With Spring Comes the Fall (4 page)

Posted by Josh Guess at
9:51 AM

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Health and well being

This is my attempt to help you all deal with the sad reality that the concept of organized medicine is pretty much dead. All of us, every survivor, must by necessity become part field medic, nurse, doctor, and herbalist. This post will be large, so bear with me.
Basic first aid:
It is imperative that you start learning basic first aid. Being able to assess the type and severity of a wound, illness, or condition is vital. Start by checking out
this
link, which is a good beginner's guide to help you learn what to look for. Without an understanding of how the human body works, you will not be an effective provider of first aid. Therefore I strongly suggest that you study the basic functions of the human body at this
link
. If you do not have an obvious cause of injury, suppose that you come upon an unconscious person along the road, use the ABC's--that is, make sure they have a clear Airway, that they are Breathing, and check for Circulation, by feeling for a pulse (and its strength) at the major sites.
More likely in the dangerous place the world has become, you will be dealing with wounds. In general, wounds should be cleaned very well, kept moist, and kept protected. So , make yourself some saline (a rounded tablespoon of sea salt (no added metals, PURE salt) to one liter of distilled water makes .9% saline, or "normal" medical saline) for irrigation, clean the wound, pat it dry, and put some antibiotic ointment on it before placing a nonrestrictive dressing on it. Mind you, this does not apply to Zombie bites. For those, the only option is amputation, or a bullet. For a very good basic look at wound care, check out the CDC's disaster guide to wound management
here
. If you are desperate, you can look
here
to get the general idea how to stitch a wound. I warn you, it is basic, but then, so is sewing your skin back together.
Gathering supplies:
Make sure that you get as many medical supplies as possible. For this section, I am leaving out medicines. That being said, my suggestion to you is to completely ransack any medicine cabinets you find, and sort the contents out later. With pharmacies, hospitals, doctor's offices and the like you can be more selective, after you know what you are looking for. So, make sure to grab: Band-aids, curlex, various sterile pads (4x4's, etc), abdominal pads, maxi pads (these are very versatile, useful for heavily oozing wounds), air braces for arms and legs (can help control bleeding when you inflate them and be, you know, braces), as many ace wraps as you can find (work well over dressings when you have no tape), natural tears eye drops, antibiotic ointment, sugar, Vaseline (sugar and Vaseline can be mixed together to make a a paste to treat pressure sores), burn cream, manual blood pressure cuff, stethoscope, oximeter (and batteries for it), ice and heat packs, iodaform gauze for small wound/nose packing, LOTS of gauze, both in rolls and in pad form, some non-stick coated gauze pads for burns, steri-strips (which help hold a wound closed), rolls of silk tape, paper tape, needles, silk thread, dental floss, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, surgical supplies such as scissors, scalpels, and forceps.
MEDS:
My main suggestion here is to first get a recent pill guide. It is VITAL that you understand what you may put in your body, and what it might do, especially if you have medicine allergies. Second, you need to make sure you understand what some human averages are pertaining to vital signs, so you don't accidentally kill yourself or someone else by giving a blood pressure med to someone who doesn't need it. So, another list:
Acetaminophen
,
Ibuprofen
,
diphenhydramine
(for allergies), meds for blood pressure (such as
clonidine
), any and all diarrhea meds (this will dehydrate you fast if left untreated), milk of magnesia for indigestion and constipation (which can rupture your insides if it gets too bad, so I also recommend trying to find enemas and suppositories to break up impactions, aka "big hard poop"), as many antibiotics as possible (make sure you aren't allergic!).
You
may
want to get some pain meds, but be extremely cautious when doing so, because most of them can be addictive, and the last thing you want is to get your neck ripped out because you were so high you thought the zombie was John Lennon or something. It probably isn't a bad idea to get some syringes and anesthetics for sutures and whatnot, but please, PLEASE read my next (and last) bit of advice first.
READ BOOKS! Find as many books on the diagnosis of disease, emergency medicine, herbalism (nice link
here
), first aid, and the like as you can. Knowledge is the key to survival, and raiding a medical library is a good way to keep yourself alive and healthy. Not to mention you can train and teach others, and if society ever starts to recover, maybe become a valuable commodity to your new community.
OK, all done. Sorry this was so long, but this one I really wanted to cover a lot in, because this is probably the most important lesson for long term survival we can learn. Thank you, mom, for the help in creating and organizing this list, and for raising me to love medicine. It sure is coming in handy.

Posted by Josh Guess at
12:23 PM

I feel like I have done my part in helping those of you who have survived the last few weeks prepare for what has been ahead. I have had a hard time choosing between my selfish desire to vent about the general crap that life has become, and trying to help out by providing as much information as I can. I chose to be informative lately, and I stand by that choice. If something I write helps you survive, or someone you love, then I can take the small loss of writing what I feel, what I endure.

I think that as far as posts to help you prepare for survival, I have done what I can. Chances are that if you have made it this far, you no longer need so much help. So I really don't feel too bad about writing about what is going on around here, though I may do the occasional how-to list.

With that in mind: Great news.

My dad finally contacted me, he and my stepmother, my stepsisters, and their whole clan are safe. My oldest brother is still AWOL, but knowing him, he's holed up in some old house, his kids around him, not a worry in the world.

Locally, things are even better.

My voice mail is heavy with messages from people I either know, or know people i know. My friend Gabrielle is loaded up with her husband and kids, heading here. That will make another four to our growing little community. She's also a nurse, with a varied background that will be invaluable to us. Between her and my mom, we might be able to set up a clinic someday. She tells me that their house was almost secure using similar methods as we did for our house, when a huge swarm of zombies hit them. It was something new, I think, because these zombies weren't just milling around, they were focused and relentless. Gab and her family got away by drawing the lot of them into the house and setting it on fire before getting the their SUV, which she kept packed for escape. Smart lady.

David A. (not my brother Dave) told some of our friends from my old job about us, and it looks like a group of five or six of them are headed this way today. I know all of them, and while I might not have been best buds with them or anything, I think they will all fit in.

Various others have called, but those are the only ones I can tell you for sure are coming. Some of the others are going to make a stand where they live, or haven't committed to anything yet. I hope that they come around. We've cleaned out the houses on our road, so there is ample room, if not as secure as our place.

So all in all, things are looking up. I was worried when we started to see looters around here, not helped by the pair I scared off last week, but it looks like they've thought better of coming back. No more major groups of them in the last few days.

Jess is berating me for being overly optimistic, but when the sun is shining, the breeze is just right, and good friends let you know that horrible, biting death just happened to miss them, how can you not be?

Posted by Josh Guess at
1:49 PM

Gabrielle made it, but just barely. I have no idea what the other group of people (Tate, Will, and others) are facing, but they aren't here, which is a good thing.
We drove out to the main road at the bottom of the neighborhood to wait for Gabby and her family. They were on the phone with us from the time they got into the county (on the far side from us) until they got to us. The distraction of talking them through getting here might have had something to do with them not seeing the people following them.
The only thing that saved us was Jessica's insistence that we go in a group, and heavily armed.
We took one of the trucks, Patrick driving, and me, Jess and Little David (David A) in the back. When Gab and her clan showed up, going very, very slow due to the abandoned cars everywhere and keeping an eye out for us, we thought everything was kosher. We were wrong.
They got up to us, pulled onto the main road of the subdivision, and we all started chatting. Over the hill on the main road, a huge SUV came into sight. We watched them for few moments, hoping it was Tate and his group, and most of us just stood in shock when windows rolled down and weapons popped out of them.
My wife, the quiet, shy one, started firing before the rest of us realized anything was wrong. Jess slowed them down, as only 30.06 rounds can do, while those of us on the ground got into the back of the truck. I motioned Gabrielle to go up the road ahead of us, and Pat threw the truck into gear so we could follow her to our house.
Little David had the sense to call mom while Jess and I tried to keep the SUV behind us at bay. It turned out to be unnecessary, since she and David's family could hear the gunshots from her house. I put a bunch of rounds into their engine before we were halfway up the really big hill on my mom's road, and their vehicle died.
This was good and bad. Good, because it slowed them down, but bad, because once they knew they had no wheels, they got out and spread. It is much easier to aim when you don't have to lean out of a window to do it.
Luckily there weren't that many of them, only seven. At the time, I didn't think about what I was doing, no thoughts were in my head to cloud my judgment of my actions. Only a hot mixture of rage and fear, and the certain knowledge that those I loved would die if we failed.
We stopped at the top of the hill, about two hundred yards from mom's house, and had ourselves a gunfight. Jess dropped two of them very quickly, shooting one of them through the glass of his car door as he was getting out. Didn't even get a chance to fire back. I got one myself as he ran toward me, the idiot. Pat had gotten out of the truck as soon as we stopped, leveled his shotgun and started firing with a speed that seemed impossible in such a big guy.
Pat got two of them.
We managed to avoid getting hit only because we had the advantage of terrain, and the sun was at our backs, making it hard for them to look at us to aim. The last two of them almost had me, but since I was still in the bed of the truck, I dropped flat when I saw them rushing toward us, pulling Jess with me. Pat dropped back to hunker by the front of the truck, forcing the last two attackers to come around if they wanted to get him. I thought we were done for, honestly, because Jess and I were sitting ducks, flat on our backs. They could have easily walked up next to the truck and fired down on us, but for one small factor.
Little David.
When we stopped, I forgot all about him. He dove into the truck as Pat was getting out, and in the chaos, everyone forgot him. But he kept his wits sharp and was watching it all very closely, and when the two men tried to get close, he threw the truck in reverse, making them duck the sides. One of them smashed his face on the asphalt when his weapon got tangled up as he tried to roll, and Patrick took him in one shot.
The last one was a bit more spry and had actually started firing when a big, silver SUV came over the hill at forty or fifty miles an hour and crushed him.
I never knew my mom had it in her. She abhors violence, hates it with a passion. But from her house, she told me later, she saw what was happening, and wasn't about to let her son die.
Now that it's all over, many hours later, I am starting to really feel what happened. I killed someone. I ended all of his potential, all that he could have been, in a single instant. And even though I know it was necessary and completely justified, I still feel terrible about it. It's like a toothache that won't go away, always in the back of my mind, along with the fear and worry that our new world forces on us. I did a thing today that a few weeks ago I never dreamed of, and I wonder what other decisions we will be faced with in the months and years ahead.
I am trying not to think about it. My heart hurts enough right now, with guilt at being a killer, and relief that my people are alive and unharmed, and more guilt for part of me feeling good that I ended a threat to them.
It was looking to be such a beautiful day. Just goes to show that Jess is usually right about these things.