lonefighter

Check your state law. In some states it is very illegal to ignore a properly filled out DNR, religion or no religion.

Also, hospice is not state assisted suicide. Hospice is comfort care, and it's not about causing someone to die, it's about helping someone who is terminal be more comfortable during the time they have left.

Hospice is comfort care. It's letting the person die naturally while doping them up on pain meds so they aren't as miserable. It's not state assisted suicide (that's something else), it's about not giving additional interventions to someone who is terminal anyway and helping them be as comfortable as possible with the time they have left. If the person is able to eat they can eat, and if they can't eat on their own that's an additional conversation between the patient and the family and their healthcare team. Normally they would not be tube fed, but sometimes people aren't comfortable with that and then that's additional conversations of what needs to be done. You don't just go on hospice and instantly get starved, people are on hospice for weeks to months, that physically couldn't happen if they are starving everyone.

I have a replica of Mehrunes Razor. I keep it on a display stand on a shelf. I was 2 hours late getting off work one day, which meant that my cats were 2 hours late getting fed. I got home and walked through my front door to find the Razor unsheathed in the middle of the floor and both cats sitting there glaring at me. Message received.

Half Life Alyx made me forget I was playing a game.

Vanilla Skyrim VR is a terrible, buggy mess. Modded it's really good. Vanilla VR you just have hands and no body, can only equip weapons with a button, and can only have one weapon equipped at a time. With mods you can look down and see your whole body, have all your weapons in holsters that you draw from and switch between as needed (my default load is a short sword on each hip, a dagger on each forearm, and a bow with different enchantments over each shoulder). Mods also let you use the index controllers to their potential, so I can keep my hands open and to draw my weapons I literally just reach and grab my controllers like I'm actually grabbing the weapon. It adds a touch of realism that's just amazing.

I'm playing the Yggdrasil modpack. It's not perfect, but it's really good. If you aren't familiar with modpacks, the nice thing about them is that you don't have to worry about tweaking mods and making sure they're compatible, you just run through the modpack install and you're good to go. I've found it to be pretty stable as far as crashes, I did disable a few mods related to spellcasting that I didn't like, which you aren't supposed to do, and that has led to more crashing but I can live with it. Just save often.

I'll have to check your recommendations out!

Or it's just so heavily modded that it crashes every 10 minutes 😂

I have an Index and it was 100% worth the price. I used to play a variety of games (Half Life Alyx, Synth Riders and Until You Fall were my favorites) and then I discovered modded Skyrim. A couple years later and my mind is still blown every time I put my headset on and get to wander around Skyrim, look up at the mountains and sunsets, stealth through caves so dark I can barely see a thing, slay dragons using realistic archery where I have to reach back to get an arrow for every shot and actually aim my bow down the arrow, sword fighting involves more than just mashing attack and block, and I can cast spells with hand gestures. I sometimes go months without playing and then wonder why I stopped when I load back into it. I have to set a timer because I lose myself in VR and will play for hours and hours. Sometimes I turn it on and just go somewhere sit down and look at the scenery or watch the NPCs going about their lives.

I'm not familiar with In-N-Out, but I would honestly be ok with this if it meant that in 2016 they weren't paying a living wage and now they are.

I know that's probably just wishful thinking though.

Lot of that on Nextdoor. I have an account there under a fake name that I only use for lurking occasionally and the drama and begging on that place is absolutely disgusting.

I have a huge playlist of soundtracks. I leave them running for my cats when I'm at work. I've purchased some from Steam, got some free from GOG, and purchased some on Amazon's digital music store because I couldn't find them anywhere else. All were DRM free and can be played on any compatible music player.

Forgive the long comment, and this is very US centered and doesn't apply to every area in the US. EMS systems vary broadly between states and even municipalities within states...

To put some of that in perspective:

A new ambulance costs about $250-$400k depending on the type.
The heart monitors we use are somewhere in the area of $10k-$25k a piece. That's ONE piece of the equipment that we use, and they need maintenance and replacement every so often.
There's all the other equipment, and restock of medical items. Even if something doesn't get used it has to be on the truck and has to be replaced when it's outdated.
Fuel is expensive. The last agency I worked for spent about $400k - $500k a year just on fuel.
There's insurance - auto insurance, liability insurance, workman's comp, etc.
Keeping an EMS certification active requires ongoing continuing education credits. We take classes constantly to stay current and to be able to renew our cert, which in some states costs money just to renew. I've spent hundreds just to be able to work, both in con ed classes and certs. Some agencies will help pay for this cost, and many provide free con ed classes for their providers. This costs money.
There's building costs, rent, electric, etc.
Ongoing vehicle maintenance (ambulances break a LOT)
administrative costs, and so many more I haven't listed

And that's all before you get into paying anyone for their work. You aren't paying thousands of dollars for YOUR ambulance ride. You're paying for the fact that the ambulance existed to respond to your emergency in the first place. Many agencies don't get taxpayer money, and if they do, it's minimal. My last agency had townships paying them $2k a year to provide 24-7 ambulance service with paid providers. That doesn't even cover fuel, let alone anything else.

Is it absolutely bullshit that people should have to be bankrupted to pay for an ambulance bill? 100% No one should have to worry about money when they're having an emergency.

If you don't like it, advocate for a municipal tax. If every household paid something like $75-$100 a year you could have the best EMS service with well trained, well paid providers using the best, most up to date equipment available and you would never have to worry about an ambulance bill. The places that implement those taxes generally either don't bill at all or bill insurance and only take what insurance pays them, there's no balance billing of the patient.

But no one wants extra taxes, even if it could save them thousands of dollars, and for some reason people come out and support funding for the fire departments and the police departments and no one wants to advocate for support and funding for EMS, so instead you get this mess where EMS is somehow expected to hold itself together and be a profitable enough business to self sustain. You end up with a system where providers are underpaid, have to work 70+ hour weeks to survive (and thus are incredibly burnt out and exhausted - you really want a provider who has worked 70 hours in 5 days on 10 hours of total sleep making life or death decisions?), the good providers head to places where they can get better pay, the equipment and ambulances are old and being held together by sheer will of the providers, and patients still have insane bills.

Patients should not fund EMS. Government should fund EMS. It's a service, not a business, but under the current system in most places, it has to be a business if you want to be able to call 911 and have someone there to respond.

I work in EMS. My advice to students and brand new EMTs is always the same: don't freak out when your patient is in cardiac arrest. Those are the easy calls. I have to keep people alive and if someone is crashing in front of me I have to figure out why and what I can try to do to stop it so they don't die. The ones that are already in cardiac arrest aren't getting any more dead, and the only outcomes are that we improve on that or we don't. We can't make them worse. Dead is the most stable condition.

Edit: That said, one of my favorite things about working in EMS is that I don't have to care about "medically necessary" or insurance companies. If I think my patient needs a treatment and it's in my protocol to give it, I give it. I don't have to ask for an insurance company's approval or get a payment method from my patients, I just get to help people.

I had a tattoo I wanted for years. I was like well it's going to be really expensive and I shouldn't spend the money on it while I have these expenses coming up. A few years and a divorce later, well, I really want this tattoo, but I have student loans and a car loan and it would be really irresponsible of me to pay for a tattoo instead of putting extra money towards those. Yes I could work a bunch of OT to pay for it, but if I work a bunch of OT then I should take that money and put it towards becoming debt free. Maybe when I pay them off I'll get it. Then it hit me that I won't have my loans paid off until I'm in my 40s, even at the rate I'm going (making double payments every month).

Tattoo was finished yesterday. I could have paid off one of my loans with what it cost, but fuck it's absolutely beautiful. The artist is a painter who tattoos and it legit looks like a painting on my skin.

When I'm gaming my cat will sit on my desk and grab my cheek with his paw to let me know he wants pets. If I don't stop and give him pets or don't give him the required amount of pets it escalates from him gently petting my cheek (hey you idiot, I want you to do THIS to ME), to him petting me with claws out, to him slapping me on the face, to angry headbutts.

If he doesn't want pets but just wants to be with me he'll just curl up in my lap with his head in the crook of my elbow and stare up at my face until he falls asleep. I love him so much, he's the absolute best cat.

It didn't turn into a fight, we both thought it was hilarious. He was like wait, is it really purple, then we both laughed about it a bunch and I looked up the color blind tests with the numbers hidden in colored dots and he realized that he could see the numbers in most of them but there were a few that he had to ask me if there really was anything there or if it was just plain dots to mess with people. Afterwards there were times he would start arguing with me about colors again and I'd make a comment about my grey sweater and then we'd both just end up laughing.

My ex used to argue with me about colors all the time. It was odd. Then one day he told me he really liked my grey sweater. I was like I don't own a grey sweater. He said yes you do, and pulled it out of my drawer. It was my light purple sweater. That's how we found out he was slightly color blind.

I had a TENs machine. I also have endometriosis (after suffering for over 20 years found a surgeon willing to do surgery, gods bless her for giving me a chance to live). When I was still with my ex I used it as a simulator to try to show him what my pain felt like. He was on the floor screaming and couldn't straighten his legs or stand up because of the pain and I was just standing there chilling and hadn't even hit the lowest threshold of my normal everyday pain limit, let alone the pain I felt when I had my period. I was like now do you understand why I'm exhausted and depressed all the time and hate my life?

I'm a really fast reader and I had a slowish day at work yesterday. I read The Colour of Magic start to finish yesterday morning and really enjoyed it. I'm almost finished with The Light Fantastic now.

I think I've got about 5 reads in ;) I tend to find books I like and reread them way too many times. I've got about 9 or 10 reads of The Witcher novels and am trying to resist pulling them out again.

"I found god/in the sound/of your factories burning down/now I sleep so sound"

lonefighter

@ lonefighter @sh.itjust.works

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2 yr. ago

lonefighter

People with terminal illnesses/in their last days should be allowed to have any drugs they want.

People with terminal illnesses/in their last days should be allowed to have any drugs they want.

I don’t really play Bethesda games either

Valve Uploads Steam Controller Unboxing Video, Launch Imminent?

Valve Uploads Steam Controller Unboxing Video, Launch Imminent?

Valve Uploads Steam Controller Unboxing Video, Launch Imminent?

not beating the burgerland allegations

It is much more acceptable to beg online than begging at the streets.

Are video game soundtracks in purchaseable format known to be DRM-protected?

Dad with Stage 4 cancer dies after insurance company said tumor-shrinking treatment was ‘not medically necessary’

Dad with Stage 4 cancer dies after insurance company said tumor-shrinking treatment was ‘not medically necessary’

Love this

How often do you take the "fuck it, i could die of cancer in 2 years" approach to life?

Love this

We found out by chance that my husband is colorblind

We found out by chance that my husband is colorblind

vestibulectomy

What is the fantasy book/series everyone should read?

What is the fantasy book/series everyone should read?

disaster girl

What is the fantasy book/series everyone should read?

You board a train, board a bus, and board a ship, but you don't board a car