My grandma's farm alternated soybeans with field corn as its main crops, but there was a little patch of field between her house and my uncle's that had sweet corn every year for all of us in the family to come over and pick in the fall. It was always fun to run over on Sunday, spend the day climbing the apple trees in Grandma's orchard of six trees (one was a perfect climbing tree, with a notch about three feet off the ground and a sloping branch that was easy to shimmy up), pick the apples and wash them in the wellwater in the yard and eat them until you got queasy, pet Dolly, the horse one of my greatuncles boarded there, and then head out to the field with Mom and Dad and pick corn. After that, we'd head over to Uncle Ray's and play touch football with the cousins.

none of you want to admit that you got taken in when your parents said, "Try this, it's sweet!"

I don't think it's particularly sweet, but it is good.

I got spoiled by growing up with a big vegetable garden. When I was little it never occurred to me that someone wouldn't pick their corn fresh right before they were ready to cook it.

When I got to college, I didn't really know how to pick vegetables at a store, because at home it was always "that row of beans/peas/melon is ready", which really didn't translate to what I found in the store.

Kristin! How are you feeling? Did you get any sleep?

Doctors and nurses make a lot of decisions that don't always go through the patient.

Sure, but telling the relatives of a lucid patient things and not the patient herself seems... negligent. Maybe it was because of the era that you'd tell a woman's husband instead of her?

Well, again, just to be clear in my legally binding status of on-line psudonym: Don't go telling George and/or Ray instead of me if I'm still all there.

You know who sucks?

Everyone but us.

Agreed

This so reminds me of last year when my Drama students conceptualized an original musical called "F-you: the musical". One of the songs was entitled "Everybody Sucks (but you and me)". It was thoroughly hysterical and brought us so much joy whenever the weeks got a little intense (or DD was being heinous).

Sure, but telling the relatives of a lucid patient things and not the patient herself seems... negligent.

This. And I actually thought they couldn't do that anymore, which is why doctors won't even leave phone messages with any info anymore.

When my Dad went into the hospital for the last time, he was unconscious at the time and my stepmother and sister put him on a respirator. I was pissed when I finally got there because I knew he didn't want that. Later, when they couldn't figure out exactly what was wrong with him (the shrapnel in his body made the MRI go all wonky), the doctor was giving us (pretty negative) forecasts of what might happen if he went off the respirator. When my sister started in with debating about "what to do", the doctor made it quite clear that, since my Dad was lucid, he was already informed of his condition and would be making whatever decision he chose.

Less than 2 hours until acupuncture! I need it now.

This. And I actually thought they couldn't do that anymore, which is why doctors won't even leave phone messages with any info anymore.

Yeah. I edited expoundingly.

Yeah, I'm not advocating withholding that information. I'm just saying what happened in the early 80s.

It might've been a factor that there weren't any decisions to be made in my mother's case. I mean, I guess we could've considered a respirator but that wasn't anything we were looking at. She was already at home with us receiving hospice care, and some palliative drugs. She was just dying.

Thankfully we haven't had to have the What To Do talk with Dad's doctors in the last 20 years. For his more recent hospitalizations he's either been lucid (and just needed Mom and me around to remember details of what the doctor told him), or he was impaired but not in a condition where there was any real threat to his life.