Posted by Justen Collins on April 4, 2013
There was a point last weekend where I thought my own personal doomsday might have arrived. I came down with either food poisoning or a wicked stomach virus and became dehydrated in no time. By the end of my son’s fifth birthday party, I was very near blacking out and hitting the parking lot pavement. I spent the majority of the remainder of the weekend in bed trying to recover and get my digestive system back under control.
While lying in bed feeling essentially miserable, I had time to do a good deal of thinking. Eating was out of the question and sleeping was repeatedly interrupted by stomach pain, so that did not leave many options aside from thinking. I would not stretch to call it critical thinking considering my sleep-deprived brain was running on fumes at the time, but in my tortured state I realized what the topic for the next installment of the Doomsday Procrastinator needed to be.
In our currently functioning modern society, my condition was hardly a cause for concern. My house is a short two-block walk away from our local pharmacy if I had a need for any medication. The nearest hospital is less than two miles away if I had a need for emergency care or treatment. Our doctor has an emergency cell phone number that we could use to get answers to medical questions at any time of day. I did not lose any sleep over the possibility that I might die from my condition last weekend (possibly because I had already lost all my sleep to nonstop stomach cramps).
As I lie awake in the middle of the night watching a live Formula One Grand Prix race being contested somewhere in a Malaysian rainstorm, I considered how different my experience might be if we were living in a post-doomsday society. Besides the fact that I would be staring into a useless dark screen instead of having hundreds of channels to distract me, I would also be on my own to diagnose and treat whatever ailments I encountered. The local pharmacy would be shut down without power (and likely ransacked in short order once chaos set in), so their supplies would be unavailable to me. If the hospitals were even able to stay open and running, they would quickly be overwhelmed by emergency patients and homecare patients unable to function in their own house once the power was lost. With no cell service, our doctor would be unreachable, and they would likely be focused on their own family and living situation regardless.
While I would still likely have survived my stomach virus, of course, you can list a host of other common and seemingly minor illnesses and injuries that could become grave concerns in a doomsday scenario. Suppose you suffer a cut that is bad enough to need stitches. Unless you have the right supplies and knowledge on how to proceed in closing and bandaging the wound, it can become infected or continue bleeding and turn into a life-threatening injury in short order. It should not take you long to realize that having some basic first aid supplies and training would be a practical decision for every home. Even if you have no concern about doomsday, any emergency or potential natural disaster that disrupts your access to medical care creates a need for quick first aid supplies and know-how.
I will confess that this is an area where my family stands to need the most improvement by far. If your injury in our home requires more than a cartoon-covered band-aid at this point, you are in the wrong place. If the internet is not accessible, our trusty visits to WebMD to arrive at a diagnosis will not be possible. Our medical preps are currently comprised of nothing more than the basic pain relievers and cold or sinus medications. If a stuffy nose is slowing you down after doomsday, we will be ready to barter with you. Needless to say, I have started researching the most practical items to keep and will share one of those sites with you below.
The other solid recommendation I would make this week is to obtain some basic first aid training for you and your family. Even better, find someone in your neighborhood, close friends, or family that have a medical or emergency response background and bring them into your planning to work together in the future. Simply having people around that know the basics of CPR, wound treatment and cleaning, and alternative medicines can become a huge advantage if and when our modern conveniences are stripped away from us. Some level of knowledge combined with an appropriately stocked medicine cabinet could be the thing that keeps you and your family alive in a tough situation.
#DoomsDelay Tip of the Week
I understand and hope to convince you of the need for medical and first aid preparations in your family and home. At the same time, I am right in line with many of you in being woefully unprepared in the event that my local doctor, pharmacy, or hospitals are not immediately available to me. Fortunately, right now we still have time, power, and internet access, so the world wide web is full of people with more knowledge that are willing to share their tips and tactics. The good folks over at “The Key to Survival” site have put together a great list with pictures and descriptions of medical, first aid, and trauma supplies that they recommend. I encourage you to check it out by clicking HERE now.
I understand and hope to convince you of the need for medical and first aid preparations in your family and home. At the same time, I am right in line with many of you in being woefully unprepared in the event that my local doctor, pharmacy, or hospitals are not immediately available to me. Fortunately, right now we still have time, power, and internet access, so the world wide web is full of people with more knowledge that are willing to share their tips and tactics. The good folks over at “The Key to Survival” site have put together a great list with pictures and descriptions of medical, first aid, and trauma supplies that they recommend. I encourage you to check it out by clicking HERE now.
