Mark,
I love you brother. If this administration is a disgrace what was the last one...a success? I have no ill will towards you or anyone, but to go straight for the juggular on blaming an entire administration for the COVID surge is just too easy. I took that easy route on the last administration and rightly so because they had the sorriest of attitudes towards the COVid response..."it will just disappear, use bleach" blah, blah, blah. I talked about having the proper attitude on this thread ad nauseam and the polis, media and groupies just continue to hang on to what's good ink for their shows, blog or papers. Can we not see it for what it is?
It is all BULL ****.
Anyway, I am no longer (and really haven't been) a us versus them type of guy, that gets the group no where. So, I have changed my mentality to what's good for John from Texas, his loved ones and friends. If those ideals don't align with others its okay, I ain't mad at ya and I respect ya for you and yours. You do want you think is right, but so far what we have done as a family is working just well. Remember, my wife contracted breast cancer right before COVID hit and we dealing with that and COVID at the same time. Talk about HIGH anxiety and a double whammy! But we made it through...she made it through...so all the precautions, safety measures we heeded did the trick and yup it could have been worse. ALOT worse.
I am sad to read about the Councilman in Galveston who beat the "burn the mask" drums and died the other day from COVID. He was 45 and leaves behind a wife and 6 year old. I don't think he ever imagined he wouldn't be around, yet drank the Jim Jones kool-aid of being an anti-masker, anti-vaxer and anti-everything proud Texan. That obviously doesn't matter anymore, but what does matter is that his child no longer has a dad. A wife no longer has a husband and family is with out their son. That ain't worth it in my books, I would rather live a long age and see my family grow than pow-wow into a orgasmic frenzy of ANTI-WHATEVER just to align yourself with a group mentality of were one goes, we all go. Well, that mantra seems to be taking followers into the grave and the death business is a booming.
To me, right now, I am in a different place and I will tell you why. I had a tonsillectomy recently and became the "1 in 20" that has complications. "Complications" is an understatement because what basically happened from last Wednesday was that I had three tonsillectomy's in 5 days, two of which I went under for and one of which I awake and watched a hot barbed cauterization poker sear the back of my throat to stop uncontrollable bleeding that if not stopped would send me into Hemoptysis, which if not controlled means you choke and your own blood and die. Yup, that is where I was at on Sunday night and watched and smelled smoke coming out of my throat 5 times before I passed out from the pain. The bottom line:
this procedure broke me physically and mentally.
One-I had no idea how much pain tolerance I had (which apparently I get the gold medal for) and two this episodic experience highlighted my awareness. Awareness that I knew in short order by the voice inflections and response from the ER ENT that I was in bad shape and on my way down a slippery slope. Later that morning I went back into the OR for the third surgery, but had so many chemicals in my body I had no idea how they were going to put me under again and frankly I cried when they wheeled me into the OR because I did not know if I would come out of it alive. My logic was simple: how much can a 49 year old male take in 5 days? Three surgeries? In the smallest and softest part of the body? My body was filled with liters of pain killers, morphine, dope, and whatever else they needed me to be on. My blood pressure was 190 over 99 for HOURS on end.
FEAR my friends is what broke me. FEAR of not knowing if I will see my wife again, or see my Daughter enter Texas A&M this fall or see my son enter the University of Miami this fall for Pre med school. FEAR humbled me and I didn't even have COVID. Which brings me to my point:
Until you experience near death, you really never know how you will deal with it. All I saw was surgical lights and thinking this is the last thing I may see. I had no strength to think of anything else, but the FEAR of knowing this is it and the next 15 minutes will determine if my children are fatherless for the rest of their lives over a freaking tonsillectomy gone wrong was unfathomable. Whats worse is that this tonsillectomy was a long overdue "elective" surgery. When I came to I wept not out of pain, but out of relief that I would go another day.
All I can say is I wish that fear on no man and those people who are on ventilators breathing their last breathes KNOWING this is it...is too much to bear. I ask all of you...FOR THE LOVE OF GOD...NOT to put yourself in that position because you want to join the club of being a anti-whatever. It is the single dumbest mindset any rational person can have, but you don't have to believe me and you can simply go find out for yourself or gamble with your heath. Go ahead.
Oh and by the way, FEAR is free and so is death. But the cost to those you leave behind is a debt you will never be able to repay because there are no refunds in death. I hope to never have to think about that again until my last OLD dyeing days.
Get vaccinated and I love you all.
John from Texas
