Past and Future Comment from A Heroine

An Update from Jennifer Collett

May She Long Continue!

Take a Stroll With a Friend

My name is Jennifer Collett. Every year I walk 134 kms from Peterborough Ontario to Queens Park in Toronto. I do this to show the medical and political institutions a working model of cannabinoid therapy, that enables extreme levels of activity. I also do this to support those who wonder if it might work for them to show them how it can.

You may think, "so what, lots of people do that." The truth is, they don't. This has been an incredible effort and well worth the journey every year. I couldn't have achieved this before I was able to use cannabis medicines consistently. I am a mother of 5, a wife and a normal everyday gal. I am no athlete, and manage my own health issues in the best way I can. This is one reason it is so important for me to walk. It shows that normal people use this medicine and contradict the stigma.

Over the past three years of doing this, we have walked a stride for every registered patient in Canada, and more. Every year we walk for a particular issue also. This is our 4th year and we will be raising awareness for Pediatric Cannabis Therapies and the kids who cant afford to wait. We need this medicine covered under the provincial formulary to increase access to something that IS saving lives.

Some of you may know that I am also the Executive Director of the Canadian Medical Cannabis Partners. We are a National organization of patients and caregivers who volunteer our time to changing the ways patients are affected by the system. We lobby provincial and federal government to manage our medical cannabis program under healthcare, where it belongs, as the natural, efficacious and safe medicine that it is.
We bring forward the evidence needed to discuss provincial management, and offer effective inexpensive and healthier solutions that complement the transitioning federal program.

For those of you who don't know, The Medical Marihuana Production Regulations that came into effect on March 31 2014, removed the right by policy, of 40,000 patients on fixed incomes or in various stages of chronic illness or end of life care, to stop growing in their legal gardens. (They were expected to destroy what they feel is saving their life.) Thousands of people, some patients and some who are privately and compassionately growing for patients who cannot grow their own medicine, risk arrest in our communities. This will be paid for by our community policing budgets. It will create a burden on our local healthcare systems, as well as our Social services as families are put into distress.

The "System" is how we the people are informed of what is available to us. From human rights to dental coverage, to restrictions and barriers, we must learn to negotiate this in order to have our needs met. We pay our taxes, most attend regular doctor’s appointments, pay our bills, and do our best to put food on the tables for our families. We follow the set of regulations dictating conduct in our society, until it becomes dangerous to us. The law is not intended to put anyone in harm’s way. Laws are not created to do harm in themselves. So, we must learn to negotiate the legislation causing the harm and have it changed in a way that works for all, not some.

The inclusion of cannabis medicines in the Formulary would increase access for our entire population.

The continued personal production that is inspected and regulated is far less expensive than the new program.

Through education and research we have learned of the essential nature of our endocannabinoid system. We must recognize and train our medical practitioners and reflect that in our requirements for medical practice. We must ensure that patients best interests are protected in the development of policy around cannabis in front line care. We must ensure access to the ability to make our medicine into healthier and more effective forms of administration. We must provide protection from the ignorance of the traditional western medical establishment; recognize that cannabis is one of the oldest, most effective, and least invasive forms of treatment for many illnesses, while ensuring there is a regulated quality control.

Affordability is a factor we cannot get around. So either we pay for it in our healthcare, or we request a section 56 for the province of Ontario to accept the download of the medical cannabis program. The alternative to not pre-emptively managing this situation is paying for it through our taxes with policing, housing inmates, court expense, social services, as well as the destruction of lives of thousands of people and their families.
This is how it becomes downloaded to the municipalities also. Every city has tax paying citizens, who pay for a large percentage of the local policing budget. Our taxes go up to the top and trickle back down through transfers. What the police require to do their jobs, is based on current legislation, whether harmful or not.

Current legislation is based on political relationships and aren’t always in the best interests of the people paying for them. Current policies around cannabis are an example of this.

Personal beliefs remain the right of the holder, however one must recognize that others also have personal beliefs, therefor they must also be considered. Speaking to the belief that cannabis should be accessible as medicine for those who need it, we continue to work to educate government, healthcare providers and our communities of the benefits of this medicine.

Please join us September 26-29th for the Cannabian FreedomWalk 2014, as we take strides to further Cannabis Education in our shared community.

Thank You and I will see you on the fly!!
Jennifer

WHY THE WORLD IS DYING

GOD JUST WASHED HIS HANDS

THE BIBLE HAD IT WRONG

Another Interpretation of Genesis

By TheSmeeGoanGuy

God and Creation

All we know about Creation and God is from the memory of Adam: the first guy to rub shoulders with him. God told Adam that he had created the world as a self sustaining paradise. Adam was taught to believe God was infallible, but he had it all wrong.

God knew from previous experience that one or twice, in another eternity even HE had made a couple of very minor errors but that was not going to happen this time!

God checked out the Paradise he had created and it was Perfect!

But?

He knew it was a googol to one shot but if it ever needed tending? On the spur of the moment he created Adam and Eve and the ability to have offspring. These would be the custodians and caretakers for his paradise and nothing could ever go wrong because they and their children would be there to repair it if it did!

His project completed, he had a couple of words of parting advice with Adam and Eve and told them not to screw up because

“VENGEANCE IS MINE”.

He left in a flash of Lightning with Thunder for emphasis.

He’d be back in a million years or so to check up on things.

Unfortunately in his snap creation he made three minor errors.

1.    He made them with Brains

2.    He made them with Greed

3.    He made them like Fucking

Big Mistake!

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

I think God came back about 50 years ago!

HE WAS NOT PLEASED

He sat down on the moon and took a good hard look at Earth

His Perfect Paradise!

He could almost see through the haze!

He could hear the screams of victims!

He could almost smell the pollution!

He wanted VENGEANCE

He sat there a long time considering what options he had.

There really wasn’t much more punishment to inflict.

They were already heading for a Hell they created!

He decided to do nothing!

Just let them learn

Whatsoever a man soweth,

that shall he also reap.

At that point I think he just took a walk.

My Name is Jennifer Collett

Who is this Jennifer?

She’s a Real Friend!

She works her butt off and asks for no thanks.

I asked her to post this because she has a broader view than I do.

She provides a fresh perspective to on the Marijuana Mess.

She can speak for herself !

 

My name is Jennifer Collett. I am the Executive Director of the Canadian Medical Cannabis Partners. We are an organization of patients and caregivers who volunteer our time to changing the ways patients are affected by the system. We lobby provincial and federal government to manage our medical cannabis program under healthcare, where it belongs, as the natural, efficacious and safe medicine that it is.

We bring forward the evidence needed to discuss provincial management, and offer effective inexpensive and healthier solutions that complement the transitioning federal program. This new design really only changed the economics of cannabis distribution, while excluding the people who need to benefit from the medicine, turning it into a product.

The Medical Marihuana Production Regulations that come into effect on March 31 2014, will remove the right by policy, of 40,000 patients on fixed incomes or in various stages of chronic illness or end of life care, to stop growing in their legal gardens. (They will be expected to destroy what they feel is saving their life.) Thousands of people, some patients and some who are privately and compassionately growing for patients who cannot grow their own medicine, will be arrested in our communities. This will be paid for by our community policing budgets. It will create a burden on our local healthcare systems, as well as our Social services as families are put into distress. This will be caused by a policy change, that in reality is about money and monopoly of a medicine, not regulation and increased medical access.

I raise this point because, in no place in this new program is there any consideration for a patients financial ability to cover their own healthcare, while the rest of the country is accessing medical coverage in favour of pharmaceutical treatments. There was no risk involved in patient gardens. There are risks involved in the black market. Patients are not involved in the black market. Patients are growing and doing whatever they can to stay alive and healthy.
We all know there is a black market. I do not suggest that some people have not abused their prescription growing rights. Some of these abuses were indeed contributing to the black market, however most patients have seen the stigma attached to cannabis, for too long. They are not interested in sharing that they use this as medicine, most don’t even tell those closest to them. Of course many people enjoy it, it is most often a pleasurable experience, why wouldn’t they. We have the ability to enjoy a beer in this country also, not everyone is a bootlegger or abuser.

The System is how we the people are informed of what is available to us. From human rights to dental coverage, to restrictions and barriers, we must learn to negotiate this in order to have our needs met. We pay our taxes, most attend regular doctor’s appointments, pay our bills, and do our best to put food on the tables for our families. We follow the set of regulations dictating conduct in our society, until it becomes dangerous to us. The law is not intended to put anyone in harm’s way. Laws are not created to do harm in themselves. So, we must learn to negotiate the legislation causing the harm and have it changed in a way that works for all, not some.

This can be done through a provincial management of Cannabis medicines in the following ways.

The administration and delivery of health care services is the responsibility of each province or territory, guided by the provisions of the Canada Health Act. The provinces and territories fund these services with assistance from the federal government in the form of fiscal transfers. The inclusion of cannabis medicines in the Formulary will increase access for our entire provincial population. The inclusion of continued personal production that is inspected and regulated is far less expensive.

Health care services include insured primary health care (such as the services of physicians and other health professionals) and care in hospitals, which account for the majority of provincial and territorial health expenditures. Through education and research we have learned of the essential nature of our endocannabinoid system. We must recognize and train our medical practitioners and reflect that in our requirements for medical practice. We must ensure that patients best interests are protected in the development of policy around cannabis in front line care. We must ensure access to the ability to make our medicine into healthier and more effective forms of administration. We must provide protection from the ignorance of the traditional western medical establishment; recognize that cannabis is one of the oldest, most effective, and least invasive forms of treatment for many illnesses, while ensuring there is a regulated quality control. The provinces and territories also provide some groups with supplementary health benefits not covered by the Act, such as prescription drug coverage. Here is an example of a budget that exists for just this issue in Ontario.

Affordability is a factor we cannot get around. So either we pay for it in our healthcare, or we request a section 56 for the province of Ontario to accept the download of the medical cannabis program. The alternative to not pre-emptively managing this situation is paying for it through our taxes with policing, housing inmates, court expense, social services, as well as the destruction of lives of thousands of people and their families.

This is how it becomes downloaded to the municipalities also. Every city has tax paying citizens, who pay for a large percentage of the local policing budget. Our taxes go up to the top and trickle back down through transfers. What the police require to do their jobs, is based on current legislation, whether harmful or not. Current legislation is based on political relationships and aren’t always in the best interests of the people paying for them. Current policies around cannabis are an example of this.
I am not talking about anything but medical need here. Personal beliefs remain the right of the holder, however one must recognize that others also have personal beliefs, therefor they must also be considered. Speaking to the belief that cannabis should be accessible as medicine for those who need it, we have worked to educate government, healthcare providers and our communities alike, of the benefits of a provincial managed medical cannabis program.

I Just Avoided Disaster

I Ran Out of Pot

but

I Got Creative and Diverted Disaster

I have Depression andI had a major problem with my pot supply this week. I use pot to keep a lid on my mood and this is a crisis

I am happy to report that my pot crisis is over. I ran out day before yesterday and yesterday was no fun because I could feel my depression setting in and my mood changing as time passed. I too am a casualty of the Down East Freeze. My shipment of super pot from Toronto is stuck and I was facing a whole week shortfall this morning.

In panic and in search od some secret stash I had forgotten I ran across a bag of twigs and stems I had considered using to make oil. They were small twigs and stems, drier than hell and tough as rocks but they were covered with hard little green balls of leaf and resin. I needed a toke badly so I got my mortar and pestle and I pounded the hell out of a pile of lumber bigger than my fist until it was reduced to shreds and then ran it through a sieve.

I got ½ a cup of fine leaf and resin that I proceeded to pestle 200 strokes into a fine powder. I put a pinch in my pipe and did a good hit. Great Jumpin Jesus! A miracle: Really good and I’m back to normal in no time flat and I’m looking at about a two week supply of some pretty decent hoot. My panic vanished.

I decide to tell you about all this because a FB friend sent me a link to an article on FB by a girl, no a mature woman, describing her problems with depression. It was excellent and I could relate to her. I also realized that of all the other readers of her story very few understood what depression really is and what she was talking about. The simple fact is that if you haven’t been there, or been very close to someone who is, you can’t know.

What follows is my story of my relationship with Depression

1.    How I got it.

2.    What I learned it is,

3.    What it did to me,

4.    How it changed me, and

5.    The person I am becoming because of it.

I have become very conscious of how my mind works and I can detect when trouble is brewing. After two days abstinence before I created my miracle cure all the alarms were going and I was extremely concerned about what was ahead for the next couple of days.

I have learned to watch myself in my head and I can see my brain going negative, from creative thinking about my blog and what I was going to do next; to the now, today and all the problems I have in life. I can control this by using my soapstone pipe and taking teeny weeny little one puff tokes like every half hour from from 5AM to 11PM; it levels me out and I get through the day without a hell of a lot of problems. It really is amazing how the first little toke can change my whole mood in about 5 minutes, even less depending on the potency of the pot.

I’ve run out of pot on a couple of occasions and that is not good because it’s a nasty downhill slope to the bottom of the hole and I don’t want to go there but, if it keeps developing, that is where I’m heading. It’s almost predictable in its development and fortunately I’ve only been out for a short time, about three days.

Even in that time you can go from thinking about your problems and the blame game starts: you start to feel responsible for an increasing number of fuckups in your past life. That’s not too bad but if you lose it here, you start blaming yourself for imaginary fuckups that were never your fault but; you remember every bad turn in your life and you start asking yourself  “What if I has only done this? You don’t know the answer but you assume the result would have solved the problem and you start feeling guilty for your sin of omission and on and on until every waking hour is devoted to hating yourself for destroying a mostly imaginary life. You hit the bottom of the hole when you lose hope of ever forgiving yourself and getting back to normal. Thank Christ I’ve only hit bottom once when I crashed in 1999. I avoided it again today when I created a supply of pot.

What Happened To Me

When I crashed in Sept 1999 I hadn’t worked I over a year and a half, had a work accident and ruptured a disc at L4/5 six months previously, weighed 289 lbs. and was completely out of physical shape.. I was sent to a WCB Occupational Rehab Program with extreme demands and collapsed half way through the second day of a four hour exercise program. I was sent to Surrey Memorial Hospital, a suspected heart attack but I had none. I was lucky that my heart specialist was very perceptive an noticed my downcast appearance. At an office visit one week after discharge he asked me to write a very quick test of 30 questions that took less than 2 minutes to answer: As quick as you can, read each question and don’t think, just check the yes or no answer box. I scored an amazing 27 out of the 30 and was very proud until he told me that it was a test for Depression and any score over 15 was bad news. He made a phone call and I walked down the street to see a Psychiatrist a half hour later.

Apparently most depression is the result of a problem with Serotonin, a hormone that controls your moods and their intensity. I can’t remember which gland makes it but nobody knows what goes wrong and there is no cure. Fortunately there are now a number of drug treatments that will help but everybody reacts differently and what will work with you is a psychiatrist guess game. I was lucky to be put on a drug called Serzone, an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) immediately and it worked for me. Unfortunately for a lot of depressed patients finding the right drug for them can be a trial and error effort that lasts for years of ups and downs and that can be completely disabling.

I hit bottom about a month after diagnosis of depression and it took me about six month to get back to near normal. In April 2000 I was diagnosed as having a Major Depressive Disorder Recurrent and I had several bad spells over the next two or three years. I have been spell free for the past 7 or 8 years but the worst result was discovering that I was doubly depressed and had Dysthymia, a low grade chronic depression that lasts forever in some instances. It’s not so bad being gloomy all the time but for me it meant the complete loss of interest and ability to do everything that I enjoyed and made my life worth while.

What I Lost to Dysthymia

I bought my first guitar from the T. Eaton Company catalog for $5 when I was 8 and my Mom taught me to play it first as a steel guitar on my lap then as a rhythm guitar and I finally would up as a pretty good bluegrass finger picker. I was a Burl Ives fan and a good singer of his songs and other ballads and I loved to party and entertain. I knew a hundred dirty jokes and songs and I ran with a beer loving crowd of buddies.

I bought my current guitar in 1968 and it’s a pretty rare Canadian Espana guitar made for the T. Eaton Company by a Finnish guitar manufacturer out of specially provided Canadian woods. It’s a classical style guitar but I discovered its body is a little larger and its got a slightly softer deeper tone. Its my baby!

My guitar has sat in the closet for 15 years now with only the occasional attempt to play. I pulled it out about three months ago intending to get back into playing and discovered rusty fingers and a voice that hasn’t been used in years. I’ve been looking at the damned thing in the corner and wondering what to do.

What is the point of playing again? Right now, none! The only audience I have is you my readers and the only entertainment I can share with you is my Joke Collection. They are the best 70 jokes that I have collected over the past 50 years and I managed to post them as a blog to share at TheYarnBarn.Blogspot.ca/. Take a peek when you need a grin. I recommend the following

The Runaway sermon at Crestmont Methodist

http://theyarnbarn.blogspot.ca/2007/06/runaway-sermon-at-crestmont-methodist.html

The moral of the story:  

Don’t piss off the Preacher

I can read 1250 words per minute and I was a compulsive reader. I began reading Zane Grey when I was about ten, in bed at Granddads farmhouse at night by kerosene lantern light. I absorbed the Code of the West and his hero gunfighter’s penchant for pursuing justice. By the time I was 15 I had read every book in the Fort Saskatchewan town and school libraries and took the bus to Edmonton to trade for another load of fiction and fantasy every weekend. My favorites are probably James Clavell, Wilbur Smith, Jeffery Archer Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy.

I loved books, good movies and TV series that primarily featured characters who overcame great and complex difficulties in the course of their lives. Through the exercise of good character, determination and courage they overcame their problems.

I have not read a book for at least the last ten years. I have the same problem with movies and TV. I try and I get not even a quarter ways through and I’ve just lost interest in these heroes and their problems. Who gives a shit? I’ve got problems of my own and she is watching me right now. LOL

I AVOIDED DISASTER

Up until two years ago I was in total isolation in my room unless I was at work afternoons as a Security Guard watching a bank. I had no beer, no buddies, no social circle at all. My wife was totally unaware of how depressed I was but I damned near hit the bottom of the barrel again and on the way to work just before Christmas I was indulging in suicidal ideation about how I should kill myself. I got a wake up call. I was on River Road and wanted to turn left onto Nordel Way.  I waited until the last truck cleared the orange light, turned left and was T-boned in the passenger door by a kid in a pickup truck trying to beat the light. He was going really fast and spun me around 270 degrees and landed me up on top of the lane divider about 12“higher than the road.

I was lucky I wasn’t killed. I lost consciousness for a very short time but hardly had a scratch: a badly bruised set of right side ribs but nothing else. I was taken to hospital, x-rayed and released with an Rx for pain pills. For some strange reason pot didn’t help with that rib pain and it always was like a stab in the side that took forever to quit hurting every time I coughed or farted or laughed.for two months. It was a wakeup call that it just wasn’t my time to croak. Fate, Kharma, who the hell knows, but the Big Boy didn’t want me yet..

I was familiar to a certain degree about the problems with Medical Marijuana and had some nasty relationships with the MMAD and I decided that if I was stuck here, something had to change, and that was me. Jan 1. I decided to help so I started this blog on Jan 1, 2012.

January 27, I read of the Kamermans bust and I decided to become an advocate for him and that expanded to my current range of interests.

I owe much of my recovery to you commenting readers for feedback that let me know that I am doing some good work and have helped some people. That has provided the incentive and motivation to make more changes and get back to the party animal I was. I have plans for Youtube to play and sing two very good not quite dirty songs that I want to get credit for. I have no idea where they came from but they popped into my head 40 years ago and I think they qualify as Classic Country, Just the title and chorus of each will give you a pretty good idea of what is going to come if I can get my new webcam working and learn to warble and pick again:

.

The first is called:

                                              FLATTULENCE

and its chorus goes:

FART! FART! FART! FART!

Whistle, Bang or Wheeze

Odorous and Awful now

It’s floating on the breeze

The second is called:

THE SHITHOUSE ON THE FARM

and its chorus goes

It’s that little white building by the barn

It’s the most important building on the farm

Where I used to sit at ease

With my elbows on my knees

In that little white building by the barn

Playing them at my funeral would make that a perfect send off, 

everybody would be singing along and stomping their feet.

The last two years of Facebook and the Blog have made a huge change in my mood and outlook and I hope to continue to grow more. It is a remarkable turnaround from shame to once again feeling some self esteem and actually feeling proud of myself for what I have managed to do.

So onward and upward with the Don Quixote imitation and the Code of the West belief. You charge the goddamn windmill and then when you get close enough to see the occupant you quick draw your pistol and shoot the bastard between the eyes before he can shoot you.

(Standard Police Procedure: Claim Self Defense) 

Unfortunately there is no shortage of damsels in distress around here with grow-ops to save and I expect to be busy!

That is my story and how I got here and nobody knows where I’m going until I write my next post.

Until then

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

A Solution to Enbridge

MY ADVICE TO THE ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY

MAKE THEM PAY!

The Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel Report has possibly solved half of the problem with the Enbridge pipeline. If the 209 conditions can be met by the Consortium then everything that can be done to protect the environment and the habitat has been done. It now boils down to one question:

What the hell is Stevie going to do?

There’s bunch of savages across the table!

They’re all wearing Warpaint!

The answer is obvious:

Buy them off!

How and with what?

OWNERSHIP!

I think that unlike us white honkeys, the Aboriginals of this country and particularly BC natives have a tradition of equality and sharing of their wealth that supports my proposal. They solved the 90% problem by having a big party! When any individual reached that prosperous level he threw a bgi party and gave it all back to his community so everyone shared equally in his success, a

Potlatch

For all you ignorant white guys:

A potlatch is a gift-giving festival and primary economic system practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and United States. Wikipedia

If you consider tradition, where does that leave all of you natives if your leaders negotiate a success? To get an equal portion that success has to be divided.

What’s to divide?

Money and Control!

How do you get both?

You put a toll on the flow of product through it,

An advance payment, and

get a voice on the Board.

When the deal is signed there is a census, a deposit to a trust fund and a separate cheque is issued to every man woman and child in your band. That prevents corruption and is necessary to ensure that each of you decides where it goes and there are no diversions.  We’re talking some pretty big bucks and there are greedy devious weevils in all communities.

On the other hand maybe you can get the Enbridge bunch to throw a potlatch and you can all pick up your cheque, and an apology from their rep when you show up for the party.

That’s my advice. Do as you will but consider the option, It’s just common sense from

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

Euthanasia Rears Its Head

We’re all on the downhill slope to Death

I don’t have a problem with it

I would like to die. I cost too much

And the world is going to change even faster

Attention all you pending Old Farts

Everybody In the 55+ Club

It is time for a serious change of topic: time for some old fart advice to any and all of you readers, who are at or near retirement age. You have no idea what you are facing if you plan on living to a ripe old age. I’m sorry to inform you that you are facing a rotten future full of shit that you have not considered. You are going to go through the process of ageing in a time of increasing cost and reduced resources and it is going to be no fun for anyone. I hope I am over exaggerating the future hazards but preparation can minimize or deflect some. Consider this a tutorial in survival: a lesson in reality

As a commingling problem, now Doctors are having a problem with euthanasia, and Alzheimer’s is just coming into bloom and here come the new herd of Boomers.

Let’s start this by you just retired, or will, doesn’t matter when and you figure on lasting until you’re lets say 75 and, if you’re lucky, maybe even a few years longer. Let’s consider the problem in five years chunks.

In the first five years you’ve got the problem of adjusting to a fixed income lifestyle, the more bucks the better and this is not easy. Suddenly you’re a nobody and you don’t count. Nobody wants to hear your opinion! You’re useless, nobody wants you, nobody needs you and nobody is going to be left to give a a shit when you die! If you’ve been paying attention, you have come to realize that friends and relations have been dying around you and your social life is drying up. Friends can’t come over because they’re busy with their own health and survival problems. If you are a typical 60 year old with ten family members left for support, they are probably living in ten separate cities and no real support at all.

If you’re single you’re lucky, you don’t have to care for anyone and watching a loved one wither and die is no fun! You can’t stop it. It simply takes over your life and the chains of love make you watch her suffer! There is no option

OK we made it to seventy and now we start in with the physical deterioration crap. You get weak and you get tired. You’re joints start to ache and you lose your wind. Maybe you’re stuck in a wheelchair and then there’s the old fogy’s home when you can’t take care of yourself. Have you got any idea how much it costs for an assisted living facility today. It’s beyond my means: what’s that cost fifteen years down the road? Doesn’t matter. Money doesn’t control where you go, your physical condition does and you’re a helpless passenger.

The Bible says a life span is three score and ten, and that is all anyone should want: Particularly now that Alzheimer’s is coming home to roost.

The years past seventy five are the most to be feared. They all involve losing control of your life and progressing towards a life in a bed. What is worse: a life of anonymity? Sooner or later it happens, somebody dies and you are alone. At that point you vanish. If you died there is not one solitary soul left who will give a shit much less shed a tear. You will not be missed and no will remember anything you’ve done. You might as well have never been.

You are doomed to a life dependent on strangers to feed you and clean you, perform the necessities of daily life and keep you alive as long as possible. The final insult to you is the possibility of a stroke or some other result like a coma or Alzheimer’s that prevents you communicating with the external world and you are trapped inside your own head. Then one day it happens: you die in your sleep and you either wake up to the Heavenly Choir or you don’t wake up. End of problem. No one should be afraid of dying: the peril to be feared is how you get there.

Euthanasia

That is what I want to leave you readers with today.

Something to think about.

Docs Offside on Physician Assisted Suicide

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/docs-offside-on-physician-assisted-suicide-1.2448089

Look at the ageing pole I painted.

Look at yourself

Ask yourself “where you want to get on the misery scale?”

Then ask yourself what if the option of euthanasia was available?

A simple request: and a surprise pill in my evening meds some day this week. Thanks.

Not so terrible is it.

More to follow

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

A Word of Advice to the Critically Ill and Dying

You Never Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

Don’t Let This Happen

I was hesitant about sharing this part of my life with you because it was too personal and even today seventeen years later reading it brings pain and causes tears.

It is the Introduction to a Blog

200-Days.Blogspot.com

I wrote it following the death of my son: Blaine LeRoy Barrett, Jr. (Lee) April 1, 1996 in the May Gutteridge Hospice (May’s Place) in the Downtown Lower East. It’s not a nice or pretty story and it happened as the result of one technicality. Our son: an adult, terminally ill AIDS patient came out of a six week coma: mentally incompetent, suicidal and unable to direct his own medical treatment. The minute he was declared incompetent, we lost our rights as parents to influence his treatment in any way and to be fully informed as to the progress of his treatment.

From that point on, Lee fell through every crack in the medical, mental and social assistance systems and 200 days after his admission to St. Paul’s Hospital in a coma he died at May’s Place.

This post is directed to any adult, and their immediate family, who has an illness that could be terminal, to imagine themselves in Lee’s place, going into Hospital in a coma to die. At that point you need a relative: if you don’t, ensure you have a back up.

Imagine! You are in a coma and you want to die at peace. What happens if you wake up blind or paralyzed, semi conscious but unable to communicate. Find yourself someone you can trust to give your Living Will to and make them understand your wishes. We understood our son’s wishes all too well but no one else did. Nobody involved had any idea of what was happening and neither did I until I read his 1000 page medical file and his personal diaries. The left hand had no idea what the right hand was doing and we were denied access and denied any control over Lee’s treatment.

Not only advise your representative what your wishes are but also with whatever documentation that you need to enable them to take legal control of your future according to your wishes. At the time of Lee’s death in BC it was a Designation as your Medical Alternate.

Without that you’re screwed

I won’t proceed much further with an introduction but as an additional incentive to read the blog, the excerpts quoted from Lee’s journals and the thoughts that dominate in a mentally disturbed mind. A depression so deep its central focus was suicide and constant ideation of how to do it. My final advice

COVER YOUR ASS!

You don’t need the kind of shit that follows.

Preface

During the summer of 1996, Vancouver, B.C., was the site of an International Conference on AIDS. From all the various media reports it was a resounding success. Visitors to the Conference arrived by the thousands and hotel rooms were simply unavailable. All the main thoroughfares in the downtown area were festooned with colorful banners. The ringing cash registers of the restaurants and retail establishments in the downtown core, and the glowing reports in the media was music to the commercial sector. It was an exciting week for all who participated. There was a protest parade before the opening. Act Up arrived and acted up. Jean Chretien, our Prime Minister, apparently felt it impolitic to appear to open a Conference about a "fag" disease. To the delight of all the AIDS infected and affected attendees, he consequently had his ass chewed out for both his failure to appear and his lack of leadership in developing a "National AIDS Policy" by no less than Elizabeth Taylor, bless her heart. His lackluster subordinate, the Minister of Health, was soundly booed from the podium and a great time was had by all. But in the now seventeen plus years that have passed, nothing has changed.

One of the central activities of the Conference was an Art Exhibit with AIDS as its focus. It was located in a lower forum at Robson Square in downtown Vancouver and it was beautiful. It contained, for local content and interest, the work of three B.C. artists. One was the noted Joe Average who had designed the Conference Logo. Another was another not known to me but who, like Joe Average, had a considerable biography beneath his name. The third was the work of an unknown artist with no biography.

His paintings were mounted together at the front of the room directly below a large overhead quilt that stretched completely across the ceiling from one end of the hall to the other. Each of the small panels from which it was constructed listed the name of an AIDS victim from one small African village and the panels were manifold. The rest of the exhibits, beautiful in execution, graphic in their impact, and tragic in their subject matter, stretched around the hall in a seemingly endless parade of faceless names and nameless faces.

         

The work of this third B.C. artist, as displayed, was a large pencil self-portrait of the artist at the age of eighteen that was superb.  It was accompanied by two others, a raging abstract- "My Fear of the AIDS Virus", and another collage entitled " The Impossible Today, The Miracles Tomorrow". This work on display was the only one that linked a face with a name. Under the large self-portrait was a small label reading:

                                      Lee Barrett

                                      1964-1996

Of all the thousands of curious enquiring minds that visited and viewed the exhibition during the week no one ever followed up on this singular anomaly. No one asked "Who was he?",  "Where did he come from?", "Did he do any other work?", "How did he die?". If anyone did ask they could get no answers, for The Organizing or Selection people had no idea who he was before they selected three out of the forty-three works he left when he died.

In addition to his paintings and drawings, he left nearly fifty volumes of his daily journal chronicling his life and thoughts from 1982 onwards. These, he left to me, his father, with the stipulation that I read them. I have done so, and have gained an understanding and respect from that reading that I will forever treasure.

His life was a tragedy. He never fit. As a child, as a youth, as a student, as an artist, as a homosexual, as a patient- he never fit.  His was a life of pain, of egocentricity, of depressions and euphoria's that culminated in a disgusting failure of the Medical, Mental Health, and Social Services in their efforts to help him. He fell through every crack in the system and he died in poverty in a Hospice in the downtown East Hastings area of Vancouver.

He deserved better.