death

KN, p. 326 “Death by Opioids”

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From the American Society of Anesthesiologists:

“Opioids, sometimes called narcotics, are medications prescribed by doctors to treat persistent or severe pain. They are used by patients recovering from surgery, experiencing severe pain associated with cancer, hurt playing sports, or seriously injured in falls or auto accidents.”

(https://madeforthismoment.asahq.org/pain-management/opioid-treatment/what-are-opioids/)

Potential side effects
Mild side effects of opioids include sleepiness, constipation, and nausea.

More serious side effects associated with an overdose (even accidental) can be life-threatening and include shallow breathing, slowed heart rate, and/or loss of consciousness.

And then there is the possibility of addiction, for some people and with some drugs, in as quickly as five days. “Opioids can make your brain and body believe the drug is necessary for survival. As you tolerate the dose you’ve been prescribed, you may find that you need even more medication to relieve the pain.”

More than 2 million Americans misuse opioids, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and every day more than 90 Americans die by opioid overdose.

The most common opioids are sold under several names:

  • Codeine
  • Fentanyl
  • Hydrocodone
  • Oxycodone
  • Oxymorphone
  • Morphine

If you think your pain meds are not on this list, here are some brand names also used, depending on your physician preference or insurance carrier:

  • OxyContin
  • Percocet
  • Palladone
  • Vicodin

Not to forget heroin…”it is an illegal and highly addictive form of opioid with no sanctioned medical use.”

If we are not among the legal or illegal drug users, why should we care?

While the numbers have dropped from a year ago, the stats posted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, indicate just over 100,000 people died of a drug overdose during the 12-month period ending in April 2024. With numbers like that, it’s likely somebody you know has a family member affected by the deadly side of opioids.

https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

Real Life Experiences
When we’re young and invincible, we generally don’t think about the toll that life exerts on our bodies. It never occurs to most of us that popping a tendon would ever happen to anyone not involved in professional tennis or football or rugby. Or that tripping and falling on macadam would result in a smashed kneecap. Or that a nasty car accident would change our lives forever. Thank goodness we don’t live life based on what accident might ensue in the next five minutes.

The point being…nobody wakes up planning to become addicted to pain-numbing drugs, but those normal activities might be the path to get you to the dark side of what is designed to help us get through recovery.

Friends of ours have suffered through multiple sports and accident related injuries and surgeries, and lived to tell the tale. But, two became heavily dependent on opioids while the complications post-op were dealt with. One became addicted and needed to go to a drug rehab center for a time. Counseling wasn’t enough. A supportive family wasn’t enough. Long after the injury healed, he had to deal with getting away from the dangerous drugs he had taken in good faith.

Why does this happen? A physical therapist mentioned that opioids can affect people quite differently. Just as no two patients recover from the same surgery in the same way, some patients never have withdrawal symptoms from them. Many  are extremely sensitive to being on any Class A narcotic for even the five days.

Once addicted, the likelihood of a successful outcome becomes an almost impossible task. Reputable doctors and pharmacists carefully monitor which drugs they prescribe and deliver, but for the desperate, other avenues are available. Take a look at celebrities with unlimited resources and lowlifes willing to supply them.

In other cases, unintentional deadly combinations can and do put people into an early grave. The brother of a close friend wound up in an institution at age 26 because of party drugs. He’s been there for 15 years and will be there for the rest of his life, the brain damage permanent.

Death by Opioids? Yup. 90 times a day, in the USA alone.

 

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KN, p. 321 “Death by Scorpion”

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It was 2 a.m. Awakened by the call of nature, I remembered I was in Texas and slipped on my shoes. Ya never know what is going to greet you in the middle of the night, but scorpions were not at the top of my list to be inside the house I had rented.

Surprise! A two-inch brown fella was lurking near a wall as I flipped on the bathroom light. He froze, then waved that pesky tail. I froze, then grabbed a can of Lysol and kept spraying at him from five feet away until he stopped moving. I knew that wouldn’t kill him, but it would slow him and give me time to drop a wet paper towel on top of him. I could then stomp the daylights out of him and dispose of the body.

Having lived in Texas for a dozen years a decade ago, I was familiar with the various poisonous critters that the State is known for, but I had only known scorpions to hang out near swimming pools. No swimming pools within ten miles, so where did it come from? Hmmm… too tired to deal with that question, I returned to bed, but left the light on behind me.

The next night, around the same time, I awoke as thirsty as a parched traveler in the high desert and headed to the kitchen faucet. I was not alone. A scorpion sat in the bottom of the sink and as I waved my hand above it, saluted me with his threatening appendage. I reached for the avocado oil conveniently nearby and sprayed until he stopped waving that tail. It took a minute… or three. This time when I dropped the paper towel on top of him, I heard a crunching sound as I pressed. Ewww. But, he was deader than dead. Whew!!!

Leaving the lights on at night kept the critters out of sight for the rest of my stay. The homeowner had sprayed outside before my arrival, but definitely needed to do more.

So, what’s the big deal? Most scorpion stings result in minor swelling and crazy burning itching, but a few cause more severe reactions. Back in 2021, scorpion stings caused over 3,200 deaths in the world. There are over 100 varieties of scorpions in the USA, with a surprising 1,750* varieties on the planet, and only twenty-five of those have deadly venom. Phoenix, Arizona, is recorded as having the highest incidence of scorpion stings in the USA in the past, but the area has worked hard to correct that in recent decades.

Featured in multiple movies (Gods of Egypt, Bordertown, etc.) and TV shows (Death in Paradise and more) as bugs that kill, scorpion stings are a public health problem in hot, humid countries like Africa, India, the Middle East, and especially Mexico where 1000 deaths from scorpion stings have happened some years. By comparison, only four people have died in the last decade in the USA after scorpion stings. However, lest you think you’re safe by living outside the range of the venomous scorpions, they wander elsewhere by crawling into luggage and shoes, and can travel home with you by plane, ship, car, or boat.

A scorpion has a flat body and their hiding places in people’s homes during the day include the many, many cracks near floors, windows, and doors close to water sources. Like any other living creature, they need water to survive, but hang out in those areas because their food source is there as well (insects, spiders, other scorpions, lizards, and even small mice.) They have four pairs of legs, a pair of claws, and a segmented tail with a venomous spike at the end. Scorpions vary in size from a half-inch to a whopping seven inches in length. I have been told by doctors who handle the victims of bites that the big, dark brown/black scorpions won’t kill you, but the stings will hurt like a ball of fire. Young children and older adults are likely to have more severe reactions to the stings of any size and variety and need to be treated ASAP.

In general, scorpions are not aggressive and only attack when bothered. A Texas friend tossed a shirt on the floor, left it there overnight, put the shirt on the next day, and was stung by a scorpion stuck in the folds of the shirt. She’s fine, but experienced the wild burning and itching for a couple of days. No other ill effects, except for having to dispose of the dead scorpion.

The best way to avoid the bites altogether is to shake out shoes and clothes before putting them on…or before packing those clothes into the suitcase. If you like to garden in an area where scorpions have been sighted, long sleeve-shirts and closed-toed shoes are a necessity.

Frequent cleaning and dusting, and being especially thorough with cracks and seat cushions, will help keep the buggers at bay. Screens on the windows and doors keep them outside where they belong, as will filling the cracks with plaster or expanding foam. Anti-scorpion spray can be used around the foundation on a regular basis, but weeding around the foundation and clearing trash away is also important.  

By the way, the smaller brown ones are not nice to people, so beware, and keep your shoes on. Death by scorpion can be a bit grisly, with paralysis, blurry vision, rapid tongue movement, thrashing, vomiting, irregular rapid heart beat, high fever, multiple organ failure, and closing airways to follow if not treated in time.*  When symptoms reach this level, antivenom may not be enough. Fun fact: scorpion antivenom can cost $40,000. for each vial.

Maybe the night light should be a bit brighter.

*Some information from the US National Institute of Health.

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KN, p. 174 “Death by Drowning”

 

Pool-JWWaterVolleyball copy

Sheila and I watched a British TV show that included a ‘death-by-drowning’ scene. The wrong person wound up dead in the pool in this mystery because of an identity mix-up. By coincidence, the very next night, an old movie featured the same cause of death. We began to wonder how often death by drowning actually occurs.

While no stats were available specifically concerning murders caused by drowning, the general answer is that an average of about 11 drowning deaths happen every single day in the USA. It’s actually a huge global problem, not just here, and in 2023 was the third leading cause of unintentional death worldwide. In 2019, an estimated 236,000 people died from drowning around the world. This number excluded deaths by vessels capsizing, natural disasters, or intentional drowning deaths (suicide or homicide).

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drowning

Surprising as that number might be, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the USA lists additional alarming facts – that more children ages 1-4 die from drowning than any other cause of death and nearly 20% of the people who die from drowning in the USA are under 14 years old. Similar information exists for the global stats cited by WHO (World Health Organization). Plus, for every child that dies, there are several others who have to get treated for their injuries in the water. The numbers drop the older you get, so that speaks to ‘who’s watching the children?’

 

But before you jump to the conclusion that the injuries are all happening at home pools in the USA, think again. About 47% of those who had to get treated were swimming at a home pool, but a full 27% of the swimming injuries happened at a public watering hole.

 

Then there are the drowning deaths, still accidental, but pushing the limits of that definition. A story in the 2016 news involving a controversial SEAL training death points to a seemingly universal opinion that we are indestructible, that swimming is at best a risky enterprise, but that people in good shape can survive with less oxygen getting into their lungs on a regular basis. Hmmm… not true. Even great swimmers get tired and can drown. In that case, the drowning was eventually ruled a homicide.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/navy-seal-trainee-s-drowning-death-ruled-homicide-n604566

 

Lots of private pool owners swim alone. Why not? The pool beckons on a hot day and it’s a relaxing way to cool off. But, what if you are tired at the end of a work day, and slip on the edge of the pool, knock your head on the way in and… if you are alone, nobody is there to pull you out of the water or to call 911.

That may be what happened to a guy who was found floating in his pool back in April of 2016.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/crews-responding-to-drowning-in-spring

Sadly, sometimes drownings are a family affair. In July, 2022, a Texas visitor to NC was at the beach with his younger brother and both were swept away by the waves. The 12 year old was saved, but the older brother, thought to be the stronger swimmer, died and his body was found a few days later.

https://myfox8.com/news/north-carolina/search-takes-place-for-possible-drowning-victim-in-onslow-co/


So, what can you do to stay safe in the water?

  1. Don’t swim alone.
  2. Make sure that your children know how to swim.
  3. Don’t allow your children to swim unless there is an adult with a phone present.
  4. If you have a pool, fence in your yard.
  5. Be aware of ocean water dangers – undertows, etc
  6. Wear a lifejacket when boating on a lake or in the ocean.


WHO recommends several proven measures to prevent drowning:

*install barriers that control access to water
*teach school-aged children simple swimming and water safety skills
*provide supervised day care for children
*regulate and enforce safe boating
*improve flood risk management.

For other water safety measures see:

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Drowning-Swimming-Drown-Water-Pool-Beach-15-Things-You-Need-to-Know-This-Summer-about-the-Fifth-Leading-Cause-of-Death–263491391.html

For more information on this subject go to:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6234a9.html

Above all, stay safe in and near the water.

 

*Photo by Jennifer Worley

 

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