Dillards 71: YAAAAAY

[melon]

Mr Melon and I plan to be cremated.His parents were cremated.Our son was cremated.I have his ashes in an urn.

My younger brother is a hoarder.There are striking similarities with him and the people they show on those shows.

My niece,nephew,and my nephew's wife all went over once to help him clean.My brother rented a container.Which was a huge waste of money because they'd throw stuff in the container,and my brother would take it out,and then became angry.

Our mother died in 1996.She had made spaghetti sauce and put it in the freezer.My brother,who lucky for him, can hardly boil water,was planning to thaw that sauce and eat it!!!!My nephew threw it away.

[EmmieJ]

I watched a few episodes of Hoarders some years back, but I couldn't take it.  I would end up yelling at the TV, telling the people who were trying to clear out the hoard to "just throw that shit away - I don't care what the hoarder says!"  The therapist trying to be calm and reasonable; the hoarder refusing to acknowledge that they were living in literal shit - it was just too disgusting and gross to watch.  Clearly, there is mental illness involved.

A few years ago, when my sister was looking for a new home, we checked out a house that was down a long driveway.  It wasn't out in the country, but was in an area that had large lots and nearby vineyards. As we turned into the driveway, we saw a neighbor's home, plus their barn, and their large field that abutted the house we were going to look at.  It was clearly the property of a hoarder.  The school bus was filled to the brim with boxes of stuff; we could see into the open door/window of the barn up near the eaves and it was also filled with boxes.  The field was covered in car parts, and all sorts of crap.  All I could think of was in had to be infested with rats and other rodents too.  We did look at the home for sale, but we didn't care how nice it was or if it was a good price, no way did we want to buy a home right next door to a hoarder like that.

[SilverBeach]

Hoarder programs make me itch, particularly the ones that involve filth. I'm an anti-hoarder, totally uncomfortable in clutter. I go through things and donate on a continuous basis. Sometimes I think they should just leave the person in the filth as they are too far gone and don't want the help. I love it when a place is radically cleaned and painted, and the former hoarder is maintaining it. But all too often the mental illness is just too severe.

[nausicaa]

35 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

Hoarder programs make me itch, particularly the ones that involve filth. I'm an anti-hoarder, totally uncomfortable in clutter. I go through things and donate on a continuous basis. Sometimes I think they should just leave the person in the filth as they are too far gone and don't want the help. I love it when a place is radically cleaned and painted, and the former hoarder is maintaining it. But all too often the mental illness is just too severe.

My dad is a hoarder. Not quite A&E TV special yet, but pretty damn close. I can watch twenty Intervention episodes of people shooting heroin under their tongues over one Hoarders episode--it genuinely starts affecting me psychologically. 

My (germaphobic) mom kept my dad's issues somewhat in check when we younger but it was still so embarrassing to be the kids with the "weird house full of old stuff."  Likely as a result of this, I am obsessively neat and clean and go through every closet, drawer, and cabinet twice a year to clean things out and donate items. My house basically needs to look like a catalog cover before I am satisfied. I've been asked to help cull friends' clothing and memento collections because I can be so damn ruthless about it. 

[scribble]

On 12/18/2018 at 12:52 PM, bella8050 said:

I think I was more surprised by Jill's spice collection over the sink than anything in that clip considering the recipes she posts.

Same!  I totally got distracted by the window sill and was more interested in the spices than the video... First I wondered if they are just decorative? Then I started trying to determine whether it was just a bulk supply of pepper or something. 

[VelociRapture]

About the burial/cremation/donation topic:

I’d like to take a moment to urge anyone reading this to consider registering as an organ donor. In the US alone:

1. One person is added to a transplant waiting list every 10 minutes

2. 22 people die each day because the organ they need isn’t available in time

3. One organ, eye, and tissue donor can potentially save up to 75 lives.

Its a simple process to register and can be done here for our US posters. Every major religion allows for a person to donate their organs after their death because it’s a final act of love and compassion. Donor families are not responsible for any costs associated with the donation - only the costs from before the donor’s death and the cost for their funeral. Celebrities do not get preferential treatment when it comes to waiting lists - they go by order of who needs the organ the most and is in good enough condition for the transplant surgery to take place. And, most importantly, being an organ donor will not change the level of care you receive should you end up in a life threatening situation. Doctors and Nurses always prioritize the wellbeing of the patient in front of them.   

This is a subject very close to my heart. My brother became a living donor almost a decade ago when he donated nearly half his liver to a boy from our hometown. He was just weeks from death when my brother was found to be a match. 

The first NICU Nurse to care for my daughter was also a recipient of organ donation. She was born with liver disease and a decade age she became extremely ill. She would have died had a student at her college - who did not know her - not stepped forward to donate part of his liver to her. Because of his selfless choice she is alive today providing exceptional care to NICU patients and their families.  

And finally, a sadder story. A third young person from my hometown was also born with liver disease and had received a lifesaving transplant. Unfortunately, she became sick a few years later with something that wouldn’t have been an issue for most people. She had to stop her anti-rejection meds due to treatment for the illness and her donated liver began to fail. She ended up back on the transplant list and had an almost transplant thatdidnt happen because I think she had a fever and that prevented them from performing the surgery. She died at the age of 18. 

So please, consider donating if you aren’t registered yet. And if you are then please urge the people you know to register as well. Your organs aren’t going to be much use to you after you’re dead, but they could end up saving someone else’s life. 

[PennySycamore]

@VelociRapture, that ad from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center about living donor liver transplants always makes me think of this one baby who was in the NICU at the same time as my daughter.  She was a term baby and therefore looked huge next to the premies who make up most of the population of the NICU.  This little girl was beautiful, but she was the same color as the yellow bins were they kept each baby's supplies.  She went home and possibly to another hospital for evaluation and then was re-admitted to the NICU.  Then she was greenish brown.  This baby was born with biliary atresia and required a liver transplant to survive.  She was finally accepted at Pittsburgh to await a liver.  This baby's mother asked one of the neonatologists about living donor transplants, but that was not being done yet.  The baby died before she could get a liver 31 years ago.

[nst]

Hoarders is a sad show. Although I do watch it because I am so anti it.

greetings from Maui 

[Emily558]

On 12/18/2018 at 6:42 AM, HarleyQuinn said:

I think she probably recognizes the name but couldn't tell you what actually happened during it. 

I think maybe the opposite, learning about the revolution but the slang for that was probably never covered in their basic basic books. Like she probably learned about the event probably not even the tea throwing part but just a really general sense of the war. 

[HarleyQuinn]

Jill's on instagram thanking her husband for....wait for it.....a cardboard box for their children to play with. 

[Sky with diamonds]

2 minutes ago, HarleyQuinn said:

Jill's on instagram thanking her husband for....wait for it.....a cardboard box for their children to play with. 

Is it a #bestboxever. ?

[Maggie Mae]

3 hours ago, nausicaa said:

My dad is a hoarder. Not quite A&E TV special yet, but pretty damn close. I can watch twenty Intervention episodes of people shooting heroin under their tongues over one Hoarders episode--it genuinely starts affecting me psychologically. 

I have to limit my watching of both Hoarders and Intervention. Hoarders gets really repetitive, and sometimes I don't like the way I think about the people I'm watching. It's similar to what happens when I watch specific unsympathetic people on My 600lb Life.  Intervention though, that just ... no. Other than the episode with the girl on computer duster, I can't deal with it.  

Too many of them remind me of people I know or knew. 

 

[HarleyQuinn]

#hubbyneedshisegostrokedforeva

[Audrey2]

Thank you @VelociRapture for your plug about organ and tissue donation.

This is very near and dear to my heart as well. When a high school classmate was killed, his family made the decision to donate whatever they could. It makes me happy to think that parts of my classmate are still alive, even though his life was tragically cut short at 16.

I was very close to my boss in college and thought of her as a second mom. She received a liver, but, unfortunately, her body rejected it and she passed away a few years after I graduated.

I have another friend who has received two livers, as the first one failed. He is happy and healthy, and he and his wife have a one year old. He is a doctor, so the donated livers continue to have an impact.

My best friend's mom received a kidney  within the last decade. I'm grateful to her donor, as she's continued to make the lives better of all who know here.

Finally, another friend is on the team that evaluated potential donors for organ transplant. While he's at the administrative level now, he used to accompany the organs to their recipients.

For all of these above reasons, I say harvest whatever you can from me, if there are any parts that will help others after I pass.

[BlackberryGirl]

My sister’s baby also died of billiary atresia, 40 years ago. Had the surgery for living liver donors been available back then, I can think of at least 10 family members who would have gladly donated. It is a horrible way to die. 

[mango_fandango]

I’ve mentioned my dad on here a few times. He became ill back in September 2011 and mum took him to the doctor, who basically said he had to get to the hospital STAT. Basically his blood pressure was so high it had screwed up his kidneys. It was at a nearly fatal level. Thankfully, it was brought down. He spent three weeks on hospital, and was put on the transplant list. He was on and off the list for seven years. At the end of this September, on a Wednesday, he got a call from the hospital and had to go in for tests. It was a match, but it also had antibodies for hepatitis, and he would have had to take drugs for that on top of all the other meds. He said no. Then, that Sunday, he had another call... another kidney had been found. He accepted that one, and had the operation the following day. He’s on a regimen of anti-rejection meds that he’ll have to take for the rest of his life, but that’s doable. 

My parents weren’t married when they had me and my brother, but they married in January 2012 as it would have been easier on my mother had anything happened to Dad. They didn’t really go on a honeymoon because Dad was on peritoneal dialysis, but Mum wants to take us all to NYC at some point, probably next year. Which will be AWESOMESAUCE. She’s been once before and loved it.

I don’t think I’m actually on the donor register, but I really should be!! I’d give anything, although probably not my corneas as I have vision problems (near-sighted and astigmatism). I should also start donating blood as my type is always in demand. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

@VelociRapture Yes, I'm all for harvesting from me what they can. I'm an organ donor, DH & I know each others wishes.  We won't need it might as well help someone else. 

[AliceInFundyland]

@mango_fandango Oh if you guys have funds to have a decent go at NYC...Yay!

It’s such a special place to my heart.

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

I’ve been an organ donor for many years but getting pretty old so don’t know if they can use anything now!

jill posted this and she’s praising the fool for giving the boys an empty box to play with!  Those are really expensive boots the jerk bought himself!!

Spoiler

I love Sam, he always looks sooooo over it all!  

[mango_fandango]

Hoarding.... I’m a messy person, unfortunately. I’m nowhere near hoarder level or anything, but it’s not great. I’ve been this way forever. Maybe 2019 should be the year I get my ass in gear and make it a resolution to keep my room tidier. 

 

[Iamtheway]

1 hour ago, Don'tlikekoolaid said:

jill posted this and she’s praising the fool for giving the boys an empty box to play with!  Those are really expensive boots the jerk bought himself!!

  Hide contents

I love Sam, he always looks sooooo over it all!  

I really wish this meant that Jill showed Derick the idea, he liked it and made this for the boys and she just worded it weird in her post but what probably happened is Jill liked the idea, asked Derick if she could have the box and she made it all by herself. Dericks whole contribution to this was probably saying yes to letting them use his recycling. 

It is really sad that is something Jill thinks she needs to be thankful for. 

[JordynDarby5]

My brother and I both signed up for organ donation although I don't anyone's going to want any of mine. But on the off chance anything is still good by that point have at it.

My family did casket burials for the longest time and really only switch to cremation because of the price. i don't really mind although I wanted to be buried my Stars Wars pajamas with Star Wars bumper stickers slapped all over the casket. I guess I'll just have to get someone to slap stickers all over my urn.  I don't know if bummer stickers are going to work. But if so plaster it. Then buried with my family in the cemetery. 

My aunt originally didn't want anything. She wanted to be cremated but didn't care what anyone did with her afterwards. Even if she was thrown out. She didn't want to be buried in a cemetery or headstone or anything. but her daughters talked to her. They wanted a place to go and remember her at. So she compromised it to having her ashes to be scattered by a river in a nearby town she always liked go to fish or walk around when she and her family used to live there as long as there's no headstone. If they want they could pay for a bench as long as it has no name or anything on it. 

I will say if you have a spot or cemetery you know you want to be bury in. Buy it. Don't wait, because it might not be there later. My grandparents and great-grandparents had been smart and got their plots together.  We always planned and assumed we'd be buried with them or beside them. But never bought the spots. We kept putting it off because who really wants to think about that? We never got around to it. My parents talked about it a few times, my brother and I. Never did it. After Mom died we learned all the spots around them were filled up (which you'd think we'd notice on all our visits but no). They had two spots very far away but it was only two. So either it went to our parents who then wouldn't be buried beside their kids or my brother and sister-in-law with no spot for their nephew. It was really important to my family to be buried together. But we had to go to a different cemetery for it. Which made sense logically but it was really hard to do that. My grandparents were buried there, my great-grandparents, my great-great-grandparents, my great-great-great-grandmother, my uncle and my cousin. We wanted to be buried with them or at least in the same cemetery. It was really hard to go with a different cemetery. We should have snatched up spots years ago. But we went to a different cemetery. Its a nice cemetery and a nice spot and we got really lucky thanks to really good deal they were having at the time cremated burial spots for bulk spots. We were able to not only get spots for all immediate family but also spots for the future. Fixing the mistake we made. It was really lucky. So we are now good for my parents, my brother and I, my sister-in-law, nephew, his family and depending on how many kids he has, their family if they chose too. If there's a spot or cemetery you know you want to be buried in don't wait. Buy it as soon as you can.

[SweetJuly]

7 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

I’d like to take a moment to urge anyone reading this to consider registering as an organ donor.

Related to this, I would also like to beg anyone here on FJ to consider registering as a stem cell donor.

This is of very personal significance to me as my sister was diagnosed with leukemia (AML) last year. She fought through 5 rounds of chemotherapy and was in remission this summer. She just had another checkup and has been found to have had a relapse.

So for the second year in a row, she will be spending Christmas in hospital undergoing an even harsher chemotherapy to try and stop the disease again. She will also miss out on her daughter's second birthday, after having missed out on her first birthday last year.

If After (because I refuse to believe any other outcome) the chemotherapy is successful, she will be prepared for a stem cell transplant provided they can find a suitable match. Due to our very mixed origin and the fact that mixed/non-white people register less for stem cell donation, this may be very difficult. They already tested me as her only sibling last year, and unfortunately I'm not an option

Please, please, register for stem cell donation. Especially if you are non-white or of mixed origin.

It is usually very easy, in most countries you just need to provide a DNA sample on a cotton swab. And even the process of donating itself no longer requires an operation.

Please. Someone's life may depend on you.

 

Also, if you can, consider donating blood. I know it's a bit of an industry, therefore perhaps avoid intermediaries and donate directly at a hospital. Many large hospitals have the option of donating directly. Blood is needed not only for victims of accidents, shootings, etc. but most of the time for people with cancer. People suffering from leukemia, for example, depend on donated blood to keep up their blood count after receiving chemotherapy.

Again, please. Your contribution can make a huge difference.

 

Thank you. ❤️

[Peaches-n-Beans]

17 hours ago, MargaretElliott said:

On the topic of this thread drift, I just read an awesome book by Caitlin Doughty, called From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death. She's a woman who worked in a crematorium traveling the world to explore the different traditions surrounding death and burial, and the body farm is the focus on one of her chapters. It's so cool! I highly recommend this book to anyone in my euroamercan bubble, because I think our culture is really weird about death. We ignore it, basically, don't want to interact with it on a personal level. It's so different from every other culture, and so different from even fifty years ago, we've lost touch with our own mortality, I think. That's just my opinion, but I found that book to be really fascinating and eye-opening. She also has a Youtube channel, check it out!

not sure if we're still on this topic but I loved her first book Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematorium. Haven't read From Here to Eternity yet but it's on my very very long reading list  

[MiddleAgedLady]

Jill posted on Instagram that they went to the Arkansas basketball game last night. It starts with her saying YAAAAY!