So, why aren't you dead yet?

[prairiewindmomma]

Dh is the only one in our family who'd be here without modern medicine.

[Dandelion]

I big, fat, puffy heart peeing indoors.

 

:lol:

 

Indoor plumbing is truly a thing of beauty.  

 

I'll never forget one of the first camping trips I went on as a kid (I was 8 years old - this was a church group with about 100 other kids).  There weren't even outhouses at this campsite.  Instead, they had laid a log over a large pit.  You had to pull your pants down and then maneuver across the log, hanging your backside over the edge of the log to do your business.  A roll of toilet paper was kept on a branch sticking out from the log (if you were lucky - sometimes it was empty, or there was just enough to make you think you were good to go until you realized after the fact you were wrong).  There's nothing quite like the angst you experience when trying to wipe while precariously hanging onto a log over a pit of steaming excrement.  

 

So yes, I puffy heart peeing (and doing all my other business) indoors as well. 

[ErinE]

I big, fat, puffy heart peeing indoors.

 

With a flushing toilets! You could have gone to the bathroom indoors; there just would have been no device to magically whisk it away.

[Lisa in SC]

I have many incidents that would have killed me without modern medicine. The biggest one was full-blown sepsis which resulted in the death of our twins, and the very near death of me. I was in ICU, with nurses squeezing the antibiotic bags into my IV because the drip was too slow, and my organs were on the verge of shutting down. Without that treatment as well as everything else they did, my three oldest children would be motherless, and my 7yo would not exist. One dear friend who is a scientist at Eli Lilly can't believe I survived even with the care I received, and some of my doctors have said the same.

 

I meant to add that dd17 wouldn't be here now, because she had severe kidney issues which caused countless long term hospitalizations and a complicated surgery. One side of her nose was also blocked by bone, which compromised her breathing and also required complex surgery.

[Dana]

Dh would have died from pyloric stenosis as an infant. He's got a large scar as a result! Asthma would have gotten him in his teens otherwise (as it was, it was touch and go for a time at one point). Ds likely would have died from anaphylaxis. I'd probably still be around though...but with really bad teeth.

[Dandelion]

I have many incidents that would have killed me without modern medicine. The biggest one was full-blown sepsis which resulted in the death of our twins, and the very near death of me. 

:grouphug:

[LucyStoner]

Antibiotics post childhood surgery.

[Jeannie in NJ]

dh had an older brother that did not survive pneumonia.  This was in the early 1950's before dh was born.  A few years ago all of us in the house had pneumonia, we were on antibiotics , steroids, and inhalers.

 

My son was born with cleft lip and palate so life would have been very difficult for him without his numerous surgeries.  Plus he would not even be our son as he is adopted from Korea.

[AHASRADA]

I would never have been born. My mom had a kidney transplant as a teen, without which she wouldn't have survived long enough to have a child. She turned 60 last month :)

 

DH's appendix burst 10 years ago, and he didn't go to the hospital for almost 24 hours because we thought it was food poisoning. He was very sick for several days and needed surgery, but he's still here.

 

DS had the cord wrapped around his neck at birth and needed to be aspirated due to meconium. He's now 6'3" and learning to drive.

[Heatherwith4]

My oldest and I would be dead from me developing full-blown eclampsia at 35 weeks. (Seizures and everything). They stabilized me and did an emergency C-section. I was 22.

[sassenach]

I might have died of chronic strep in childhood (tonsils removed). Or any other number of bacterial infections that I've treated over the years. Ds would definitely have died (birth defect). Dh would be alive, but in a lot more pain (hard to imagine since he's already a chronic pain patient).

[GailV]

OTOH, I had separate bouts of measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox, and it wasn't that big of a deal.  Yes, I'm old enough, from a small enough town, that the vaccinations weren't done.  All of my friends and family went through all of those diseases.  

 

I'm pretty sure we could make a spin off of this of all the dangers we now confront that weren't an issue for past generations. 

[Jennifer3141]

I might not be dead but I would have been crippled without the surgery to repair my ruptured disc.

 

Although DD's birth wasn't easy and I wasn't faring so well blood pressure wise at the end. I did make it through with a vaginal birth.

[Xuzi]

I would have died as a newborn of spinal meningitis. I've been pretty healthy since then.

[Um_2_4]

I have a couple occasions when I might have died without medicine (stuck twin, appendix, gallbladder, etc). But I do think that modern medicine is one reason we hear more about allergies, diabetes, cancer etc.

My dad was the youngest of 14. 5 of those did not survive to teenage years. One just dropped dead walking home from school, he was 6 (maybe he was allergic to bee stings, who knows. Or he had a heart defect or _____)

Also my DH's dad had a older brother who was 14 and was out in the family fields (they raised sheep) and just collapsed and "had a fit" and died (when FIL described it it kind of sounded like he was choking). Who knows what triggered that.

A lot of people with type I would probably have died young.

My DH's grandfather lived to 108. DH said he just died in bed after being sick for a while. When I asked him what was wrong, it kind of sounded like lung cancer. (pain while breathing, coughing, etc.) But he refused doctors (this was in the late 70s, what they would have done for him I don't know?? Morphine maybe?)

[Sisyphus]

I can't think of anything that would have killed me- obviously due to vaccines I never got measles or polio, but not everyone died of those, so? I think my vaginal breech delivery of Ds would have gone a whole lot better way back when, simply because someone would have been available who knew how to deliver that way.

 

I have had quite a few UTIs and a few kidney infections, so possibly that may have done me in in pre antibiotic times?

 

Other than the UTIs, I am really remarkably healthy, and always have been. The women in my family all live to a very ripe old age, and genealogy shows that to be true back a few generations. So I suppose I'd be a-ok, just pissed off all the time due to lack of indoor plumbing, sanitary supplies and chik fil a!

[Paige]

I don't think anything would have killed me. I've been pretty healthy w/no serious injuries or illnesses. My twins may not have survived, however. They were premature and spent 3 weeks in the NICU. There's a chance they would have made it. I've read stories of 32-34 weekers who survived and mine had no unusual complications. If DD had survived, she would have eventually been unable to walk because she would not have received surgeries and therapy.

[leeannpal]

I would be dead if not for modern medicine. A year before my daughter was born, I had an ectopic pregnancy that burst. Emergency surgery saved my life. I've thought about that several times, and I am very grateful to live in this day and age.

[Susan in TN]

After a miscarriage, I would have bled to death without a d/c. Also would have bled out after one of my childbirths.

This happened to me, after a miscarriage. The nurse on duty kind of freaked out and fortunately my OB came in then and took care of the blockage/hemorrhaging.

[eloquacious]

 

Before that, I was breech and born via C-section.

 

 

Right! I forgot that I was a breech C/S, too. Although I should note that being breech didn't necessarily mean you'd die. In fact, breech vaginal deliveries are being brought back in various countries because with the proper training, they can still be safer than Cesareans.

 

... oh, and I have to add my appendicitis to the list.

[Mothersweets]

Placental abruption  in the last weeks of my 5th pregnancy required a c-section but we were too late and our baby was stillborn. I continued to bleed and ended getting a transfusion. My four oldest would have been motherless without modern medicine.  

[freeindeed]

Migraines, severe migraines...without modern medicine, I honestly think I wouldn't...or wouldn't have made the choice to...survive them.

[Mom-ninja.]

I never do that. I <3 refrigerators and year round produce and tampons and hair products and peeing inside in the middle of the night and all sorts of modern conveniences.

I hear you! I'm reading that Outlander book and let me tell you that my choice would not have been the same as hers. Choose to live in 1743? Um, no thanks.

 

 

 

I don't know that I'd have died from anything up to this point. I guess infection could get anyone at any time. At this point in my life I would now be suffering a very slow, painful, and miserable path to death from celiac disease and Hashimoto's. My great grandmother died of intestinal cancer. Me thinks she had celiac. 

[eloquacious]

I big, fat, puffy heart peeing indoors.

 

To be fair, people peed indoors all the time... they just had to live with the, ahem, products for a while.

[mommymilkies]

Well, I can't guarantee I would have had any of the problems I have dealt with long ago.  For instance, my specialist believes my huge fibroid at age 16 was due to me being a second generation DES baby.  It gave my aunts all breast issues and other reproductive problems.  The rest of my main issues stem from things like antibiotic resistance and poor nutrition.  Some of my joint issues are from bad gait and a lack of adequate exercise and nutrition growing up.  I am certainly not nostalgic-I know the odds being a former medical worker and genealogy buff, but I can't say I would have died from anything I've had because I can't say I would have faced those issues.  Knowing my clumsiness, I likely would have done something stupid like fallen out of a tree or gotten trampled by a horse!

 

My grandmother had polio and lived through it with no problems.  I don't have any family, at least in the last century and a half to have died from any of the VPDs (measles, polio, etc.) or even suffer long term consequences.  My family has all died from either stupid stuff when they were young (wrecks, horse accidents, drowning), or stroke in very old age.  Only a couple babies died-2 stillborn, one died possibly from CF, though I'm having trouble figuring that one out (only 30 years ago).  Nobody in my family in my direct genealogical history (I'm too lazy to branch out from there much) died from childbirth in the last 200 years.  So who knows?  With my anxiety, it's best I not dwell on it. :lol:

[KungFuPanda]

I did make it through mumps and chicken pox, but they were so awful that I'm glad my kids get to skip it. I've always been healthy, but my kids might not have made it past my Oneg blood without rhogam. My grandmother lost one son and had to have another completely transfused and in the hospital for months because of rh incompatibility.

[Sara in AZ]

Perhaps the pneumonia I developed at 6 weeks?

 

After that it's possible I could have hemorrhaged to death at 24 after my first birth. The midwife was pretty shaken up at the amount of time it took to get the bleeding to respond to anything.

 

As the mother of a type 1 diabetic, I am so grateful to live post 1922.

[Onceuponatime]

I was a breech baby with  umbilical cord around my neck, delivered c-section. My last child would have killed me. He had to be delivered c-section because my uterus had developed a muscular ridge, preventing him from dropping into the birth canal.

[Carrie12345]

With a flushing toilets! You could have gone to the bathroom indoors; there just would have been no device to magically whisk it away.

I love the outdoors. I started camping when I was 3 years old. But I *require* a flush toilet! It's okay if I have to hike a mile to get to it. It's okay if it's in a cold, cobwebby, ancient, yucky building. So long as there's TP and running water, I'm good!

 

(Having an electric well pump, I am neurotic about filling buckets and tubs before a storm so that I can create my own "flush" with proper toilet, should we lose power!)

[Wheres Toto]

I did make it through mumps and chicken pox, but they were so awful that I'm glad my kids get to skip it. I've always been healthy, but my kids might not have made it past my Oneg blood without rhogam. My grandmother lost one son and had to have another completely transfused and in the hospital for months because of rh incompatibility.

 

I forgot about this one - I'm A negative and all three of my kids are positive.

 

In addition to the biggies (bleeding, kidney infection and c-section) I also had bronchitis pretty much every winter from 5 to 25 and a few times since, and one serious asthma attack.

[Maplecat]

 

I would have a goiter and probably would have been infertile. If I did get pregnant, I wouldn't have survived Eclampsia.

 

I also really like being able to see with contact lenses!

[Jerico]

Ectopic pregnancy with a burst tube- required emergency surgery. 5 years ago. I was 22. Would have left a husband and a 1 year old son.

[Heather in Neverland]

My dh was in a motorcycle accident and broke his neck. Without modern medicine he would be paralyzed. He is fine now.

 

I have three nieces all delivered at 27 weeks. They are now healthy 8 year olds!

[Just Kate]

I was born with a VSD (a heart defect), it was a large hole, needing to be sewn and patched. I wouldn't have made it to my teens without surgery.

I have almost the same exact story. Born with a severe heart defect, had open heart surgery at age 4, living fine now. My parents were also told that without the surgery I would not make it into my teens.

 

As a follow up, my surgery was 33 years ago. At that time, I had to be age 4 and weigh 40 lbs to have my surgery. Also, since I lived in a rural state, my parents had to drive to a hospital 3 hours away for me to be treated. Today, an infant born with my condition would have the surgery right away and the surgery would not be open heart. Amazing what can change in 30 years!!!

[beaners]

It's hard to say whether any of it would have killed me, but I've had gall bladder disease that required surgery, childbirth that led to surgery immediately afterward to control bleeding, and pneumonia that required hospitalization as a child as well when I was a teen. Overall, I've been blessed with good health thus far.

 

My grandfather's mother (my great grandmother) died when my grandfather was quite young during gallbladder surgery.  Maybe 80-ish years ago?

[DragonFaerie]

Right! I forgot that I was a breech C/S, too. Although I should note that being breech didn't necessarily mean you'd die. In fact, breech vaginal deliveries are being brought back in various countries because with the proper training, they can still be safer than Cesareans.

 

 

 

I guess I should have added that I was breech and 10 pounds 9 ounces. The doctor tried to turn me around three times but I wouldn't cooperate. :D  And my poor mama, I was the smallest of her three babies.

[PeacefulChaos]

I'm late chiming in, but...

DH probably would be fine.  He hasn't ever had any health problems at all, or accidents, unless you count shooting a nail through his foot with a nail gun a few years back.  :D  I guess that could have  potentially caused some problems...

As for me, Idk how I would have fared with my first labor, since I had reached the point where I had been in labor forever (after my water broke) and Link just wouldn't move.  It was a necessary c/s, but would either of us have died from it?  No clue.

I probably wouldn't have fared well after my ectopic if I hadn't caught it.

Pink wouldn't be alive.  I can say that with a pretty high level of certainty.  Her first few days were really rough, until she was put on ECMO.  It ended up being a month-long stint in the NICU.

Astro may or may not be.  He has allergies/asthma and did get pneumonia last winter.  I know that my grandma's little brother died of pneumonia when he was 2.  So that would have been in the 40s.

Oh, could kidney stones kill people?  Doubtful... :lol:  but I did have one that was too big to pass last  year. 

But honestly, I may not have ever gotten to that point - I was in the hospital when I was in high school (I was a sophomore, I think) and, while in there, my blood pressure dropped dangerously, ridiculously low one night.  I actually vaguely remember it, not the doctors and nurses trying to wake me up from that viewpoint, but more of a feeling that I was underwater and could hear them saying my name repeatedly... eventually getting louder, til I 'surfaced', so to speak.  *shrug*  Who knows?

[NotSoObvious]

Nothing. I'm healthy and infertile, so no pregnancy complications. Yay, me. Sigh.

 

However, we just finished the last season of The Tudors and I would have NEVER survived that time period. No showers and no toilets?! Forget it.

 

I would have also made a terrible pioneer. I'd have stayed put.

[higginszoo]

I would have died before/during birth.  I was frank breech, and my mom has a birth defect where he pelvis was fused and wouldn't spread.  Without a c-section, I wouldn't have been able to be born, and my mom and I would have died as she tried to give birth.

[Mommy22alyns]

Sylvia and I would have been dead, no question.  I had complete placenta previa and had a severe bleeding episode at 32  weeks.  Without modern technology, we wouldn't have made it.  It was very serious as it was.

[Barb_]

To be fair, people peed indoors all the time... they just had to live with the, ahem, products for a while.

Lol, my mom is only 65 and the didn't have an indoor toilet until she was in third grade. She remembers creeping out to the outhouse in the dead of winter and sharing the space with spiders in the summer. She said you always took a stick and beat on the door frame first to scare away any snakes before entering. They wiped with old magazines--you'd crumple the paper first to make it softer. Shocking that this was the 50s, but they lived way back in the NC mountains.

[Chocolate Rose]

I would be dead of complications of pancreatitis and probably a couple of other things, too. 

 

But, I am blown away by the number of probable deaths in this thread due to pregnancy and child birth! 

[texasmama]

I need injectable B12 due to pernicious anemia. "Pernicious" means fatal. People died prior to B12 injections. By the time my B12 deficiency was discovered, I was very ill. This was over six years ago. I'm sure I would be dead by now.

[texasmama]

I am another RH negative mama who had Rhogam shots.

[Dahliarw]

Cancer survivor here - without the surgery I had I'd be dead.  But, 100 years ago maybe I wouldn't have gotten cancer?  I'm sure chemicals, etc in the environment play a role in certain types of cancers.

[jelbe5]

I have asthma. It is very well controlled. I can attest that the medications given today are short of miraculous in my opinion. My first asthma med back in the late 60s was a sedative and stimulant rolled into one. Rescue inhalers improved my life 1000%. I am not afraid to die but I am afraid of dying by not being able to breath an aware of what is happening.

 

I had teachers, relatives and other adults yell at me when I was a kid to "stop that" and accuse me of faking or deliberately causing an attack. I think asthma is much better understood today and for that I am glad.

 

I am pretty sure I would not have made it without modern medicine.

[Maela]

I swallowed a penny when I was ten months old.  My mom didn't know, but took me in because I had mostly stopped eating.  The doctors found the penny after putting me under and going down my throat.  

 

I hemorrhaged pretty severely after my first childbirth, and moderately so after the second.  they were homebirths, but I had an amazing midwife.

 

My son would be dead.  He had super ventricular tachycardia at six days old.   

[Evergreen State Sue]

Both of my maternal grandparents died in their mid 50's.  My mother and brother died at 58. All heart or BP related.  I guess I'm feeling I'm not out of the woods yet.  I hope to let you know in a few years why I'm not dead yet. 

[GailV]

I'm still pondering this thread, and thinking about how so many people currently on this planet STILL do not have access to some of the medical interventions we're grateful for.  It isn't simply a matter of moving back and forth in time, it's also a matter of where we live and the society we're a part of.  

 

 

[Maela]

I'm still pondering this thread, and thinking about how so many people currently on this planet STILL do not have access to some of the medical interventions we're grateful for. It isn't simply a matter of moving back and forth in time, it's also a matter of where we live and the society we're a part of.

So true!