Ruark wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 9:02 am
We're not hardcore preppers per se, but over the past year or so the subject comes up of just being more prepared for whatever might happen. I guess the triggering event was the big freeze in February 2021. We had no water (water well was frozen) and electricity was on and off for several days.
We've filled a rack with firewood, have about 10 gallons of water put back, and some food stuff that will keep, and we often pick up stuff at HEB that would be "good to have," like a few boxes of instant mashed potatoes, instant milk, etc. I installed an outside plug for the generator, and keep it full of fresh gas and oil and have about 20 gallons of ethanol-free gas w/Stabil. Have several hundred rounds of ammo for the AR with a dozen magazines. Got a couple of big packages of AA and AAA batteries.
My main concern is medicine. My wife had they thyroid remove a few years ago and has to take synthetic thyroid (Synthroid) every day. In a major a problem arises situation, she probably couldn't get any, and I don't know of any natural substitutes.
Who knows what will happen, though. So far they've caught 160 illegals on the terrorist watch list coming over the border just in 2023.
First, let me say that I didn’t start out as a hardcore prepper either, but I realized that I had been
some sort of prepper for years before I ever moved to Texas. We didn’t have tornados and such, but we did have earthquakes—several significant ones of which I experienced first hand. All rational Californians (yes, there still existed rational Californians back then) had earthquake kits. I had one myself. Heck, they even had public service segments on local news channels on how to put one together. Ours was in a plastic barrel in our garage, containing spare clothing, stored food, candles, a tent, blankets, batteries, water bottles, an .38 revolver and a box of ammo for it, etc. Our garage was of a very basic construction. I figured that even if my house AND garage totally collapsed, I would be able to extricate the kit from the garage without too much difficulty.
What is that, if not prepping? Maybe it’s not hardcore prepping, but it IS an acknowledgment that bad JuJu can happen, and one ought to be prepared for it. Our earthquake kit assumed that we
might need to be self sufficient for maybe a week or two, and that at some point we would gain access to emergency public assistance in the way of shelter, etc. But these days, I prep for something else than natural disaster.
In this article from
Yahoo News, there are some surprising numbers:
When asked whether it is acceptable to employ violence to stop political opponents from attaining their goals, 41% of Biden supporters and 38% of Trump supporters said yes. [emphasis mine]
…and that was just
one of the statistics reported…
IF our nation breaks out into large scale political violence (the odds of which are >0), people who prepped will have a distinct advantage over those who didn’t. My thought is that prepping for a breakdown of civil society encompasses prepping for any other kind of catastrophic event, from a zombie apocalypse to a Carrington-type CME. The only question then becomes not "what are you prepping for", but rather "how thoroughly are you prepping". And that includes medical problems as well as food storage, defense of self and home, etc., etc.
Ruark, like your wife, I am dependent on thyroid meds. My prepping solution was to "bank" old prescriptions that I had already filled. Twice in my post thyroid ablation life, my doctors have adjusted my dosage downward. I started at 175 mcg, then 150 mcg, and am now on 125 mcg. Those adjustments both happened pre-Obamacare, and I was at that time able to obtain 90 day refills every 30 days. I have held on to all those refills I never took because my dose was adjusted. Even though it’s not an exact science, those refills have been properly stored; and accounting for loss of potency over time, I currently have a little better than a year's supply. Beyond that, my guess is that in a gov’t collapse/grid down scenario, looters would break into pharmacies and steal all the opiates. TBH, I wouldn’t be above following them in and taking any of the Synthroid/Levothyroxine I could find in the pharmacy. I know it’s not a moral action per se, but you might consider being willing to do the same on behalf of your wife, if it comes down to that.
There currently exists no
legitimate naturopathic thyroid hormone replacement therapy. Through careful attention to diet however, one can diminish but not entirely avoid the consequences of a lack of medication. Granted, a careful diet might be wishful thinking in a societal collapse.
MY personal answer to this is to accept my own mortality—believing that on the day I cross over, I’ll be able to meet my Savior face to face, and all other things will fade in comparison. But then, the older I get, the more philosophical I become along those lines. I cherish this life, but look forward with eager anticipation to the next.
