Friday

The weight report: diccy, considering the home scale had me losing 1.4 (to 127.6) and the T.O.P.S. scale gaining .02 (to 128.4). Who knows, maybe it'll switch around next week. As for the meeting, there were only five of us and, weigh-in, we eschewed anything else weight-related in favor of just a friendly chat. Conversation included Lora's botox injections (for migraine, but she's had the cosmetic kind, too), Bobbi's tattooed eye-liner (my late sister in-law, Helen, had had that done,also), and, of course, another of Sharon's Halloween hats, this with a spider theme:

She also had on two pair of dangly spider earrings--so elegant.  

Home at 9:30 and I let Suzanne know, so we left immediately for WinCo. That meant I didn't get breakfast until almost 11:00, but it tasted extra good because I was so hungry. I had bought a lot of produce and I then prepared some, including a yam, spaghetti squash, and one of my favorites, roasted cauliflower with mayo/parm dressing. A few hours later, I ate the yam for a kind of in-between lunch. I went on-line for Red tickets for Diane and me. We'll go to the matinee on Saturday, November 4.

Went next door to Suzanne's for our 5:15 happy hour, Vickie coming soon after. We had a very warm and congenial social session, although those two wild kids got plastered:

Ha! That's non-alcoholic beer, of course. It was accompanied with a spread of shrimp, chips, veggies, and dips. Suzanne also had out a nice, autumny display that Sharon (my Sharon from T.O.P.S.) had given her when she retired from St. John's: 

Suzanne had been a medical educator and Sharon was in her diabetes class. There was another connection with Sharon last night, too: Vickie is a champion pool player and so is Sharon's husband, Louis. Vickie showed pictures of a tournament they were in together recently; she knows Louis well. 

We discussed Diane's puzzlement about something surrounding her recent seizure and I wonder if a certain medical professional who might read this can answer it. In a nutshell, here's the situation: My friend, Diane, suffered what was first thought to be a stroke, then was determined to be a seizure. Unconscious, she collapsed outside her door and a neighbor called an ambulance. On the way to the hospital, she stopped breathing and the attendant intubated her. She has a DNR directive, but the attendant didn't know that. Now here's the question: Would an EMT, say, not a doctor or R.N., have the authority not to use whatever measures necessary to prevent her death? Of course, in this case, he didn't know about the DNR, but what if she or he had? Would it really be up to a non-professional to decide not to restore her breathing? That seems hard to believe. I usually think of these situations happening after an extended illness, maybe under hospice care, but this was a sudden, unexpected event. What's the answer? Does restoring breathing in those circumstances constitute heroic measures?   

We had an interesting time discussing this dilemma and, of course, other less weighty topics. We are now long-time friends and I know I can rely on them if I ever have a need and I hope and believe they feel the same way about me.