How Does My Family Receive Medical Care While I'M At Ots: Fill & Download for Free

Probably more than 60 and fewer than 100. Death notifications are truly one of if not the worst part of the job. I awakened to a reoccurring nightmare of one such call tonight as I do many many nights.I can't tell you how many times I've stood outside darkened porch of some poor family at 3:00 in the morning waiting to ring the doorbell and trying to gather my thoughts on what I will say when they come to the door.I'm always very aware that the people inside are living the last few moments of happiness in their life that they will probably ever truly have. Until you've had to look a mother and father in the eye and tell them that their child was killed and will not be coming home again is one of the most horrific things that a person can be asked to do in the line of duty.Even worse is that we really can't use euphemisms of any kind like they have are no longer with us for example. You must use the word dead or died or killed. Saying passed away or some other kind euphemism often seen in everyday speech just doesn't do the job. The loved ones will not even hear it or comprehend subtlety. For the loved ones in shock you must say “died, dead or killed" simply so their mind can even comprehend the message. This makes it even more difficult because you naturally want to be delicate. In our training we're taught that delicate wording and euphemisms just don't cut through the shock and trauma the loved one is experiencing.Anyway, it's truly a soul-destroying moment for them and to an extent for us. After one child who died in a particularly horrific way, I recall sitting in my squad car for what must have been an hour. I could hear laughter and joy in the living room as I walked up. It's impossible to explain the feelings that I get when my duty requires me to tear someone's soul and put them in pain that will never end. Often I would sit in my car after and just cry. The time I'm speaking of in particular that always comes to mind (and my nightmares several nights a week) a beautiful 8-year-old boy was eaten alive by a pack of feral dogs in a Park. I lied and said he died of a dog bite and went quickly with no pain. A blatant lie but of course every loved one’s first question is “how"? If you ever tell a family member that there has been an unexpected death in the family and they don’t demand to know how and where it’s almost always true that they killed them or knew in advance. Off topic but interesting.Regardless of cause the most common means of death in order of frequency were vehicle accident, medical issue, miscellaneous accident and murder). Seemed like murder made it much worse by the reaction. People are always scared their loved ones will get killed in a collision or drop dead of a heart attack. Murder is time brutally cut short and many times is associated with for lack of a better term, a “worse death”, involving more pain, terror. When they told me my Grandfather dropped dead in a Wiggly Wiggly from a massive heart attack it didn’t haunt me like it would if someone had killed him.You soon learn there is no way to ease their pain and the best method is to be brief, direct, absolute and straightforward…then leave them to their grief. Honestly they don't hear a word you say after “they're dead and how it happened”.People have literally no idea how difficult the job is. If they did people that despise us would be a very infinitesimal minority instead of the enormously popular hobby that it is today. I'm retired and haunted nightly by such things as this topic as well as seeing horrible images in my nightly dreams of things like a young boy totally devoured by dogs like a pack of hyenas eating a gazelle.I know this is off-topic but it is after 4 a.m. as I write this. I awoke to a dream of a time I arrived at a vehicle accident just in time to watch an elderly woman confused and sitting in her car as flames reached her and she burned alive 3 feet from me while making eye contact and screaming in agony. The flames that started in the leaking gas tank ruptured when her son-in-law rear-ended her after he was rear-ended by a drunk and slammed into her car by the force. I broke the window and was 3 seconds from cutting her seat belt and yanking her head-first out the window (the door was inoperable). Then as I reached in to use my seat belt cutter I always carried since my Fire Rescue/Auto Extrication days, it was as if a man with a flame thrower standing in the rear of the car suddenly blasted her, engulfing her body and the front seat in a huge volume of intense flame so hot I was burned on my face and arms standing outside the vehicle. As the flame totally engulfed her she kept gripping the steering wheel and turned to me and gave a haunting scream of intense agony. Her grown son-in-law was standing at my side. Knowing if I had taken the correct on-ramp to I-70 I would have been there just in time to pull her out with no injuries. Ten seconds between life and an agonizing death.An hour later I was at a nearby Fire Station with this man who essentially rear-ended and killed his mother-in-law (not his fault but still) giving him emotional support as he had to call his wife. Imagine explaining to your wife you crashed into her mother and she burned to death as a result of the collision.I ended up taking him to OT Hodges (a local 24-hour diner that Cops, Firemen and Drunks frequent at night to get chili, chili cheese fries, dogs and coffee). We just sat there in silence for what must have been two hours after I was off duty trying to process in our minds what we had just seen. He was barely able to function and I was slightly better because I wasn’t related to the victim we had just watched be cremated alive 36 inches away. I took him to the Adams Mark (a luxury hotel by the Arch downtown) and had a Concierge friend of mine check him into a suite with gratis room service. I made sure department trauma counselors and Red Cross disaster response professionals got over to see him in those first critical hours the next day as well as contacting the Police in his hometown to make sure the wife received help as well. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to get help. I think I thought that it was just part of my job and I needed to “suck it up” and deal with the calls on the job myself (i.e. push those horrors into a dark recess of my mind and ignore them).I could go on and on. Last messages from husbands for their family as they lie bleeding to death in my arms. One time working as a Firefighter on a nearby departments ambulance to accumulate medical experience necessary in Trauma to be qualified as a Paramedic (Granite City Illinois) taking down the last words of a man cut in half by a truck’s rear bumper. He was on a loading dock and would die instantly when the truck was moved which was the only thing keeping his organs from his bladder to his diaphragm from falling out when it backed into him pinching his waist line between the bumper and the dock. Delivering those last words to the wife and children. Talking to a man on a roof and not finding the words that would convince them to not jump followed by the horrible thud sound of a man hitting concrete. Cutting a family out of a car crushed between two semi trucks compacting it to a 5 foot by 5 foot cube, removing the parents and two kids one piece at a time - the biggest chunk the size of a soft ball. The last gasps of breath of a teenager, shot I was holding as he died. The sound of the blood pooling in their lungs as they slip away first looking at me …then off into the distance right through me. You know when people are dying when you have seen it happen a lot. I always tried to keep them calm and kind of, I don’t know how to describe it in a word…be there as they died. I always try to prompt them “do you wan’t me to give a message to anyone” (they don’t always know just how fast they’re circling the drain and often won’t realize that if they have any last words they should be now …kinda thing).Really watching what must have been over a hundred people’s life slip away waiting for an Ambulance after every conceivable way to die from falling off a roof to being shot or hit by a car. Not to mention just the average things that stick in your mind like finding the eyeball of a guy who died after a head shot from a 12-gauge and having to pick it up and bag it. Finding fingers and legs/arms and other parts on the side of the road after motorcycle accidents and having to drive them to the morgue to put with the rest of the body. Being at the morgue as a Detective having to watch a victim be autopsied so I can maintain the chain of evidence and collect the bullets pulled out of them to bring to the ballistics lab for analysis. I luckily didn’t do the Morgue thing often. I wasn’t a Homicide Detective and rarely had business at the Morgue. The place creeped me out. They’re pretty gross. Our was built in the 1920s or something with weird old tiles and greenish fluorescent lights. Picture the Morgue in 7 Deadly Sins with Brad Pitt.I avoided it when possible and was lucky I spent a lot more time as a regular Beat Cop in there than as a Detective. One gross thing people don’t know Cops do is get called to any body that is found. Someone finds an old man that lived alone 3 weeks in a 98 degree room dead. Usually the smell 3 floors away initiates the call. Then the Cop has to sit there. With that body. That decaying, slipping, oozing maggot infested body for hours of just “maintain the scene”. What you’re really doing is just waiting for the Coroner’s guys to get around to coming and collecting the body cause our Detectives are done. So whichever Cops particular Beat that is, he wins the “you’re gonna smell that body in your nose and not eat right for a couple days contest”. Best way to deal with dead body smell is a 3 pronged attack. 1. Vicks UP IN that nose. Not on your lip like on TV. 2. Take coffee grounds, put them in a pan and turn heat on medium. The smell of burned coffee cancels out dead body. 3. Cigars. Smoke em up. Cigar smoke + burning coffee + vicks up in that nose and you can sit and have your bag lunch watching the guys TV with him in the other lazy boy.I read so so much rage and hate for Police here in Quora and it really does hurt and aggravate those open wounds we suffered protecting the very people who live to insult and hate us. People we would give our lives to save.I saved so many more lives as a Cop than I ever did as a Marine, Paramedic and Firefighter combined and am left with the nightmares, mental and physical wounds (spinal cord injury and chronic pain for life) but it is the ingratitude and hate of Americans that is my most horrific wound.Sorry for the rant but it's just where my mind is tonight as I try to center myself and get through the flashbacks as best I can. I know there are bad people in every profession but if just one reader sees this and has just a small moment of empathy and connection with the pain we bear in the emergency services it will be well worth it.At least I’m still alive and coping. I have lost many many friends/co-workers who couldn’t cope. One of my best friends packed up all his belongings in his home and wrote and addressed several letters to family and friends. He took report sheets from work and wrote his own death report for the officer that would get the call for his suicide so all they had to do was sign it. He left us a case of Scotch with the letters to his families as well as belongings he wanted his Detective Squad to have. Things from cash to gun/photographs of sentimental value, etc. He drove his car onto the Poplar Street Bridge over the Mississippi between St. Louis and Illinois. He left his wallet, side arm, badge and ID on the seat of his car with a note giving his address and instructions making identification and the investigation easier for the responding Cop…then jumped off the bridge into the icy swift current of the Mississippi channel in December. In the end all he cared about was the impact it would have on the Cops that caught his case and making it easier for us.He worked as a City Copper for over 30 years and absorbed more poison and trauma than his mind could cope with. He was a wonderful man. He was my friend and I considered a mentor. He left me a note apologizing in his way and warning me to get out when I felt the job was beginning to overwhelm me. It was the final lesson of an old school Cop who made sure his life saving experiences were passed on to a newly minted Patrolman he took under his wing right out of the Academy and guided for years until he couldn't take the suffering the job caused a day longer. He said he lived years longer than he might because he knew the effect his suicide would have on me and some others. I ended up disabled years many years later by a good hit to the back by a man on PCP (or in some kind of extreme diabetic crisis) who was freaking out in bezerker mode in a fight that lasted 15 minutes and ended up injuring my spine. I was forced to retire (because Police are not covered by the Americans with Disability's Act and having a Detective that walks with a limp and a cane can’t be tolerated (I really hated retirement for like 3 years before I learned how to find self imposed structure). This happened long before I experienced more mental horror than I could cope with. To put things in perspective this is a bad night but more often than not I’m good. These things, images, memories and emotions sometimes just hit you. I have a really great family and have been married 30 years (which is why I’m probably not that bad off).Best job I ever had. I miss it everyday. Having worked every job on the other end of the 911 line it was the one where I had the most power to save lives and help people. As a fireman/medic I could only wait for disaster and try to mitigate the harm. As a Cop I could intervene and stop the most evil monsters lurking among us from walking free and preying on the people I swore to defend. I only wish people wouldn’t lump in all 1.3 million of us with the truly tiny percentage that tarnish the badge and disrespect the honor we worked so hard to uphold. For a comparison with another profession…Physicians, MD’s kill over 250,000 Americans each year due to incompetence and professional errors. Police kill fewer than 100. Imagine hating your doctor because you heard that they’re all incompetent and cursing all doctors for the actions of the bad ones. Yet Police are frequently grouped together as malicious and brutal killers and the tiny bad percentage of our profession is no where as lethal as Doctors just as an example. Yet hate and derision for us is literally an American pastime.You would never dream of lumping your Doctor in with the others that kill a quarter of a million (the numbers they maim from malpractice and improper med doses could be in the millions) and number in the tens of thousands if not more in terms of numbers that kill and maim people with incompetence and lack of skill/training. For every Cop that makes a mistake that kills a citizen there are thousands of Doctors that kill…and not just one or two but repeatedly kill hundreds or more in a career, maim thousands and are never punished or lose their credentials. I offer this not as an excuse for the terrible and disgusting behavior of the minority of Police we all see caught on camera, but as a comparison to other professions and how they’re treated as compared to police despite their racking up hundreds of thousands of kills compared to fewer than 100 questionable deaths Police are responsible for. Not making excuses, just comparisons to show the absurdity of the obsession/hate/disrespect for my profession. I have lost 5 friends gunned down in the line of duty. I lost 4 friends as a Firefighter killed in buildings they were in rescuing victims…1 ran out of air or burned to death and 3 at one time, crushed by collapse of walls and floors. I can't begin to count the number maimed and disabled like me. I won’t even address the PTSD, suicides and mental trauma on both the Police and Fire side.Sure, we can all be assholes but who else would sign up for this gig? If you like getting shot at, punched in the face, chase cars through the streets at 100 mph, running to the sound of gunfire against a human tidal wave of people running the other way….you’re gonna probably not be Mr Rogers. The guys I know in Police and Fire are Sheepdogs. Born to protect the herd. A lot of us have some jaged edges and could use some more “how to talk to people” training. Very very few of us are sociopaths of the ilk you see on YouTube. There is a middle ground. You don’t want the same type of person that is a kindergarten teacher patrolling the inner city answering very kinetic, high intensity and often very violence in progress calls that come out every single night in most of America.Thank you for bearing with me on this rambling and emotional answer. I hope it gives some perspective on the real harm and collateral damage the relentless hate directed at us and our noble profession causes. The vast majority of us are good people trying to do a critically important job under impossible conditions made so much worse by hatred and prejudice.*Edit 9/16/20 Since June 1st this year my department alone have had 9 Police shot in the line of duty with 1 dying. 10 shot and 2 dying if you count a retired city Police Captain who was now working for another department who came back to the city to help stop the riots and was murdered by looters at a pawn shop. He was a friend of mine. The last kid killed last week, shot in the forehead leaving 3 kids. Barely on the job a year and was trained by a good friend of mine I went to the Police Academy with. When one of us dies we have family like connections to each other. I feel so bad for Cops today and thank my lucky stars I left with a pension before people stood outside the hospital where two shot Police are in surgery fighting for their lives chanting “WE HOPE YOU DIE”.Crowd gathers outside hospital, chants 'We hope they die' after 2 LA County deputies were shot It was incredibly difficult job. Now it’s actually impossible to do correctly.

It depends. Some of the private ones are small shoe string operations that give decent care, but the number of residents is small, and there is little they can do for people with unique needs. The psychiatric care, of course, will be fine, but today, it is not a matter of taking the right pill at the right dosage and talking to “Dr. Freed” about all your problems. It involves a lot of experiential activities, and these need to be tailored to the needs of the individual.For truly superb care, it will cost you a bit more.State run psychiatric centers are a bit different in several ways. They can tend to be larger, and hence the potential for more individualized care is possible. Also, all staff are usually trained in their job so that there is little opportunity for a resident not to be cared for correctly, although certainly there can be some staff doing a slipshod job whether in a private or state run facility. I worked in a couple of facilities for over thirty years for the State of New York, and I know of cases where patient abuse happened, but it’s certainly not a frequent occurrence. On the contrary, more often than not, I knew of staff who went out of their way to do some extra things they thought might help the residents. In the facilities where I worked, the level of care was simply superb, so I am not privy to how facilities operate which are less than top notch. Most of the people who worked in our facilities truly wanted to be there, wanted to make a difference, and cared about helping their residents.One thing people need to understand is that insurance generally covers stays at private hospitals. Thus, the length of stay there is geared to the insurance coverage. This varies with each carrier, but the insurance usually only covers a certain number of days of inpatient care, then the cost falls on the patient and the patient’s family. If the person needs more care, they will most likely be transferred to a state facility at that time if they still are not stabilized, and the family cannot afford the cost of a longer stay.The important fact I would like to get across is that the sooner the person seeks care, the better the prognosis for a good result, and the shorter the hospital stay will be.If a person’s family manages to get the person into a program before things get too difficult, it is altogether possible that the person will be able to receive treatment as an outpatient, and the entire latter of the admission can be avoided, and that is a win-win for everyone if that can happen. Unfortunately, what with the stigma of mental illness, the family keeps pretending that everything is fine right up to the point where the there is a catastrophic event such as assault of suicide attempt or the person wanders off and dies of exposure. So even though the question is not about this, I feel it’s imperative to remind everyone that the sooner the person in need gets help, the better the outcome will be, and the more likely that things can be handled outpatient in a shorter period of time.A person may need to take medication over an extended period of time. If this is the case, there is a very high expectation that the person will stop taking their medication for various reasons. The family should be vigilant about this without infantilizing the person.The life in a state psychiatric center is what I am familiar with, so that is what I will describe. In many respects, all facilities will be similar, but I am only familiar with the state-run facility.Residents usually sleep in dormitory settings, much like college dormitories. Some facilities segregate the sexes and some do not. Staff are physically 24/7, so if there is any suspicion of any inappropriate behavior, it is generally stopped before it gets out of hand. Some patients will have a private room. A person in restraint would be under eyes-on supervision at all times, and would likely be in a single room. Restraint is used less and less today, and the goal is for the hospital to be restraint free. Nevertheless, sometimes it is needed. In my facilities, a person in restraint would not be in a setting where others could reach them. It is considered humiliating for a person to be in restraint, so it is generally done without other residents present. Also, there would be a possibility of some kind of abuse or assault, so it is essential that other residents not be able to get to the room where a patient is in restraint. In a larger facility, the person who might require restraint is generally placed in a ward where the staff are more familiar with this kind of treatment, and can do it without harm coming to anyone. So the new resident might very well never encounter the sicker patient who requires some kind of restraint.The ward generally has a day room, where there are some games, a television, some closed rooms for smaller activities and groups and a nursing station, where medication is generally dispensed. The room has furnishings designed to be comfortable and easily cleaned and maintained. Some activities take place in the day room, but often the activities happen in dedicated activity areas.When I first came to work, all ambulatory residents were walked through tunnels to the central dining room three times a day. Very soon the dining facility was modified so that meals were prepared in the central kitchen and brought via special heated carts to every ward. On the wards kitchen staff served the residents. Generally residents do not lose weight.When I first began working at a facility, I took my meals in the staff dining hall, and we ate the exact same food the residents got, and I never had any problems with the food. However, more recently, in a concerted effort to cut costs, many of the meals are prepared in bulk in a central facility for the entire state, frozen on the spot, shipped out to the prisons and psychiatric centers, and thawed and heated when they got to the kitchen at the facility. I toured the facility where this was done, and the care of preparing this food was extraordinary, and yet, the food generally ended up often being substandard. Nobody was poisoned, but many people did not care for the food at all.One of our OT (occupational Therapy) ladies had a set-up in the activity area like a huge hall and kitchen. She planned the meal, and would have a ward come down for a meal at regular times. The residents were basically responsible for preparing the entire meal, and of course the food was fresh and good and abundant. This gave a rich environment to learn to cooperate with one another on a common task and to give consideration to each other. She was about five foot nothing and would think nothing of facing down an upset six footer. She was a grandmotherly type and if there was any tension, the residents would usually defuse it (“Don’t make a fuss, or Miss Tracy [not her real name] won’t let you come back.”) This went on for years. She was savvy about keeping people back who might have difficulties and the ward staff would be very careful not to let anyone go who might be a problem. Sometimes if it was felt a resident especially needed the activity, a staff person would go one-to-one with the resident so someone would be there. Everyone strives to look out for one another.The hospital grounds had extensive forest on them, and the Appalachian Trail runs through a corner of it, although nobody on the trail would be aware there was a psychiatric facility right over the hilltop. We took residents on walks up into the forest and they loved it, because they had a chance to be out in a setting where they actually did not see any buildings at all. That kind of activity ended when that facility was closed. When I started working for the State, there were several thousand residents at facilities nearby. When I retired, one of these had closed, and the other was reduced to about 124 residents. Since I retired, that facility has also closed.Today, because of a number of events, security is much more strict. Most facilities no longer offer the kind of open area where such activities are possible.The State facilities have outpatient clinics where many activities happen, medication is monitored, and the clients can receive various kinds of therapy. There are also teams for direct intervention. It has been years since I was involved in this, so I do not know how many of these there are today. I am sure that with the eternal drive to cut costs, the staffing of these services has to reduced to the bare minimum and beyond. In general, the way things work is that staffing keeps getting cut back until someone gets killed or seriously injured, and then, all of a sudden extra money is found to beef up the services for a while, but then as long as nobody is getting killed, the services will gradually be reduced again. It happened several times during my stay.A stay in a psychiatric center is no picnic, certainly. Residents will always have some reminders that they are not free to come and go as they please. However, with early intervention, the person can be transferred fairly quickly to outpatient care and return to normal life.I’d like to make a comment about a thread running through other answers, because I’ve had some very strong concerns about this, and have seen it for a long time. The staff can be divided into folks who really wish to be doing that job, and want to make a difference in other people’s lives, and there are some who, for whatever reason, seem only to be able to hold on to this sort of job.The people who truly want to be there are actually a lot more frequent than a lot of former patients seem to think, and I can imagine that ought not to be surprising. Many folks, when they have to enter a psychiatric center, are very, very angry. It is almost impossible to talk with someone at this point, so the general rule of thumb is to work with people you think you can benefit and let the others calm down. We were always understaffed, and we often just didn’t have the right words for an angry new admission. I know it was part of the job that was very difficult for me. You would try to make some communication only to be pushed away with a lot of anger. The fact is that while the new resident is very angry, they also need a lot of reassurance, and it is impossible to get that across to them a lot of the time. I’m sure a lot of ex-residents will say that nobody gave a crap about them, they were only concerned about getting paid, etc., and of course, for some that is certainly true, because I have met a very few folks who gave that impression. But for the most part, we just didn’t have the skills and right words to get through, and we had to carry on with our other duties.Our basses were told that we were not talking to new patients, and they passed down an order that we were to complete an assessment of every new patient, and if they refused, we had to keep approaching them, and document that we were doing this.A young woman was admitted one day, very angry. I attempted to make some contact and she stated that she did not wish to talk. I explained as casually and as quickly as I could, that my “boss” had ordered me to make this type of contact, but I respected her right not to talk with me unless she wished to. I proposed that we try something. I had to make contact with her every week and urge her to allow me to do a vocational assessment (it’s something rehab counselors do) and so I would just approach her and say, “This is my weekly checking in,” and she would tell me that she did not feel she needed my services. This way, I explained to her, I would avoid insulting her over and over, and also satisfy my boss. We agreed. Periodically, I would be on her ward, and see her and I would approach her, and she would simply say thanks but no thanks. It got to be so that she would wave to me across a room, smile at me and then just shake her head “no,” and I would give a “Gotcha” nod and wave back. This went on for some time.One day, she suddenly came up to me and said, “Mr. Oppenheimer, I have found I am going to be discharged very soon, and I wanted to let you know, and I just wanted to thank you. The whole time I was here, you were the only one who would talk to me.”I wished her well, and I congratulated her on getting discharged. It has taken me some time to figure out just what she meant. I will never forget her.This article may be useful, and offers links to other articles.What’s It Like Inside a Mental Hospital?

Oh this one is hard for me to answer. My dad was everything to me. After he passed away, I went through all of our email correspondance (I lived on the other side of the country from him) and saved all of the ones in which he gave me loving advice. Here are some of them. I need to re read these more often, despite the grief of his loss that they bring back.Me letting him know I started seeing a psychologist for councelling:“I believe that the important thing in life is love and a desire to change. You will not believe it but I am still trying to change in many aspects of my life, and I am pleased that I am making some progress. I am sure until my last breath; I will be trying to get better. It would be terrible if we had ever the feeling that we have made it and we are perfect. What helped me was the prolonged psychotherapy, where I tried to find the roots of my behavior. Knowing why I behave a certain way, it makes it in some way easier to try to improve .After all that the book you left for me ,and that I have almost finished and liked it very much, says something like this. I am proud of you for trying and I am sure that you succeed in shaping your character the way you dream.Yes, I would love to go with you to Banff next year. Wish me that the conference will go well this year.Love you.B”2. An msn messenger exchange while I was having a hard time during my PhDDimitrios:How did it go?BAntigone:i feel down today. sorry i didn't have any exciting report onmy presentation. I guess maybe i was looking for a pat on the backor some kind of recognition maybeDimitrios:I know the feeling. Kind of anticlimactic after all the work andanxiety. Hope you will give a pat to yourself.Love you.Good night.BAntigone:so i'm not crazy for feeling like that?i take it you don't feel that way after a talk. i wish i were athome.Dimitrios:You are not crazy at all. When I try to achieve something veryhard, when I achieve it I feel the vacuum and the next thing is what isnext. I have to admit that I am trying hard to allow myself enjoyand feel well even for small things when are completed. After allmy life is made of efforts to do and achieve something.Love you.Have a nice day today.BAntigonei feel like i let people down.Dimitrios:Do not include me in those people. BAntigone:i think i just wanted to do a great job in front of all thepeople I work with, and I felt i stuttered on some of the slides. why do iget so down?Dimitrios:We all have such doubts especially when things do not go well, nomatter at what profession we are. Always the other looks better but it has thesame problems, if the satisfaction does not come from within and weexpect external events to make us happy. I try to feel happy even withsmall things. Your mother is good with it, such as spending time withDimitrakis or taking Pete out etc. Things that for achievers like you and Imight be boring still she is happier. I am going to clear my desk to day andbe ready for the flight tomorrow. Lots of things to do.Love. BAntigone:it makes me wonder if i'm in the wrong profession.Dimitrios:I understand. This still happens to me if I give a talk that I havent felt so comfortable. I have accepted that I will not always beperfect. Such experiences help me to get better. BAntigone:Thank you for loving me.Dimitrios:Hope I will, have many years loving you.The desk clearing continues and I am pleasedI will let you knowAntigone: When do you think I will be okay?Dimitrios:I do not know. Some time it takes time until you accept that you area nice, worthwhile and lovable person irrespective of your weight andphysique. Beauty is an internal thing that starts from within and then spreadsoutside. I know how hard you are trying but I am sure that sometime you willbe able to accept yourself with all its limitations and then you will beable to accept the rest of us with all our limitations. It will take a lotof humility, forgiveness, and acceptance of you and the others.I pray that God will give you the wisdom and strength to find the right foryou solution I love you a lot.BAntigone:I guess you are saying i don't accept your limitations. I thought Iaccepted you very well. I don't expect perfection from anyone. Ijust feel something is wrong with my soul. I am damaged i think.Dimitrios:What I meant is that if we do not accept ourselves it is verydifficult to accept others. In many ways we are all coming damaged or becomedamaged from a variety of factors when we grow including our genes. However Ibelieve that continuous effort helps our efforts. What I had told you in thepast, when one asked a monk "and what you monks are doing all day?" hereplied, "we are falling and we are getting up". And these are people whohave made it their lives' goal to improve. Still they are struggling up to thevery end of their lives. Our progress is made in small imperceptible steps .BAntigone:I am afraid i have not improved at allBaba:I feel that way quite often.I will leave you with what Churchill said about success:"Success is to have one failure after the other and still continuewithoutloosing your enthusiasm".Hope you will always remember this.Love you.BAntigone:If you often feel how I described how do you believe this?Dimitrios:I do not understand your question .I said that I often feel that I have not made a progress inimproving myweaknesses that I had since a young man. They may be attacking me lessfrequently now but that y are lurking there at all times.bAntigone: so you really believe in the churchill quote?Dimtrios: 100%3. I wrote to him after recieving what I thought was a critical response from my PhD supervisor:Antigone“Actually I am a little sad. I spent days trying to learn the statistics and interpret them correctly - days! And R writes that he was disappointed in how I explained them and it created extra work for him. But how was he supposed to edit it without understanding the statistics himself? And I read many validity studies statistics sections so that I could learn from them, and I thought mine was actually pretty good in comparison to some others.I am discouraged.”Dimitrios:“Look at all these as opportunities for getting better. It is a whole process that never ends . he has told you on a number of times nice compliments so it is not bad if he gives some criticism . I have to learn to accept the criticism that God gives me sometimes , because ei am sure that he means well.It is all the way you look at these things .B”4. Re. my How to Live Like you Were Dying speech, read while he was dying from cancer in the hospital“Dimitirios:This is the dth time I read it today and the fifth time I cried from happiness that my daughter selected and presented a topic that was in my mind for the last 20 years. Thanks form my heart. You did more good to me than nyone else or any sedative or chemo drug. I am now absolutely sure that I can go in total peace when God asks my to go, you will do well and make me very prod. Thanks you again for this terrific present that I was expecting it for years. I am going to bed because I have to awake at 6am for my chemo session tomorrow.Everything will be ok. Help others even at your own expensed.Good nigh and I love you. BThank you Antigone for asking. The last three days my mind was foggy and this story made me cry again and thanks for all the tears. It says that the only power on earth that canchange nything is love. An I feel this love all around me and it gives me wings to fly totally fearless in any drection God wants me to.With all my love.5. When my dad came out of his confusion from the pressure of the brain tumor after the radiation treatment, he began signing all of his emails with “we are all one”.“Antigone:Where does the saying “We are all one” come from?Dimitrios:In my dream, when I awoke and I had this feeling of exrtreme pece I had the feeling that was one with everythig and this was an amazing feeling of being connected. Hope that some day God will reward you with this natural feeling of connectednes. Love you. B”6. Responding to a letter from a former medical student after the student learned that my dad was dying“So kind of you L to write to me this encouraging letter. As you may have heard my Non-Hodgin's lymhoma that was first diagnosed in April 2008, following treatment settled and remained quite dormant for the nxt 3 years and the therapy I received allowed me to enjoy an other 2 1/2 years of a reasonable life. But with some malignant diseases it seems that they come with an expiry date as in my case. After letting me rnjoy a reasonable 2 1/2 years decided to turn to the worse by expanding to my brain and heart and therefore my therapy was changed to Palliation to control the brain metastases and help me feel better. Indeed I feel relatively well and I do not have any pains other the loss of my recent memory. Like an other Patriarch I sit back and enjoy the love of those arouind me. I cannot drive and I cannot be responsible for a possible accident. What a strange feeling to " have to wait for my wife to take me to the office. I fraught the idea in the begining but at the end I submitted to the idea and the last few days I strted enjoying being driven back and fro once the anger of the loss of freedom is gone it seems that it is not bad. An other benefit of this abandonment is that it is fun as long as the person who provides the care does not remind you how bad it is. Closing the office after 40 years of intense work is an interesting experience. You detach yourself from everything and you sit back and enjoy the throwing away of all thse precious books and other items that we're your idntiy for all these years. . What a life and what feelings every book that was thrown away had enclosed. But I am in a hurry to "finish" the job and feel relieved from any bond. My health is relative ok with the only problem of the extreeme fatigue after each irradiation. They finished now and what was left is a number of intrathecal injections. There are of course set backs but as a whole they do an excellent job. I have an intense need to revist either in my mind or possibly by phone persons who worked with me revisit old memories that is sustaing me, apologize for wrongs I have done and ask for forgiveness that my friends are so generous and gladly give it to me. This soul searching is so nice. And here you are looming a tall kind of a giant in my memory L. You are so humble respectful kind and you are willing to spend time to talk with me. I am so thankful for you coming to my life. You are very kind and spiritual and care for your patients and accepted your life in a solid simple way that I was admiring you. Your german blood I believe allows you the luxur yof not shoing any resenment to what life gave you. I liked this Philosophy and I was envious but now I have this peace that I did everything that God intending me to do. I fought the good fight and leaving with the extreeme satisfaction that I did my best ih the end. Of course my "best" was not always "the best" but there I. Trust in God's mercy that as a righteous judge he will take into accound the way I was raised during the war with famine extreme povery and trying to escape from death, and all the times God stood by me and despite all my weaknesses He gave me financial stability, an excellent wife of 40 years(!!!) and 4 beutiful children that now I know that they were and should have been my main goal in life. I have been blessed with so many young doctors who came to my life and allowed themselves to be influenced by me and at the same time they influnced me with their enthusiasm and characters. What a blessing!!! I feel an insult of asking for more. I am satisfied with what I was given and what I gave back and now I can sit back for the next 6-8 moths and enjoy all these memories that become so preciopus as the time passes. Thank you L for coming to my life to clear the painful memories if the early war years with your kindness. I love you and your dedication to your family.Please do not worry about me. Once I was gifted with the lack of fear of death a tremendous peace spread in my heart and a feeling of gratitude towards God. Please do not pray for me not to become well through a miracle but instewad pray God give me His Grace and stay with me all the way to the end. This would be the greatest gift that a student of mine can do for me. And try to help people whom you never met before and doing so just turn for amomment your thoughts to me and how much I loved you. This will definitely give ghreat solace and pece to my soul.May the good Lord stay with you all the time and guide you in your decirions and from time to time when you help a person whom you have never met before just turn your mind to me and tell me that you did it for me and-my soul. I will definitrly feel it.Many God be with you and all your family. And don't forget me, at least until we meet againWith all my love. Dimitirs"We are all one"7. Random email from meAntigone:A quote from today’s sermon:Joy is not the absence of problems, it is the presence of GodDimitrios”Because in the presence of God problems become opportunities for growth and He gives the strength to do so. Love you. B8. Me after recieving a publication rejection letter during my PhDDimitrios:“I get a dozen grant rejections and 20 to 30 paper rejections a year. It is good habit to celebrate rejections. Rejection is one part of the complicated path of learning and as any part should be celebrated.Love you.B”9. After we had an argument about a difficult decision I had to make during my PhDDimitrios:“I am just finishing my coffee.Last night I awoke up at 2 am and I could not stop thinking of you.How much I love you and care for you. I felt bad that I was talkingloudly ( shouting) and I apologize for this. This morning a prayedfor you more than usual. I am sure that God will guide you andeverything will turn out well.Today I have a relatively easy day but at the end I have a boardmeeting at the Hellenic home.With lots of love.B”Antigone:“I don't mind your talking loud. It shows you care. I justalways get the impression that you get disappointed or annoyed if Istart to cry. I don't mean to cry, believe me, I feel like I havecried enough to last 3 lifetimes when I went through the divorce. Ijust get emotional sometimes. I suppose you are the one that hears mecry most because i only talk to you about the important and emotionalstuff.”Dimitrios:“In moments like this make sure to read again the poem foot-prints on the sand. You are not alone. On the other hand do not worry. As long as you agonize about a decision, whatever you decide at the end it will be the right decision. But even if you perceive it as wrong, you end up becoming a wiser person. In either case is a win win situation. Keep in mind that whatever you will decide at the end I will support you 100%.Love you.10. Me telling my dad about a sick PhD study patient of mine:------Original Message------From: Antigone Oreopoulos EdmontonTo: Dimitrios OreopoulosSubject: sadSent: Oct 23, 2009 6:45 PMI feel very sad now.One of my study patients just phoned me, asking for another blood workrequisiton. He had not got the blood work done yet because he is fromout of town. But he said he was going in to edmonton to see a doctorso he could get it done next week. Then he said he was going in toget checked for cancer. I didn't know what to say. I wished wordscame to me that would have comforted him but I just said "i'm sosorry". He was very sad. And I felt so sad for him.Dimitrios:Some times saying nothing means more to people who want someone tolisten with empathy and nothing else. You can also say how mush youunderstand him and you feel for him. And the cases you are close tosuch a person just holding their hand without saying anything may bemore than enough. Being an "empathic listener" is an art that youwill learn with time.I love youB”11. Advice regarding nerves before my PhD Defence:Antigone:“hello baba!I was wondering when you were flying back. I wrote all day yesterdayworking on the revisions, about 8 or 9 hours. Today I got up at 6 andam writing the discussion. I am meeting with Raj tomorrow morning at9am to discuss some more.I think I have anxiety. I felt like this during my candidacy exam.It's like constant butterflies in my stomach. It doesn't feel goodbut I don't know how to turn it off. I wish you were flying throughedmonton instead of calgary. I am glad you had such a good time atthe meeting.I am looking forward to seeing you soonA”Dimitrios:“I would be surprised if you did not have the butterflies. It is avery stressful thing. Sometimes you may be able to redirect all thisstress into energy and do your work. Prayer and meditation help. Just trust that everything is the way it is supposed to be and that everything will be ok.Lots of love.B12. After I had an interview in which I thought went badly…turned out they pulled the position and hired no one.“Antigone:I feel sad that I let the position at Jannsen ortho slip through my hands. I know I would have been really good at it. But I messed up the interview.Dimitrios:You are too hard on yourself. I believe that every opportunity like this is a tremendous learning experience. Usually you come to appreciate this after years. Hard to convince yourself now. B”13. During depression:“Antigone:I feel so down. And cannot sleep. Something is wrong with me. I don't know what to do. I wish you were here.Dimitrios:I understand what you are going throughI really hope and I am sure that things will get better for you.Love you. BAntigone:thanks for being there for meDimitrios:I will always be there for you and my prayers and blessing will always follow you. B”14. An email during his palliative care before his death:Dimitrios:“At this time of my life pririties change importance. What is my first priority is to see you and Mom in peace. For some reason I do not worry about it being convinced that God has already granted me this wish.No2 priority to see you happy. He has granted me this to me.No3 to see you realise and develop this amazing talent you have to write so well get even better.No4. To see you happy and content in your life.No5 to see you feel the satisfaction of a great work production (Litrature, science etc)No6. To see feel the same satisfaction you gave me to feel the same feelings of grtitude to God.AND No7 to taste the same feelings that you give me from your own child some time.For some reason I am convinced that this all have already been granted.No greater power than love exists in the Universe.With All my love I kiss you. B”15. An email to my dad as he was dying:Subject: I have great faith in youFrom: Antigone Oreopoulos(U Alb)To: Dimitrios OreopoulosSubject:Sent: Sep 26, 2011 7:23 PMI miss you terribly. I know that i said in one of my speeches that happiness does not come from anothwr person, but i dont think that it teue in my case. I think that my happoness comes from you and i will not bw able to figure out how to be happy again.Dimitrios:Love you too. Loking forward seeing you on the weekend. I pray that God will guid e to do his will always, the only way for us to find true happiness. All my prayers and blessing are for you. I am definitely sure that you will do well and find your wqay to your destination.With all my love. B"We are all one"16. An email from him to me as he was dying:“Dearest Antigone.It is 9 pm after a very long day with chemotherapies, radiations punctures etc and I am going to bed looking forward to see you tomorrow. Though I am very tired tonight I decide to continue my new tradition of writing a letter with my thoughts to some very important persons in my life. I was going to do so with my letter to you later on but for some reason I felt very close to you tonight and I decided this to be your turn. I usually let God guide me what to say and and write.First of all I want to tell you how much I loved and love you. Indeed in the begining I was so preoccupied with "the succes of my career" that I did not pay that much attention to the needs of those around me ( you, the boys, Nancy)soemthing that recently the whole picture and purpose of me being sent here has been clear in my mind. After I awoke from my coma I was in peace and absolutely sure that I was sent here to be with, help, guide my children and my wife. Now I know for sure. There is no regret but a feeling of peace. I was searching for this answer all my life and in one morning everything cleared in my mind. It was worthwhile waiting all these years. I am thankful to God who decided to let me know this now.Now my relationship with you, the boys and Nancy is the most focal point in my life. There are no regrets. I am oly happy and in peace that I have tried and partially succeed in doing what He sent me here to do, even though I did not know- to have my family and guide them to trust Him and His will. It is an amazing feeling of complete satisfaction and happiness. Believe me that I am in peace knowing absolutelly true that everythng now will be ok. God was with me all these years and he blessed me to find this only at the end. Glory to His name. I am not in a hurry to leave but I am ready to accept His will. Now I know that I have been loved all these previous years even though I did not have any idea that this was so, and occasioanally was complaining that I was feeling abandoned.I want you to know how proud I am of you. YOu took your growth in your hands and the only gift I could give you was my continuous prayer for you that I promise yiu I will continue here and beyond. Hope you will continue your efforts forb improvement in your charater with total trust in God's care for you. Now I can say absolutely for sure that we came for a purpose. For me it was clear to have you the boys and Nancy in my life and help thsoie who were sent to me. I cannot say that I did it perfectly but now I can say that I did try my best that I believe is what He expets us to do. The rest is left to His love for us. I am sure ThatHe loves you. Try to do all your life His will even though it may not be that clear. He is looking after you always and He will reveal His purposes for you when He thinks the time is right. I believe that He sent Marc in your life for reasons that He only knows and will show in His time. Try not to have any resentment against him. Hector is a great gye. I have great respect for him as a scientist and as a person and I am pleased he is your friend.You have three excellent brothers who I know love you lots and are proud of you. Stay all together. Siblings are not our choice. They are gifts from God. Continue working on the improvement of your character as I have done all my life. I am pleased to see that you are trying hard and you make me so proud. Try to undestand your mother who I know she loves you more than anything. I do not think that I have shown enogh appreciation to her. After I am gone the main source of love for her will be her four children and I hope you will be my main representative. Take your time. I kanow that love is the strongest power in the world and I am sure that God will halp you experience what I am saying.Finally I want to thank God for sending you in my life. I amasure that you will do great in your life. I will always be with you. Just turn your thouts to me. If you want to give rest to my soul try to help those in need who come to your way and while doing this send me a htouight. I am sure that I will feel it and I will find the way to tell you that I recived it.And don't forget that I will always love you and be there for you.With all my love. B”17. An email to me after I learned about his brain cancer:From: Antigone Oreopoulos(U Alb)To: Dimitrios OreopoulosSubject: whySent: Sep 23, 2011 12:53 AMWhy is it that you have saved and touched so many lives, and then are given a brain tumour? I am angry.Dimitrios:I am grateful for this gift. Dying is not to make us angry or fearful. Dying under these circumstances that I am surrounded by the love of God and my wife and my children makes me such a happy and blessed man that this can only be a gift of God. If my life has made some people thing that love is the greatest thing in our lives and if after 40 years of a family life God pours in our hearts this gift of a loving family this is the "end dessert" that He has kept for me to please me at the end as a reward. Death is not the worse thing that can happen to us humans. Death surrounded by the love of God and of my loved ones can not be anyhing else but the gratest gift for all of us. I am not going away to leave you. I will be there whenever you turn your thought to me. I will be praying for you much stronger to get strength to face life's difficulties" and you will get the strenth. I have such a faith in you that I am leaving without any concern for you. "Everything will be ok". And if you cannot email me to my heavenly address send me your thoughts and I will be there for you. You are the core of my life. Do not be afraid. You have a great soul. Just do whati asked you for me and think of me whan you may need help to do the final step. Your mother has been a treasue and a gift in our family. because I had taken care of all the finances she is facing a tremendous anxiety and I will do everything I can to clarify the saituatiosn to her satisfaction and if she is still worried stand by her with love and tenderness something that she desperately needs from you. This is for me the best gift you cangive me to rest my soaull. Depsite the difficulties we had in our lives due to the differnt cultures and my strong character she has been a blessing for me and all four of you. She gets anxious from time to time but it will be our job ( me from above and you close by) to sooth her fears and anxieties that everything will be ok and we all love her. Don't refulse her this gift of love that I know she need it from you more than anyone else. Perhaps you may do it for me and thinking of me. I am sure that you will do it because love is stronger than anything else in life. Help me go waya with this present-gift in my hands and tell God that I left behind a loving family which I am sure it would have been my biggest success. I will always love you and be with you and be praying for youBaba"We are all one*18. Another email from when he was dying“Dimitrios:Dear AntigoneIt is 3am. I have been awake since 2am and going though my emails and after I finished going through my previous emails. I noted how prominent is your name among my emails and I want to thank you for this kind of connection between us. I suppose as one gets old s/he is sustained by the contact/interaction with the people one loves. I believe that I am going through this stage of "getting older" and I want to thank you for being there for me. You are a very important part of my life and though I may have not been always an ideal father I hope that you have felt ( at least some times) that I love you and care for you a lot. My dream for you is to see you a happy and fulfilled person happy with you life and surrounded by people who love you and whom you love to be with. I am thrilled any time I speak to you and I sense the enthusiasm of what you do and wish that this will be more and more often in your life and share this with us to get "contaminated" with your enthusiasm.I love you lots under any circumstances.BAntigone:Hi Baba. I am sad that you cannot sleep. But I'm a little happier that you found some comfort in my emails. I look forward to your email/communication every single day. And I feel kind of empty if I have not had the chance to hear from you that day. You're the most important person in my life and the person I want to share news with first, good or bad. I love you under any circumstances as well. I wish we could go for coffee together more often.I hope you are sound asleep now and feel rested when you get up.I stayed up to finish my ethics training. I finished it, but realized that the quizzes I had to pass were so easy that I probably didn't have to read the training manual for 2 hours to pass them. Oh well. Now I can officially say I am ethical.I love you very much and thank you for teaching me so much in my lifetime. I have saved each and every one of your emails for the past 6 years although I wish they went back further.A”19. A ‘just a hello’ emailDimitrios:How are you? It is amazing how fast time goes. Already this week has gone. Lots ot thing to do, then done and then more things to do. I am thinking that I am blessed for that otherwise it would have been dull if I had nothing to do. A long Clinic today. Mu vision is getting blurred and it seems that I need new glasses. I will see the specialist next week.Thank God we have dreams. Last night I dreamed that we were together in Thessaloniki.Hope you are having a pleasant and productive time. Love you. BSent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network20. An msn messenger conversation after finishing my PhDAntigone: I noticed I feel nervous about leaving schooljust worried I will fail out in the real worldschool is not so difficult. a real job probably isDimitrios: Every change in our life is scarry. However it is the most exciting thing in our lives. I am so sure about your strength that i have no doupt that you will do well in any new environment. I never worry about you.Antigone: how can it be scary and exciting at the same timeAntigone: that's contradictingDimitrios: Change is always scary. Excitement because a new chapter is opening waiting for you to write its content. the expectaion of the future that you will create is the excitement.Antigone: you are rightDimitrios: And on top of this these new experiencies will make you wiser and stronger .Antigone: well, i will assume i will not get an interview with Jansen OrthoAntigone: that way i will not be disappointed if i dontDimitrios: this is immaterial to me . What is important is that you are rying . Let go of the outcome.Antigone: thank you