A Bucket List

Now that my life is known to be drawing to a close, someone suggested that I write a bucket list -  that is, things to do before I die.

A bucket list.  But who can suddenly dive into adventure when they are seriously sick?  

I am lucky. I have lived a lucky life, and have done what I wanted to do.  My choices have been nearly all good.  My choice of husband was a major win.  

I have enjoyed life. I am not claiming that I was especially privileged, but mostly, I have been lucky. 

I have enjoyed a full 18 years of being a Grey Nomad and that is one of the most pleasurable things that one can do.  I have enjoyed hobbies, from breeding budgies to painting pictures and even writing books.  I have children and I have grandchildren, each of them special, each of them different. 

I don't need a bucket list.  I have filled my bucket.

So goodbye, friends, acquaintances, and even enemies, though I was never a sufficiently notable character to have any real enemies. 

(But I would have liked to live long enough to see if Trumpy wins in 2024.)  

In hospital, in a ward with blokes.

 

I spent a fortnight in a hospital ward with blokes. I did NOT like it!  And yes, the individual blokes were alright, no complaints, but it did seem odd that every time a very bloke-like man went home, he was replaced with a version even more rough and 'bloke' like. 

I did not like showing myself in just a thin nightie in mixed company.  And it was far too hot to wear more concealing garments. And how very difficult it is not to show a lot of leg when struggling out of that bed. 

I am old enough not to feel it at all likely that I might be sexually molested, but what about the young and attractive women tossed in with the blokes. They get sick too and that is not going to make them feel comfortable.  And before you say that simply would not happen, it has happened. There is not constant supervision in a hospital ward, and bells are not always answered quickly, even when the buzzer is  not lost over the side of the bed somewhere. 

It did not appear that this mixed-ward business was because of over-crowding. I think it was ideology - that those in charge preferred it that way.  Maybe they think of the two blokes in town who pretend they are women, and might put up a fuss if sent to a men's ward. So instead of taking a risk that they might be uncomfortable, they make everyone else uncomfortable.

I did wonder if that, at the very last, they would not put a women in the 4 bed ward with three men.  But old Mary, all of 50 kgs, told me she spent a fortnight in a ward in just that situation. She was not comfortable. 

Sick people should be looked after.  They should not be made uncomfortable sharing what is essentially a bedroom, with those of the opposite sex. 

Men, too.  I reckon the men would prefer all-male wards. It doesn't go all one way.

Let's try a return to the higher standards of the past. Except in cases of emergency, wards should be single-sex.

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