ICE ICE BABY: Your Secret Weapon in an Emergency
Let’s get one thing out of the way right now. When I say “ICE ICE BABY,” I am not talking about Vanilla Ice, questionable early‑90s fashion choices, or that song you absolutely know every word to, whether you admit it or not. Or THAT I.C.E.
I’m talking about I.C.E.
In Case of Emergency.
Oh yeah… THAT one. Not the other one.
Although it may be time for a rebrand. “Emergency Decision Maker,” perhaps? The official title for the one person designated to speak on your behalf when everything goes sideways. In my household, that role belongs to my husband. Coincidentally, it is also the only time his
opinion is formally requested. Unfortunately, recalling fine details in moments of sheer panic is not exactly his strong suit. Love him endlessly. Would not trust him to remember about the lung biopsy I had when I was six years old under pressure.
That right there is the problem, my friends.
Most people blissfully move through childhood, adolescence, and small‑to‑medium adulthood without major medical issues. Life is all about school, friends, work, vacations, and the occasional cold that mysteriously disappears the moment you book time off. Medical appointments are annual, uneventful, and quickly forgotten.
But many of us don’t get that luxury, ask me.
We spend hours, sometimes days, in waiting rooms and treatment rooms, sitting in chairs not made for people, so small. Surrounded by people decades older than us. To the outside world, disease, disability and chronic conditions are considered “older population problems,” or fully set in the mindset of ” the will never be me.” The assumption is that youth equals health, resilience, and time. What we often forget is that young people, including children, can carry life experiences far heavier than their handfuls of years suggest.
If I began listing my medical diagnoses, medication contraindications, and allergies, I would easily hit the thousand‑word mark you’ve politely asked me to stay above. I could call it a list, but that doesn’t do it justice. I prefer “medical tapestry.” Or, on theatrical days, “the medical scroll.”
There is a strange sense of delight when a new doctor or practitioner reviews my medical chart. Flipping through the usual suspects, Age, Symptoms, why I’m seeking out their expert care, until they reach the allergies and conditions section… only to see the arrow.
“See back of page.”
Friends in the medical field joke that they know I’m in the building before they see me, just by the sheer length of my chart. Or the number of wristbands in bright colours alerting people to check before administering anything.
My life, in many ways, has come and gone inside medical waiting rooms long before I ever reached adulthood. I spent my fourteenth birthday the way every girl imagines, throwing up a GI tube in a room that doesn’t allow visitors. I’m not sharing any of this for sympathy. You either learn to go with the flow or you drown. Those are the only options.
Humour has always been my most excellent coping mechanism. Honestly, why be sad when you can be funny? If we don’t laugh, we cry. Without a shred of doubt, that phrase has carried me through the majority of my life’s darker phases.
Sometimes, I find myself quietly observing others’ delusions. Nine times out of ten, most people float through life with the illusion of time.
Wills. Power of Attorney. DNRs. Life insurance.
Those are conversations for “later.” For someone else. For a future version of themselves who is older, slower, and supposedly wiser. They brush off the uncomfortable thoughts with phrases like, “That’s not going to happen to me,” or “I don’t need to worry about that yet.”
It is as if acknowledging that life isn’t fair, that accidents, illness, disability, and death occur. If we happen to, it will cause our cloaked skeletal friend to materialize in the room, like Beetlejuice, if you say it one too many times.
I remind myself of the privilege it is to live and go through life with the belief that you’re too young to experience disability, illness or grief. Those realities are constantly framed as something that belongs to old age, to later, something to acknowledge some other time.
My experiences, however, gave me something else entirely: a perceptiveness. Nothing rewires your brain and your soul quite like long‑term hospital stays while everyone else is gearing up for braces, graduations, and prom. It never felt like my life had the luxury to adapt slowly. Every choice I made, even as a child, was built around a medical file that rode shotgun in the passenger seat of my life.
Which brings me to our founders of EXIT Life Ready
When Joy envisioned E.X.I.T., which evolved from her company Dragonfly Advisory Services, Home Hospice North, and her years as a public servant, dedicated to helping people navigate what happens after loss, she spoke openly about losing her parents and being put in positions to make decisions unthinkingly and quickly. Decisions heavy with consequence, layered with grief, and haunted by the question: “Is this what they would have wanted?” A shift to Nicole, who knows firsthand the words “you have cancer,” or we are doing everything we can, does your son have a power of attorney? Jordan, well, we all know what drama can come from not having your affairs in order, a lawyer’s nightmare come true. Our founders did not come to EXIT Life Ready without a personal story of their own.
But if you ask me personally, Joy is no stranger to making decisions unthinkingly, and I mean that in the most respectful way possible. From adoption to being a teen parent to losing her parents close together, Joy is probably in the dictionary under “made something from nothing.” She took that and turned it into everything. She knows firsthand what information blindness feels like—not knowing family medical history. Being asked questions you can’t answer. Being expected to decide with permanence while your world feels like it is falling apart. So in true Joy fashion. She built a solution.
E.X.I.T. was created to enable people to keep, store, and share critical information when they need it most. A straightforward way to make the overwhelming parts of life just a little more manageable. Her goal has always been to make challenges easier to tackle, so that “I’ll do it later” becomes “It’s all right here.”
There will be moments in all of our lives where time stands completely still. Moments when you are faced with how much you truly know about a person. Moments when you’re left with choices, questions that went unasked, unanswered, or never even considered.
It’s not IF it’s WHEN that happens, and you look around the room for an adult… only to realize YOU are the adult.
There is no time left.
Every second counts.
That’s when the E.X.I.T. Life Ready App becomes your secret weapon. E.X.I.T. doesn’t guess. It doesn’t assume. It doesn’t panic. It quietly whispers the individual’s personal choices and wishes, clearly and confidently, without second‑guessing.
Medical history. Doctors. Medications. Power of Attorney. Wills. Identification.
All accessible on demand, when every second matters. I know firsthand that Joy never even logs out of her app, staying logged in, ready for action.
But E.X.I.T. Life Ready App doesn’t just help in the moment that matters.
It was designed to hold your hand through the after as well. Because the journey doesn’t end when a heart stops beating. E.X.I.T. Life Ready App becomes a living scrapbook—a carefully curated archive of a life well‑lived.
Letters. Family videos. Recipes. Funeral arrangements. Obituaries. Financial records.
The thoughts, memories, and details of what matters most are preserved and passed on, intentionally—not frantically searched for in grief. One less scavenger hunt. One less impossible question. One less decision made in the dark.
It’s all right here.
While it’s held your hand in the AFTER, it holds your hand in the BEFORE, too. Giving you the ability to organize and prioritize what matters most. E.X.I.T helps you put everything in one place for safekeeping.
While E.X.I.T. Life Ready App is the secret weapon for your family, we aim to make it the secret weapon in every waiting room as well. The goal is simple: to keep you prepared for every situation.
Because we’ve all been there.
The anxiety of trying to pronounce “amitriptyline” in real time, only for it to come out sounding suspiciously like “trampoline” while a medical professional stares back at you.
You, confused. Hoping they understood what you meant.
We’ve got you covered.
“Do you have a record of the assessment done in 1995 by a doctor who has since closed their practice, and the only way to contact them now would involve a Ouija board?”
We’ve got you covered.
E.X.I.T. Life Ready; Final Wishes APP is the Jack Joy of all trades.
Using bank‑level, end‑to‑end encryption, E.X.I.T. keeps your documents secure and accessible. Whether you use it for advanced care planning, legacy storage, or as an everyday tool to track vital information, it is designed to meet you where you are.
Today. Tomorrow. And when that day comes.
We have you covered. A little like the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.
E.X.I.T. Life Ready.
It’s going to happen.
So
Enter every room prepared. I.C.E. In Case of Emergency.
