Emergency Care Kits

Due to all the snow (or here it's more like snow furor, because it is nothing to write home about unless you are a journalist trying to get web hits I guess), there has been some media talk about emergency preparedness kits and stuff. My brother in law and brother are both big into those disaster kits. My brother in law has a legit reason, because he's trained for emergency response. I think my brother is just into buying survival stuff and without my sister-in-law to keep him in check might end up with some sort of bunker or root cellar full of parachute cord and gods knows what.

Anyway, it got me thinking about other kinds of emergency kits that one could put together that are not all about natural disasters.

I have a box for Brain Weasel Emergencies that has things like pictures of people I love, nice things people have said about me, some really low-key craft projects (think coloring and crayons), lists of people to call and coping mechanisms, etc.

Given the current bought of cold/plague my grandmother has brought upon my house, am thinking when I move I might have a "someone's got a cold" sort of emergency box. It's one thing to know that you have things like cough drops somewhere in a medicine box. But what if you had a box that had a couple cans of a favorite soup flavor, gatorade (or powder that can be made into gatorade), common over the counter medications (cough drops, decongestants, Tylenol, whatever you usually take), your doctor's name/phone and hours, hours and phone for some local urgent care places and a pharmacy, maybe a menu for a local take-out place,  a box of really nice Kleenex that won't make your nose burn after using it…that kind of thing. Not to be opened or raided unless you do actually need it. And then if you are living alone or you and your housemate(s) get hit a the same time, no one is having to go to the store for cough drops when you feel like a literal zombie.

Other possible boxes: chronic pain box (which I would use frequently, honestly). My chronic pain stuff is kind of scattered through the house, but I have things like special bath salts (magic, I tell you); icy hot; topical prescription meds; ibuprofen; hot packs that are the one-time-use kind you stick on yourself. This could also be especially useful if, say, you were going somewhere for a night or just for a longish drive: grab the chronic pain box or travel version, and even if the trip proves a bit much you have things to help you deal. (Whereas usually I have some of my meds in my bag, my knitting which I may or may not have hands for at that time, and have to stop by a pharmacy or gas station which might or might not have what I need).

Lot of government sites also recommend some sort of pet emergency box, which I have though about but am still trying to figure out how to make one my cats can't get into and steal the extra food we have stored. (Seriously, they're good about that.)

Just a thought. Seems like way more useful to me personally than a bag of rations and rope, because if there is some sort of horrible emergency I'm betting the pain stuff I use is going to be super hard to find. IDK, what kind of self-care or "oops I've got to run but I should bring these things with me" kits would you want to bring? What if you had some sort of D&D type bag that could somehow hold a horse and still be carry-able? What if space was more limited?

<---things I find bizarrely interesting. But seriously, gonna make a pain kit. So I don't have to hunt for that shit.