Not until she’s 80.
( triple post. Meh. )
I don’t think much about death or how it will happen (when I do think about it I like to think it will happen when I am asleep in my old age, but whatever happens happens.) However, when I picture my future I am unmarried. No matter how far into the future I look in my head there is no husband by my side. I think I am sexy and loveable, but for some reason in my head everything I do, every decision I make will be for me and me alone. I am 24 now and I plan to be married someday but for whatever reason in my head it just isn’t happening. I don’t know if that means anything, but I know if I told that to my family or most of my friends they would be shocked and probably a little angry that I am, “selling myself short.”
She probably felt like he was making light of death, or speaking from ignorance when she has to deal with the reality of it every day. I don’t think Cartooniverse did anything wrong, but I can understand why that would bother his friend and there’s nothing wrong with apologizing in that situation.
Don’t assume all ex-drinkers give a shit about it one way or the other – I’m a recovering [preferred term in the AA community] alcoholic, and I really don’t care if people drink around me. It’s not all that amusing watching a roomful of people get shitfaced, but people having a drink or two … shrug
twicks, who, BTW, is 51, and expecting to live at least another 30 years.
Wow, must be nice to be clairvoyant. I’m 21 and I never fully expect to live until tomorrow. (it’s always a pleasant surprise when I do)
My 85-year old aunt just returned from spending a year in France, doing research for a book she’s writing. She met all kinds of friends over there and is expecting visitors from France over the Christmas holidays. She drives, skates, skis, swims, and except for this year away, puts in a large vegetable garden.
If I live a long time, I hope my genes are modelled on hers.
Getting back to the OP, I think that’s more of a fear of yours than a premonition. My father died age 49, and for a long time, I was convinced that I was doomed to die at the same age, especially since people always told me I looked and acted a lot like him. Well, I didn’t die at 49, and life is looking mighty good.
shrug
Just commenting on the coincidence that I am the exact age at which the OP expects to kick off.
I don’t assume it. It is part and parcel of my MIL, bless her heart. I have some friends who have recovered (couldn’t think of the term before, so thanks) and they have no problem. They call New Year’s Eve amateur night, for instance. I only brought it up because it seemed in principle to be similiar to the OPs experience.
But I might have an “issue” with the whole apology thing, too… For me, bottom line is the only way Death is going to be debunked (not quite the right word, but it’ll do) is by people talking about it. Not, perhaps, in a crass(not that the OP was crass) way to those may be offended, but it still needs to be aired. Not talking about it increases the fear of it. It has to be in an appropriate context and all, but it should not be avoided out of “respect” for someone’s feelings. This man with the health problems-maybe he wants to talk about his death. Who knows? (maybe he doesn’t). Anyway, my point is that no one should feel they should have to tiptoe around a topic (like pregnancy and the infertile) to spare someone else. Just sayin’.
Re hospice nurse etc. I’ve been an acute care/critical care nurse for 20 years-also did some home health. Trust me folks, “do everything” is not the miracle of modern medicine that is often presumed. If I drop in front of you-by god, do everything. But if I’m found–leave me dead. Please.
My mother (also a nurse, with bad asthma, just turned 74) has often told me-don’t let me be on a ventilator etc. Trouble is, my sibs who are not medical, don’t quite see it that way. I have told my mother to talk to them. But these are the same sibs who tried to get my sister’s DNR order rescinded (long, ugly story).
Oye. It’s a DNR, not a TNTTARMOK ( Try Not To Think About Resucitating Me, OK? ) order. Sorry you had to live through that.
I witnessed a husband trying to rescind a DNR WHILE we were actively keeping his wife alive in the back of the ambulance. It was tragic, and worse.
elanorigby, I agree wholeheartedly with you. I do feel I was caught a bit by surprise, and my automatic response is to demur, and apologize if I think I’ve offended someone. ( unless we’re in The Pit, of course. ). It IS important to just talk about things like that. Bad thing happens when light is not shed.
I’m infertile, so your remarks resonate quite soundly.
Well I made it past 51 and I’m still here, but I seem to remember thinking that I’d never make it to 30. It wasn’t a major theme or anything, but it did occur to me from time to time.
Speaking of sudden and unexpected death I did receive a wierd video file via an email list recently. It showed a guy crossing a street without a care in the world, then one car hits another and the second car slams into him, obviously killing him. Very disturbing stuff. I’d guess that time from nonchalance to lack of consciousness was about three seconds.
OMG. I am SO sorry. I never would have said a word, if only I had known. Oh dear, are you going to be ok? I mean, I have three kids and you just have to look at me and I turn up pregnant…oops, there I go again. So sorry, Cartooniverse --I just keep opening mouth and inserting foot. My infertile friend, who’s very nice and you’d never know she couldn’t have kids, well she adopted and as soon as the papers were signed she was-you got it! They were flabbergasted. NOT that I mean that…and on and on. No worries-I smacked myself to stop the fit. (kids-don’t try this at home. Professional poster pretending to be an ass. No comments from the peanut gallery, either.) 
I have thought about tattooing DNR/DNI (for those hair splitters among us who think that DNR does not mean DO NOT INTUBATE as well) on my chest, but I don’t like tattoos. Plus, if I drop and they rip open my blouse (down, boy!)–maybe someone will follow directions when I don’t want them to!
All this said, I can see not wanting to know ANY of this info for a casual acquaitance or even a friend–unless you all are very close. It’s a judgement call.
–snerk-- NICELY done !!!
Trust me. If I rip open your blouse, I’ll do just what I am supposed to do. 
Agreed, it is a case by case judgement call. However, you’ve just told me a LOT about yourself, your astonishingly fertile womb, and so on.
oh, touche!
and there’ll be no ripping of blouses, young man, she said, sterny.
here, let me undo the buttons.
<rimshot>
sternly. sternly
no wonder I had no future in comedy…
Sometimes I reach for the stemmy, sometimes I go for the sterny. Whatever floats your boat.
Thank you, thank you.
I’ll be here till next Sunday.
Don’t forget to tip the waitstaff.
Hate to think elanorigby and I have flirted this thread into an early death. Ahem.
Two things about your post, Plan B. First, I’d be horrified if someone sent me a video of someone dying !!
Second, now that you are 51, have you readjusted the mental timeline, or do you no longer feel this way? It does seem that an awful lot of Dopers posting in here are 51 and well-adjusted. This is a good thing.
I’m 52, almost 53, and perfectly well-adjusted. OK, my back could use a little adjusting, but that’s because I spent yesterday painting 120 linear feet of walls…
I want to make it at least to 100. I always thought 123 would be cool, but that could be a bit much. As long as I’m functioning and not a burden to anyone, I plan to hang on.
A friend of my aunt’s was walking down the street one day and simply dropped dead. An aneurism, I believe, but I’m not sure. He was 80 or so. That’s how I’d like it to be. A long full life, secure in the lov of my friends and family and then a quick end, and not a long slow decline, waiting for the Grim Reaper to visit.
My family’s shot through with cancer. That’s how I expect to end, sooner or later. But I don’t want my death to drag out over 3 or 4 years of suffering, the way my mom’s did. I have a horror of that, and an even worse horror of being cognitively impaired.
I’m 54. My mom died at 63, her mom died at 42. My dad’s 82, and he’s done pretty well till recently. But I take after my mom much more than I do my dad. 
My dad is 51 and he’s in the hospital for the 4th time in 2 months for idiopathic pancreatitis. I’m starting to get worried; thinking about Bill Hicks too much I guess.