I am a double transplant recipient who is 50 years old and in fairly good health but with restrictions as to what I am physically able to do.
My household consist of myself, my wife, and our 8 year old son. I also have a grown daughter that lives three hours drive to the west but she is not a major factor in emergency plans. I don’t say this to be heartless or imply I love my daughter less but, from my standpoint, she is now on the periphery of my planning as is any other family member who is outside my immediate area of influence or impact. My wife would no doubt be more inclined to react to emotion than to the reality of our circumstances but, that is why God has made women look at things differently than we men do. Lest you get the wrong impression of my wife she is very detail oriented and can come to a logical versus totally emotional conclusion and I am sure if the worst set of circumstances were to present themselves she would no doubt support any decision I/We would make.
I have been retired now for a little more than 10 years because I am the recipient of a double transplant and as a result I have restrictions on what I can do.
My transplant was truly a God send for keeping me alive 10 years ago but as I look around at what is going on in our Country and on a bigger scale Globally, now I have the uneasy realization that in a SHTF situation or God forbid or maybe a God-ordained moment other wise referred to as a TEOTWAWKI I will literally be on the clock. The clock will start ticking for me the moment there is an interruption in my ability to procure the 2 or 3 life extending drugs I depend on at 12 hour intervals to fight off organ rejection.
There are two drugs associated with anti-rejection that especially concern me because they are so expensive that our local pharmacy’s here in the town nearest to where I live do not stock them. I get these two medications from a pharmacy located 35 miles from where I live or we order them on the Internet. The third drug I depend on is a low dose of steroid. The steroid is cheap and probably readily available with a prescription at any pharmacy, I do have a maintain certain buffer with these steroid as well as I can. The other medications I take while serving a health or quality of life purpose are in my view secondary to the supply of the three above mentions drugs serve.
One of my anti-rejection drugs dosages is based upon a blood test that I take about four times a year and the dosage could be considered variable. I have a prescription for “x” number of pills twice a day. About 6 months ago the latest literature available to the doctor indicated that the pancreas could survive with a certain level of this medication in the blood that was lower than my current levels. The doctor verbally lowered the number of pills for that particular medication but did not alter the prescription. I now have a couple of months buffer on that medication but not on the other. I have some extra money available currently and after consulting my wife we have decided to ask the Doctor for a three month prescription to try and keep a at least a 90 day buffer for that medication. In the event of a regional or national emergency I have on my checklist to immediately contact my doctor to ask that she make a request that all prescriptions have at least 90 days worth of medications. My doctor did this after 9/11 and I can’t see her giving me any problems in the face of an emergency in the future.
It is these types of concerns that keep me awake at night. Will I be able to recognize an untenable situation in the making near home? Will I have any better chances for my family if I “Bug Out” instead of just hunkering down and “Bugging In” ?
There are some factors other than my medications that I feel start me off in the “Bug In” column at least initially. I live a few miles outside of a small east Texas town. There are numerous creeks and ponds within easy walking distance for water, we also live within a quarter of a mile of our community water tower. I recently spotted two or three ponds very close by that I was unaware of until looking at my property on Google Earth. For the most part I have friendly neighbors and we have members of both sides of our family that are anywhere from .3 of a mile to 5 miles away. Even though the family members are not what could be termed preppers they are country folk and probably slightly better of than say apartment dwellers when it comes to food stocks and tools. Though we have not specifically talked about SHTF situations all the family members members that live within that five mile radius have FRS walkie talkies that we might be able to use to communicate during an emergency. Another factor I consider is, I have three acres of land and a good rear tine rototiller. I have planted a small garden by country standards but probably huge by city standards. I also have dogs and about a dozen laying hens and three Guinea Fowl to consider if the “Bug Out” option is chosen.
My wife and I have been trying to prepare for hard times by having a few months worth of food on hand and in storage containers that are easily transportable. We continue to try and increase our food stocks each payday. We have a fairly rounded out supply of first-aid supplies and first-aid information. My wife worked as a lab tech in a hospital the for 25 years before changing careers and from personal experience I can testify that medically speaking, she is one good cookie. We have multiple methods of storing, Collecting, and making water potable. I have bottled water in storage in both of my vehicles as well as a Katadyn Base Camp Water Filter behind the back seat of my truck.
I have ample stores and variety of weapons and ammo barring a bona fide war. We have “Bug Out Bags” for the three of us that could sustain us in the worst of circumstances for at least 10 days if we all three have our Bug Out Bags (BOBs) and five days if all we could grab was mine. We have Get Home Bags (GHBs), walking sticks, and at least one pistol or survival rifle available in both vehicles in the event some serious personal protection is needed. The GHBs have some supplies and food that could be combined with the BOBs supplies if bugging out by vehicle and not by foot. We have an emergency generator that I have put four rubber tires and two collapsible handles on the generator to make it more portable it can be rolled up in the back of the truck or the utility trailer using ATV ramps. I am currently researching options for making the generator a lot less noisy. a couple of weeks of gas that is rotated through the lawn mowers. We have a fair supply of batteries, candles, lamp oil and wicks. But it is not so much these things that bother me, it is my daily maintenance drugs that I must have to keep organ rejection at bay.
I have a checklist on the wall where we store our BOBs with instructions that I have tried to tune to the perceived amount of time available to make an exit. The checklist tries to cover items to grab from the basic instruction of, grab the BOB and get out, to a situation of having an hour or two that we can use to fill our covered utility trailer that stays packed and ready for camping at all times with food stocks. In my checklist and instructions I try to mention places to go grab items that are currently available here at home or are in use but available. These things may otherwise be overlooked in a hurry up situation, for example the GHBs, weapons, water, toilet paper, blankets etc. stored in each vehicle that might be overlooked as we go about the business of hooking up our utility trailer to our truck. I have an extra 20 lb. propane tank under the grill, just make sure the valve is closed unhook it and it’s ready to go in the utility trailer. There is an old refrigerator in the back part of my shed that I have stored large bags of staples like rice, beans, and flour not to mention a fairly large supply of batteries this could easily be overlooked if not mentioned in a checklist. Water barrels and hand pumps stored in another shed are likely suspects to be overlooked at crunch time simply because they are stored in a shed that for the most part stores Christmas items and summer time pools and toys for our child. All of these items mentioned though in some cases may be a larger version of something I already have and therefore could be labeled redundant, they could still fall into the “need” category not the “want” category. Items included on my checklist are the things that could be easily missed in situation where speed of your exit is condensed and these particular items because of limited storage space in one shed have been split up and stored in another. Those things I feel are most important for survival will naturally be first on my checklist or in the BOBs if possible. My checklist runs the spectrum from basic needs to the items that make having the basic needs easier to use or last longer.
I have one advantage that some other preppers may not, that advantage is my wife, She is in total harmonious agreement on the need to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Even though she does not read the suggestions, the blogs, or the news articles as frequently as I do, she still supports purchases that would illicit a fair amount of eye rolling from other wives.
I am sure many Preppers and Survivalist have pondered on the questions of what to do, if in fact you have elderly parents that are homebound or in nursing facilities, special needs children, or family members that are oblivious to the dangers that may be closing in around them. There maybe circumstances beyond anyone’s control that are going to eliminate any movement of these family members except to your home. If or when these predicaments arise there is going to be some serious heart wrenching soul searching decisions to be made if your plans were to “Bug Out”. How far out can you realistically cast your web of protection? Ask yourself: do survival odds go up for anyone or do mortality rates go up for everyone? I guess the inverse question that I must ask before deciding to “Bug Out” with my loved one is, does my dependence on daily maintenance drugs or my physical restrictions pose any unwanted stress for those I wish to take out of harms way? How long can I survive on what medications we have available? Can I realistically hope to stay supplied with these life sustaining drugs if I and my family relocate for an extended period of time? All of these questions and many more like them may one day not only have to be asked about some of my family members but would rightly have to be asked about me. In a TEOTWAWKI could I talk my wife into Bugging Out without me if the odds looked better for her to take our child and evacuate or would everyone be temporarily better off having me there but having to watch as I become weaker and sicker from organ rejection and then organ shutdown? These are some sometimes disturbing and yet sobering thoughts. Being the eldest child and the child living nearest my mother who is now a widow I have seriously pondered the question: Could I leave Mom if my wife and child were in a perceived danger as opposed to a de-facto in the moment danger? Could I at least get my Mom to relocate to my home that is a few miles outside the city limits? Getting my mother to relocate to my house for a short or extended stay would be a great deal easier than getting her to commit to leaving either the town or the state, Of this I am sure.
Are these factors in the “Bug Out” versus “Bug In” debate? You bet. Could this cloud my judgment or place some sort of limit on my options? I say probably.
Not because of News items of the day but, more because of the economic situations my mother endured as a child on a small farm, my mother is a prepper of sorts. Preparing with a little extra food is not exactly preparing for large scale disaster, a SHTF moment, or TEOTWAWKI but, If we should ever come to a point in time where it is prudent to speedily get my mother and to take only what is essential and relocate to my house, her supplies will improve the outlook for everyone involved. One thing that I have done for awhile now is to discuss some of the preparations my wife and I have made in the event of hard times. Mom being the farm girl she was, is very supportive. It is my estimation that the discussions we have had about hard times and preparations will pay off if the time comes to put planning into action. I occasionally mention some of my preps and changes that I have made to my “Bug Out Bag” just to illicit discussion on what my BOB is and when it might be used.
The only real options are going to be to sit down with your loved ones when you come to that “Y” in the road and lay out the options, take stock of your inventory and your situation, pray, and then consider the consequences of your available choices. Don’t let emotion drive you away from the cold hard realities that may present themselves upon close review. The coldest hardest fact for me is that in a “Bug Out” situation the clock may actually be a timer that has started and there just may not a reset button. With no reset available my tangible preparations such as food, water, and those items will no doubt be important but, the instructions I’ve collected and printed out or any head knowledge I may have tried to pass on may ultimately be as valuable if not more valuable than the physical supplies we have tried to lay up, Kind of the “teach a man to fish” thing.
I hope the timer never starts without that reset button being an available option but, if it does start my decisions will necessarily be weighted on the side of my families safety first with mine becoming secondary. – H.C., in God’s Country, East Texas
