You know, unless you are glued to the TV, your PDA (guilty) or a newspaper, the world can literally pass you by.  So where am I going with this is? Well think about it.  There are subjects that we’d just rather not read or hear about.  Right? The scary -unpleasant stuff. 

And in usual human form, when the news comes over the TV or on the radio, what do we do?  We change the channel.  Or if reading, we skim over the pages until we find the good stuff i.e., the warm and fuzzy stuff, you know like what the latest and greatest are wearing or doing. Just sayin.

So when I read an article (yes I do a lot of reading) about drug shortages it got me to thinking. 

I’m not talking about the drugs you get from a friend, whose brother knows a guy that has a cousin whose sister is dating the rich dude that owns the downtown night club who has connections with … well you get my point.  The ones I'm referring to are the drugs needed for critical care in hospitals.  Drugs like succinylcholine injection, used to relax throat muscles to allow intubation; concentrated dextrose solutions used to mix or dilute medications; and epinephrine injections used for emergency treatment of severe allergic reactions.  The big boys.

The thing that bothered me the most about the article is not the shortage of drugs (we all know who is controlling that), I was bothered at how reliant we are on those drugs.

Think about this.  If the poo ever does hit the fan we are all going to be in deep poo-poo.

We as a society seem to run to the emergency room every time we get a splinter in our finger!

How the heck are we going to survive, deep cuts, burns, chemical rashes, fractures and so on, in a disaster situation where the world as we know it is destroyed and along with it all medical facilities?

Do you even know basic first-aid?  Can you, if need be, stitch someone’s wound (ewww I know), or even apply a tourniquet properly?  Do you know how to administer CPR (chest compressions?) This is the basic stuff I’m taking about here.

And what about medicine?  Do you know anything about what drugs are used for and when and where to use them? 

If you would go back and watch some of those apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic movies you’ve seen in the past for pure entertainment and now watch them for “what actually could happen” (less all the theatrical rhetoric) you can get a pretty good idea of things to come.

Ask those involved in a past tsunami what it’s like to see a huge wall of water coming at you and then watch as it totally flattens an area in a matter of minutes leaving nothing but death and destruction for as far as the eye can see.  Do you realize that people survive these disasters? In fact a study done in 2009 on the injuries of the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia showed that those who did survive were left with twisted mangled bones and deep lacerations from being struck by large objects rushing by or being slammed into objects.  Whose gonna treat those types of injuries? 

We need to start schooling ourselves on how things were done way back when.  I’m talking great-great grand parent days.  Like a hundred years ago or more.  Heck with what we know now some of the basic things that were done way back when are still used today only with a coloring added or a fancy name given.  Most medicines come from medicimal herbs.  Those weed like things growing in your backyard?

Take a basic first-aid class – some knowledge is better than no knowledge.  Get a book on herbs and start reading up on what herbs can actually do.

You may want to do this as well. I purchased an anatomy book and put it with my first-aid supplies.  The book has overlays to show what is next to what and where it’s located should the need ever arise in an “end-of-world’ situation to use it (unfortunately, when I took anatomy in school I was only interested in the ‘guy stuff’ and how things worked so I really didn’t pay too much attention to how the arm bone was connected to the … well whatever bone the arm is connected to – the shoulder bone I guess, I mean that’s how the song goes, right?) 

Back on task.

For whatever reason there is a drug shortage.  I could surmise as to why but then that’s for another time. This should be our first indication that we need to start taking care of ourselves.  We need to learn how to pull our own splinters out, put our own band-aids on, and start learning how to treating our own ‘headaches”.

A little knowledge can go a long way.

Now start reading and stay focused!

Just sayin.

- Survivor Jane

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Survivor Jane is not intended to be expert, legal or even medical advise - just one girl sharing with others.