I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: General Discussion => Topic started by: kickingandscreaming on September 13, 2018, 08:42:32 AM
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With all the hoopla about Hurricane Florence it gets me thinking how very vulnerable we dialysis patients really are. I'm sure a lot of the nearly 3,000 Americans who died in Maria were dialysis people who could not get dialysis. I just heard report of a man in Carolina who wasn't evacuating. When pressed he said that his wife is on Oxygen and would never survive evacuation or staying.
Last winter, I lost power for several days. When I lost power, I lose electricity, heat, phone, water(well pump) and most everything else. I had to borrow a generator from the police just to get some dialysis happening. And I had to go to bed clutching a manual PD bag to my body to warm it up. I felt very vulnerable. And now, thinking about Florence, feeling of vulnerability are front and center. We are the expendables.
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I think about this all the time. I'm originally from Houston and have seen my share of hurricanes. Most of my family live on or around the Gulf Coast. We had a house about 4 blocks from the beach in Long Beach, Mississippi (I later inherited it but sold it because I knew I couldn't take care of it if I had to go on dialysis), and when Katrina hit, everything from our block down to the beach was obliterated. At the time, my mother was on dialysis in Houston, but she'd spend a lot of time in that house and so would have dialysis in either Gulfport or Biloxi. I often wondered what those particular clinics did when Katrina hit.
Anyway, not long after Katrina, Hurricane Rita hit Houston, and my mom and the rest of the patients at her DaVita clinic were to be evacuated to Dallas, but they never got there because of this:
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Hurricane-Rita-anxiety-leads-to-hellish-fatal-6521994.php
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=K2moTLPo&id=4EF0827F909B9929926F35BE63BD7870CFBFAAB0&thid=OIP.XReYtE0J8qHrcMjntX_gzAHaE8&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2falisonnissen.files.wordpress.com%2f2012%2f10%2frita-evacuation.jpg&exph=683&expw=1024&q=hurricane+rita+traffic+jam&simid=608055182805696812&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0
So, yeah, I know exactly what you mean!
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I live in a reasonably safe country. We have the occasional flood and heavy snow storm, both of which could stop me getting to dialysis for a few days, but not long enough to be a serious problem. But when I realised the problems some people in less environmentally safe countries may suffer, it sent me cold.
Good luck to those about to be hit. :grouphug;
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Not to worry if a hurricane hits and you die Turmp will raise you from the dead just as he thinks he has with the dead 0n Porto Rico.
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Will I have a choice?
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Here in Mid-Missouri we have had the power go out for days from an ice storm. Propane heat furnace won't work without electricity.
Food we packed in coolers and set them out in the freezing back room.
Thankfully we have a gas fire place. It is hidden behind the big flat screen TV so I had to move the TV off to the side. Couldn't watch it anyway. Fire up the fire place then start hanging quilts in the hallway to shut off the bedrooms leaving the heat trapped in the living room/dining room.
I always keep multiple jugs of 5 gal water in the garage, so moved them inside to keep them from freezing. Drug the propane BBQ into the garage so we had a gas grill plus the little stove burner on the side.
I still have to find me one of those little old perk pots as simply tossing coffee grounds into boiling water works, but I rather it be filtered somewhat.
I have a couple of little generators, neither one is big enough to run an appliance, much less a house. That is on my 'Want' list. Maybe next year.
My Dialysis Clinic has a REAL Generator in the corner of the parking lot. So far I've never heard it fired up. I hope the battery is plugged into a tender.