factors that have led to the US being in the state it is in now, culminating with the final one, which just transpired today:

1.   The Southern Strategy - Republicans ginning up support by appealing to racist tendencies of some voters, which is really just a continuation of racist policies from the very birth of this nation.  America has an Original Sin against Native Americans and slaves.  They have compounded this Original Sin with Forty Acres And A Mule (a promise promptly broken), placing Native Americans on reservations, and Japanese internment camps being some of the most glaring.  Our sins against our black brothers and sisters represent some of our lowest moments as a country.  Besides slavery and the broken Forty Acres promise, there were burnt crosses, lynchings, being forced to the back of the bus, separate drinking fountains/lunch counters/hotels rooms, etc., redlining, and even now cops and white people torturing people for Living While Black.

2.   The election of Richard Nixon, which birthed Watergate and arguably, the beginning of toxic mistrust of the government.  (And as aggregious as Watergate was, the sins of Donald J Trump pale it in comparison, which is really saying something).

3.   The marriage of the Republican Party and Evangelical Christianity.  This point is beyond the scope of this blog post, but something I will be dealing with in a more detailed way in the future.  I urge you to click on the link to get a gander at the myriad of ways this contemptible tactic was used to sneakily gain power.  I can see the possibility of a divorce in this marriage, though, as I have been hearing frustration from true conservatives with the expansion of what used to be their quite reasonable, principled party into the Tea Party of the Aughts, and today's MAGAs and Qs.

4.   The election of Ronald Reagan - yes, Reagan, the "Great Communicator", but remember, he was an actor, and though forever a B-lister, his finest acting role was the firm, but kind and grandfatherly President Reagan.  It is hard to tell how much of the evil that accompanied his presidency was due to Reagan himself and how much was due to his cabinet, political associates and minions.   I did not know this, but "The presidency of Ronald Reagan in the United States was marked by numerous scandals, resulting in the investigation, indictment, or conviction of over 138 administration officials, the largest number for any president in American history."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_administration_scandals?wprov=sfla1

The article mentions Iran-Contra, the HUD Rigging Scandal, Lobbying Scandal, EPA Scandal, Savings And Loan Crisis, Operation Ill Wind, The Wed Tech Scandal, and Debategate. (Jeez, even I, who am no Reagan fan, only remember Iran-Contra and the Savings And Loan Crisis.  Who knew?).

These are the beefs I have with Uncle Ronnie:

A.   Trickle-Down Reaganomics - (Surprise!  Prosperity, unlike shit, does not roll downhill).  We are still afflicted by Trickle-Down and Supply-Side, and though they may work short-term, i.e., getting a country out of a recession, in regular times, not so effective.  And surprise!  FDR got us out of the Great Depression by creating opportunities to put us back to work that led to more than 25 years of prosperity.  Biden tried to combine this concept with a much-needed infrastructure rebuild in Build Back Better, which the Republicans blocked, and then had the nerve to call a failed plan!  But I digress.  Point is, Trickle-Down does not.

B.   Reagan let gays and bisexuals die of AIDS because in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic the vast majority of American people who acquired HIV were gay/bisexual men.  Reagan did not want to risk losing the support of the Evangelical branch of conservatives, (for so many of whom the LGBTQIA community is a whipping boy), so he did a Nero and fiddled for four years while Rome burned instead of being presidential and protecting his gay and bisexual citizens.  If he had taken a good look around, he would have seen that only in the US and Canada had AIDS primarily struck gay and bisexual men at that stage.  In other countries AIDS was a human problem, striking down people of all stripes equally.  I lost a good friend and several acquaintances to HIV.  I hold Reagan and his advisors partly responsible.

C.   Reagan switched from LBJ's and Carter's focus on social programs that benefitted the most vulnerable citizens, including the mentally ill, to a focus on the fiscal that benefitted Big Business and the wealthy.  And proper treatment of the mentally ill was set back, de-prioritized and shrouded in shame and misunderstanding, and continues to be to this day.

D.   Reagan's environmental record was abysmal, and he spent alot of energy undoing Carter's admirable legacy.

E.   Reagan worked to repeal the Fairness Doctrine, which in turn led to the rise of Fox "News", which led to Newsmax, OANN, et al.  And the rise of Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and that goofy effing My Pillow Guy.  Not to mention the out-of-control campaign ads we must suffer through periodically, currently continuously for 11 months since before Christmas.  Give me a break!

To me, there is very little more responsible for the dumbing-down and misinformation of America than Fox ("Not a news channel!"/"No reasonable viewer" would believe Tucker Carlson), except for

5.   Toxic social media, by way of the internet

And today's evil:

6.   The takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk.  Why is Musk acquiring Twitter evil?

A.   Musk will fire a substantial amount of Twitter employees.  As in 75%.  Oh, yeah, Musk tried to walk that number back, but he's already fired the CEO and other prominents and hello!  The paperwork he filed with the SEC cites approximately that figure.

B.   Musk will probably reinstate the accounts of his ol' buddies Donald J Trump and Kanye West.  Trump is delighted at the deal, saying Twitter is "finally in sane hands".  Well, that's the highest ringing endorsement this acquisition could bring, isn't it?/s.  And boy, isn't Kanye West just full of love, joy and mirth these days?/s.  Hurt people hurt people, I get that.  I feel for both Trump and West.  But they don't have the right to spread their poison for many others to consume.

C.   Musk is pretty cushy with Putin, and thinks we ought to just let him have Crimea and Ukraine.  Awww, well ain't that sweet?  Anyone remember the last time...wasn't it Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of England, recommending appeasing Hitler?  Well, we all know how that turned out, don't we?  Yes, I know, Musk isn't in charge of a government, but a man that rich in charge of that big of an "information" exchange bank should give us all pause.

D.   I have my doubts that Musk the "free speech absolutist" understands the concept that for every right or freedom we enjoy, we must pony up at least one responsibility.   Seems like a few other prominent folks share my concern.   Truly, this dude reminds me of another "stable genius", his buddy Trump, (yep, birds of a feather).  Only we can't vote Musk out.   Think about it.

 

Saturday, June 11, 2022

Out Of The Woodwork

If you weren't watching your calendar, how would you know it's Pride Month?

Well, I guess you could tell by the images of the LGBTQIA+ community celebrating:



Or you could tell by the attacks on them, verbal and otherwise.  These are sad and scary.  And particularly deplorable when made by members of the clergy:



And let the record show that I, a victim of a (very heterosexual) pedophile, find the third speaker, Pastor Jonathan Shelley, particularly contemptible.   

Homosexuality ≠ Pedophilia.  And I'm damned sick and tired of hearing that it does.  Let us pull our heads from our asses, shall we?                                  

Got a minute?  Here's a pastor, Reverend Ed Trevors, who explains in a true Christian and scholarly way, some of the Scripture quoted and (mis)taught by these aforementioned heretical and hypocritical pastors:



Now mind you, I'm not sure I'm down with calling the heretics "asshats" anymore -- I am aware that when we dehumanize a fellow human being, it makes some comfortable with everything from marginalizing to battery and murder.  I believe in furthering progressive values always, and we do ourselves no favors when we cross those kind of lines, like the recent assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh.  But otherwise I am down with the Reverend Ed, and what he represents.  

Can we please, literally for the love of God, get it together, people?  

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/9/2103264/--Shoot-them-in-the-back-of-the-head-Evangelical-preachers-ratchet-up-anti-LGBTQ-hate-rhetoric

May the LGBTQIA+ community be safe from hate groups, as well.

https://www.aol.com/members-white-nationalist-group-charged-005407685-021729364.html

Friday, May 6, 2022

By The Sword?

So, a few days ago, Politico broke the news that the Supreme Court appears likely to overturn Roe v. Wade this summer.  We can't say this is surprising.  It was the entire goal of the Republican Party, starting in the 70's, and culminating in 2020, with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett.  The 6-3 majority is the wet dream conceived and cherished by the Republicans in 2016 when they cynically blocked the 2016 election year nomination of Merrick Garland after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

The fear among many who may not be directly affected by abortion rights is if SCOTUS can overturn Roe v. Wade because the Constitution did not specifically confer the right to abortion, what other rights assumed, via Supreme Court decisions, to be conferred by the Constitution may be re-visited and overturned?  This Daily Kos story gives a hint -- and I will quote from it directly: "As such, the draft ruling intrinsically calls into question other unenumerated rights the Supreme Court has conferred on Americans, such as the right to privacy, raise children, use contraception, or marry the person of their choosing regardless of the color of their skin or their gender."  Yep, definitely a "live by the sword, die by the sword" kinda sitch.

Is anybody besides me amused by the irony that many, not the least among them Chief Justice John Roberts, are pissed off right now because someone betrayed the Court's right to privacy, and leaked a document about their preliminary ruling on Roe v. Wade, which case itself was predicated on the concept that a woman's right to privacy was grounded in personal liberty and/or due process (thinkwy.org/post/the-right-to-privacy-and-the-road-to-roe-v-wade)?

And polls conducted in recent years indicate most Americans want to keep Roe v. Wade firmly in place as is, as this recent CBS News poll indicates. The poll, conducted in November 2021, shows a whopping 62% of Americans want Roe v. Wade.  How do we feel about one party hijacking the court to impose its will, which is contrary to the will of the majority of Americans, not to mention the mission statement of our country?  And how do those 38% who may approve of the repeal of Roe v. Wade feel about the way the repeal is being carried out?  Are they cool with a future Supreme Court ruling that affects how they raise their kids or under what circumstances they can use birth control?  The sword cuts both ways.

And ladies, do we really want to trust primarily menfolk to make these decisions?  Before you answer, bear in mind men have proven they don't really know their way around a woman's body.

Even those of us that may not seem to, have skin in the game.  My mother, for example.  What the hell does an 83-year old care about abortion being legal?  My mother began her nursing career as a student in 1956.  In those days the nursing schools used their students as cheap labor, so they cleaned and did some patient care.  Abortions weren't legal until 1973, so my mother as a young nurse saw the consequences of back-alley abortions more than once. 

"Women who have unsafe abortions are at risk of serious medical problems, including incomplete abortion, hemorrhage (heavy bleeding), infection, uterine perforation (caused when the uterus is pierced by a sharp object), and damage to the genital tract and internal organs (by inserting dangerous objects such as sticks, knitting needles, or broken glass into the vagina or anus). Each year around 7 million women are admitted to hospitals for complications of unsafe abortion and between 4.7% – 13.2% of maternal deaths can be attributed to unsafe abortion."

https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/impact-of-illegal-abortion/  

Imagine being an 18-year-old and seeing someone bleed out, or worse yet, die from septicemia.  Since I was a teenager my mother has drummed into my head how calamitous it would be if Roe v. Wade were overturned.

Now I will tell you my experience.  No, I've never had an abortion.  My experience is a little more complicated.  

My mother was unwed when she had me.  Being an unwed mother was a lot less accepted in 1965 than it is now.  Before my mother became pregnant with me, she was an ER nurse.  She loved it there -- the ER was where the action was.  But in 1965, being visibly pregnant while wearing a nametag that said Miss So-and-So was not done.  My mother was forced out of the ER, and she never had a job that she really enjoyed for the rest of her nursing career, which spanned nearly 30 more years.  My father had bailed, and he was the only man my mother ever loved.  Too bad he evidently didn't love her back.  My mum didn't really want children.  She didn't like children, and didn't think she'd be good with them.  Remember there were no safe, legal abortions then.  My mother had me because she didn't want to put me up for adoption and worry and wonder if I was OK and being well taken care of.  And because she hoped that if she kept me, I would love her, unlike my father.  Are these good reasons to keep a child you really don't want?

Early on, my grandmother was available to help raise me.  But my mother decided I needed a father, so she married my stepfather.  Grandma didn't like John, she and my mum argued, and next thing you know, grandma was on her way out of my life.  She died of metastasized breast cancer when I was not quite six.  

Regular readers of this blog know what happened next: more than twelve years spent with a controlling, physically, verbally, and sexually abusive alcoholic, twelve years I am still recovering from.  After my mother's divorce in 1982, I spent the next five years extremely depressed.  I got a job at age 18 and didn't get another one for four years because my stepfather had profoundly eroded (and my first employer all but finished destroying) my confidence that I had anything to offer a workplace.  Fortunately I rebounded after subsequent jobs.

Rebounding from the rest has not happened yet; I suffer from low-level depression and anxiety to this day.  Unfortunately most of the 90's were spent keeping my mother from losing her house, and by the time her finances were on an even keel again, my mum had had three back surgeries and other ailments that forced an early retirement. That late in the game, college was not realistic for me -- how would I pay back student loans before retirement?

Looking at the whole thing logically and dispassionately, it simply would have been better for my mother to have aborted me.  Better for her, so that she would have been able to forge the career path she had been headed on and deserved.  She wouldn't have dissipated her energies raising a child (though I was a very good and easy child to raise -- an "old soul" and a "little adult" from the get-go, by my mother's own words).  And not being an unwed mother would have given my mum a much better pool of men to marry, or the choice to not get married at all.  She may have decided to devote herself to going into college, in order to work herself more easily into a supervisory position.  Which would have helped insure that she didn't retire poor, and with her body broken down, which is exactly what happened to her.  And my mother wouldn't have had a daily visual reminder that a man that said that he loved her and wanted to have children then had bailed when the chips were down.  

And as for me, I never would have been molested, verbally or physically abused.  Never would have been taken inside a bar at age nine, and then another time conversely left inside a hot truck for an hour or two, under strict orders not to open the door or roll down the window, while my stepfather drank in a bar, then taken home sick from the heat.  I would have never had to watch my mother rise up righteous in rage for once, and then watch her slam around all day and evening till I believed she was mad at me, too, due to that incident.  And after another incident, (one of many times he drove drunk with me in the car), I never would have spent part of a night hearing my stepfather throwing up from drinking till he burst a blood vessel in his throat, and the rest of the night and some of the morning in the ER waiting room while he was being treated and admitted.

I never would have experienced my mother at first defending me from my stepfather's attacks and abuse, then the betrayal in later years of her going silent about it, and finally at times participating in it.  I never would have had my self-confidence snuffed out, nor the aformentioned anxiety and depression that I still struggle with, nor the resultant health problems.  I would never have spent most of my life feeling out of place and out of step with other people -- awkward, incompatible, and unassimilable.

And I never would have spent so many years of my life trying to make up to my mother that my father didn't love her, and knocking myself out trying to prove to her that she made the right decision keeping me.

Which is less harrowing and more expedient?  And which is the greater sin, the abortion that didn't happen, or the years of abuse, of deprivations, of mental and physical issues that did happen and still are happening?

Yes, I know, it is possible to save a child from an unfortunate birth situation without having an abortion -- one can give the child up for adoption.  When a child is placed with an adoptive family, we hope that family is investigated for fitness to adopt, but fitness according to whom, and to what criteria?

I am familiar with some folks who have four children.  The eldest two, both males, are their biological children.  The youngest two, both adopted, are female.  The girls were raised totally differently from the boys -- they had much fewer responsibilities, and alot more swag.  The girls were even raised very differently from each other -- one cast in the role as the pretty, bright achiever, and the other who was never quite as successful in the worldly sense.  The mother was very aggressive about setting the sisters against each other in competition, and I was upon occasion thrown into this mix, compared unfavorably to the achiever.  Although I was independent enough to openly (and at times, loudly) resist such manipulation, the two sisters were not.  Now both have weight and self-confidence issues.  The achiever is an insecure people-pleaser, a sad woman who fears intimacy.  Her sister spent several years being unhappily married to a child molester.  She is every bit as bright as her sister (as well as the family's second son, who are both doctors), and she could have been a damn fine doctor herself (or anything else she wanted to be) if only her mother hadn't told her a million times in a million ways that she wasn't good enough.

Is this little homily an indictment of adoption?  Not at all.  Am I saying an abortion would have been better?  Absolutely not.  Just that if you really want to stop abortions, you're not going to succeed in doing it in the courts, via laws.  You're going to have to change hearts.  And you're gonna have to get a helluva lot better at contingencies, and details.  And that brings me to my closing.

If the SCOTUS follows up and reverses Roe v. Wade, those of you who helped bring that change by voting, marching, stumping, opining, bankrolling and praying, might feel tempted to take a victory lap.  I wouldn't advise it.  You're going to need your strength.  For a couple of reasons.

Did you ever hear that old Chinese saying, "When you save a life, you're responsible for it?"  Yep.  Now the child needs to be fed, clothed, kept dry and warm, taught the three R's, how to navigate a car, a computer, social media, how to take care of himself, how to work, how to treat people, how to love.  Maybe sent to college. Who's gonna do all that?  The adoptive family?  Well, we hope so. Adoption agencies are overburdened, underfunded and understaffed.  And alot of people don't qualify to adopt -- LGBTQ, POC, singles, "too old", etc.  What then?  Where will y'all be?  Are you in for a penny, or a pound?  What good does it do the child if you save him from the abortion and then just go carve another notch wherever it is you carve 'em, and never think about the child again?  Not your responsibility?  But it was yours to stop the abortion?  Let us consider our labels carefully -- anti-abortion, pro-life.  Which label belongs to the one who saves the fetus, and which belongs to the one who commits to seeing that the child is properly raised and provided for?  

An Anglican minister's definition of pro-life:



And another reason to forgo your victory lap:  Those of us who are on the other side of this issue WERE asleep.  We took for granted that the Supreme Court, though it might now heavily favor one political persuasion, was provident enough not to amend the rights heretofore considered inherent in the 9th and 14th Amendments.  We assumed they would not be so disrespectful to the institution of The Supreme Court as to politicize it by diluting or annulling decades of rulings that were based on the right to privacy, and compromising the faith American citizens have in, and the security they rightfully derive from, the pillars of settled law.

Now that we see the lengths these folks are willing to go to, and how little their integrity means to them when they can trade it to manipulate The American System and turn it into a mockery -- holding up a Supreme Court nomination for eight months in one election year when it suits them, and speeding one through in another, (and in the middle of a pandemic) when that suits them; gerrymandering and restricting voting rights, especially those of people of color, the poor, and the elderly, even to the extent of forbidding voters standing in long lines on hot days to be given water.  Yeah, a real honorable bunch.

Well, courtesy of the latest of these tactics, now we're awake, and in record numbers.  AND WE'RE PISSED!  Those who a week ago may have predicted a red wave in the midterms are not bragging quite so loudly now.  And some of us think that was the motive of the leaker.  Stay tuned.

Of course, we could just grow a pair and end this BS one and for all, and in a decisive way.  How 'bout we put it on a national referendum in 2024, and Let The People Decide?  It'd be alot better than letting such a thing as the vagaries of the political makeup of the Supreme Court do it by taking away Americans' right to privacy.  Or worse yet, signaling that sometimes we have a right to privacy, sometimes we don't -- rights to be decided and rescindable at any time, on any whim, with any shift in SCOTUS makeup.  And my fellow Americans, do we really want abortion to become a States Rights issue?  Are you really cool with the way the US is being fragmented and trivialized by States Rights?  What is stronger, the United States, or Fifty Nifty Little Fiefdoms?  Think about it.

Abortion poll stats from the last ten years.

Some religions do support abortion rights.

And to end this post on a lighter note, more of the clueless menfolk.

And still more, with a sprinkling of clueless womenfolk just for the hell of it.