I'm thinking of my friend Janna right now. Her Mom is in the hospital, her condition "tenuous." She may have pneumonia. One of the things I never thought about before--how do you diagnose someone who can't talk (Bertha had a stroke a few weeks ago). It is really hard for her to communicate; I have visited her a few times since then and it seems clear to me that her mind is pretty good, but her body won't let her get the words out or do anything: read, turn off the TV or change the channel. Every once in a while she would come out with a more or less full sentence that I could figure out and I had to wonder at how hard that was for her. "Do you like Janna's new hair color?" she asked me. I was kind of taken aback until I realized this had happened a few months ago. I said yes I did, very much. She said Ron liked it too. Anyway, that may be the last conversation I have with Bertha and I am comfortable with that.

But it has led me to think about many things, relating to end-of-life health care and money. I do not hesitate to say that if I am a vegetable and the doctors agree there is no chance of recovery, I do not want to be kept alive. But what if I am still me, but can't move or talk or eat or read--do I want to live? I think maybe the will to survive is pretty strong, even in cases like that. And who can judge for another the quality of life that they are living? But, the problem is, it costs a lot of money to help someone like that, trying to keep them comfortable (and alive) and even working on rehabilitation. Is it right to use that money for that purpose, when it could be feeding the hungry or keeping a baby alive who has health problems, but may improve and live a "good" long life? Who gets to decide? I'm sure we as a country have enough money to do both, if we stopped doing some other things, like killing people in far-away places, or paying CEO's millions of dollars. If we asked the billionaires, "would you like to use our money to keep old people alive a few more weeks?" what would they say? Not unless it's me...or my family... maybe?

There have also been more deadly tornadoes and I think the weather here today could be dangerous. I was weeding yesterday morning and evening, when it wasn't too hot, and hoping for rain. We had a couple episodes of thunder and wind in the late afternoon, but no rain yet.

Ray had another breakfast date and drove himself in the truck. Then he stayed late for a gathering with the same candidate at Little Kings, coming home about 7 or so, so he was gone 12 hours, which is fine but different. I dawdled in the garden, on my walk, in the bath, on the computer, and drove myself to ALT about 10:30. Not much to do there, but did have another conversation with Nancy about my job and she has prepared a job description for me, with my input, so that's good. Heather had jury duty, of all things. I had good leftovers for lunch from Easter dinner: roll with ham and jello salad.

I took some frozen yellow beans out to make supper with the chicken we cooked a few days ago. It was pretty good and low in carbs. (Except for the ice cream and brownie I had for dessert). I talked to Janna before bedtime and was ready to head over there, but her Mom was admitted to the ICU and stabilized and she hasn't heard anything yet this morning; the doctor should call soon. It's complicated because Ron is having surgery this morning to remove a growth in his foot, and maybe his sigmoid bone or part of it--a bone Ray didn't know existed. Ron has been in a lot of pain and it would be hard to reschedule. With a case like Bertha's, you just don't know how long the process will take. She could be stable for days and it doesn't always make sense to put your life on hold. Of course, this is the end of the semester for Janna (and Ray), so the last few classes, exams and papers to correct.

I slept pretty well, except for dreams of sailing this morning, perhaps related to watching the end of 2012 the other night.