country that marched inevitably toward the Civil War.

But if that compromise hadn't been struck, would we be posting about politics in the United States?

Compromise is the nature of the beast.

I surely don't like what is happening in Congress right now but I know enough of politics to say it's better to take what you can get when you can get it. If nothing happens this time as far as health care is concerned, don't expect any action for a very long time.

You have to remember that a major reason we are facing such a battle over Health Care reform now is because of the bank collapse leading up to the general election. You can never anticipate events and very often have to deal with issues that suddenly arise that are beyond the control of those dealing with legislation.

of what is so wrong about our so-called health care system?

In the rural south, deep in urban LA and now in New Orleans, thousands of people with no access to regular check-up based health care showed up and waited for hours just for a chance to be in proximity of a doctor. Nurses and aides handed out most of the care, but there were enough doctors to treat those in need.

If I had no health care, I don't know if I would have gone in for a check-up. If some ailment was found, would that be considered a pre-existing condition and would it then preclude me from ever getting health insurance again? But then again, I am not now in such a desperate place to have to worry about that.

I just can't fathom the ignoring skills of those in power. How can they be so cavalier with their constituents’ health and welfare?

Why did they run for office in the first place?

If it was for self-aggrandizement then they will surely end in that ring of hell devoted to unfettered pride.

But too many of those poor souls forced to stand in line are left to depend on the sunny hear after promised by Christians across this land. Suffering on this mortal plane will almost surely guarantee a punched ticket at St. Peter's gate. Or so the story goes. But what does that say about the so-called Christian politicians who would continue that suffering by turning a very well paid blind eye to all that sorrow and pain.

I don't know. I am just getting over a very expensive illness that would break all but the richest family if they had no insurance.





on edit changed cruelly for surely

through a very tough time.

Sitting alone in a hospital room for ten or so days with everyone surrounding you wearing a mask so that they don't catch what you have is a little on this side of terrifying. Throw in the fact that they didn't really know what was causing my lungs to suddenly turn against me and you can see why I was a little unglued.

The folks who came to visit always stayed with me as long as they could but they were pulled away by life outside the quarantine area. Some even risked infection because they understood the power of human touch on those of us who are so cut off from normal life.

But I had a portal, a window to a world that didn't require masks or washing hands. This window to the world was filled with information but that was beside the point since I had the attention span of a hamster.

Of course that window was DU.

I tried, I really did to keep up with all of you running about your daily lives, debating weighty issues and a whole lot of issues that just go poof once they drop off the front page, but I couldn't.

I was selfishly wrapped inside my own survival cocoon.

But it started to unravel bit by bit as I gave you all updates about my condition. I know a lot of what I wrote was way out of it, hell, I didn't sleep more than an hour or two a day. You were expecting Hemingway? They were also giving me Morphine and percadans on request and still I couldn't sleep. I was out of pain and in a fog but I just couldn't sleep.

Several times during my "visit", dark thoughts of death and survival came flashing before me.

And it was at those times that I reached for the bed table where the lap top was, pulled it close and logged on to DU.

A lot of people still don't understand the connection that can be made in cyber space, but I know now how real cyber space can be.

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

I still have a ways to go. I am getting ready to have another scope of my lungs today, they are still bleeding a bit. The X-Ray yesterday was encouraging and I am confident that I will be well, although it will take more time for my to bounce back. Being over fifty doesn't make it easier.

I guess I just really want to say thanks for being there.

You will never really know how real cyber space is until you reach out from the darkness and find a whole vibrant, alive world at your fingertips...


I posted this in the lounge and someone suggested i post it over here as well.

Even though I kept my comments to myself while in hospital, you guys here and over on GDP kept me in touch with the world...

Then it happened.

At about 11:15 AM I was starting to get a little agitated. I know the dedicated staff and people here at Fairview Hospital are doing the very best they can. In addition, compared with the personal I remembered encountering back in the days when I was still drinking (twenty-five years ago), well, it is a different breed of people, top to bottom. You were almost treated with a certain amount of contempt leveled at you for allowing yourself to get sick.

Anyway, that rarely happens anymore and I of one am glad.

Many people, who end up in hospital today, are really just there through no fault of their own.

However, as far as my situation is unfolding, my life is changing and I will not be going back to things the way they were. This has been incredibly easy to get my hands around because now I can claim Doctors orders are apparently a good enough ticket to get yourself well.

The blood from my chest comeback vigorously today and I honestly thought my ticket was about to be punched. Funny, I did not feel all that concerned abbot death but I was concerned that I would be putting my wife and many others through some particularly rough times.

I was supposed to be heading home tomorrow but that looks very unlikely at this moment.

I may be sent back to the rooms I found myself in 2004 when I was sent to Grace Hospital to recuperate out of the sterile medical environment.

This on again off again danger non-event roller coaster is starting to play havoc with my internal psyche.

It seems as if there never really is a dull moment but I guess that is life for the majority of people and since the people have never had to deal with death and chronic disease will health ever have to let doom set up shop.

I really think that if I can get passed this continuing episode, I will be in a far better place. My health seems t have actually taken a turn for the better which, btw, almost never happens to people like me.

So I say peace out to all of those following the ups and downs of my disease.

spike in COPED had taken me and, perhaps more important, where would that spike be when it settled back down into my new set of baselines.

Each time a new episode exploded upon a Fellow Copter such as myself, we are all acutely aware that loss of lung function has to be determined or, at the very least, considered.

If we had a lucky quick and relatively harmless incident, then old patterns would re-emerge and life would go on with only the nagging thought that something bad could have happened and the more optimistic outcome that shows a negligible downward pattern prevailed.

Either way, as Holly Hunter let Nick Cage know in Raising Arizona, things have Changgggeeeeddddd.

The whole point of all this is to make those of us who are threatened by change at almost every step along the way to find a way to deal, assimilate ad adapt while those who love us and can't, no matter how empathetic, ever really realize how much our lives can change.

14 days in the hospital this time. More narcotics introduced to me in order to deal with increased levels of pain are just two ares of change I will have to deal with from now on.

My advice to those who love us is simple; gives us the space to assimilate all the new new aspects of life and continue to love us unconditionally because we do try hard to love you in the same way we always have even though things have, indeed, changed.

I'm waiting on the shots to take away the worst of the pain from my chest.

Tomorrow I am getting more work done, more scar tissued cleared.

The photos from inside my lungs show scar tissue on more scar tissue.

I am going under at 10:15 am and should be down for the better part of about an hour.

I'm not sure what the outcome will be except I will more than likely feel much better, for at least a few months.

As in all operations, there are dangers. Since I am compromised, those dangers are naturally more acute.

Pray for me, light a candle, sing a song...

I can use your Good vibes.

This could very well be the first real step toward a lung transplant.

This stay in the hospital has been fun, then farcical and, of course, as it always comes to, serious. It is at about day ten or eleven that hospital retakes the ominous tone.

The pain is coming under control and the vital signs seem to be stabilizing.

I have a fever, my PB is more often times normal and my Pulse/O2 is getting back to where is should be.

Even though I wear O2 at 3 liters when I am not well, the O2 level has been falling back toward 2.5 and will probably hit 2.0 before the week is over.

The pneumonia is hurting badly and impedes my breathing as it shifts toward the side as it always does.

Inside the lungs, they found the cause of much of my bleeding. Over the years I have coughed up these little sp-ikey crystalline bits of what ever. My doc found the source yesterday but did not have time to elaborate.

There in lies the rest of what is wrong with me. I find out today and of course, in the middle of the night, I expect the worse. Even though all the evidence points toard a beign cause for my pain and whoa, only time will tell. At this point about eight to ten hours stand between me and some sort of resolution. I'm not gonna poo poo all this, it could be nasty, but I believe in my doc and trust him. He has beem correct before.

As soon as I find out, I will let you know.

I think I can handle anything that comes my way now. No more bad habits, no more destructive bevaviour and even a good (well, fairly good) diet.

Pulse/Ox 97/102 The O2 level is at 3.

Temp 99.2.

Best snack I have come up with in the last few weeks? Celery stick pre cut and Jiff peanut butter. Good fiber with high protein. Down side, high sat fat.

I'm still totally discombobulate but I don't get that upset anymore...

Today though it was different. They opened me up and took a look see inside to see what might just be the matter.

The happy banter wasn't there, the possibility hung over the proceedings that this time, something could be be wrong.

They go back in tomorrow....

Couldn't sleep yet couldn't bring myself to stay up right and post all night long.

Did a lot of thinking most of it of the kind "If you had the Cancer, don't you think they would have found it by now?"

Silly boy.

The reason they are going to scope me is because I haven't stopped bleeding since coughing extra hard on the morning of the 14th and looking down at a palm full of blood.

I called the doctor right then and there and he told me to see if it continued. Well, on and off until now.

The antibiotics had slowed the blood down to a trickle but they were starting to get worried in the middle of last week when it just wouldn't stop.

Didn't get worse, didn't get better.

But it was yesterday when the weekend guy, someone I hadn't developed any kind of relationship with told me they wanted to scope me that I started to, of course, jump to conclusion X which of course set me off on all sorts of what if crazy scenarios.

Now I realize that what is probably going to happen is that they will look to find out which part of the infection is causing the trickle trickle trickle of the blood and they will cauterize it. They will also look around to see how much mucus is being produced and why.

Had the same procedure late in 2006 and it was that scope that eased me off the transplant list.

All and all I would say my rational thinking is spot on for a monday morning.

We shall see.

I do hope they finish quickly because I want some egg and bacon bagel sandwiches from this great little deli about two miles away from here.

Did I mention they put swiss and Tabasco sauce on the sandwich?

Well, to me it seems like a set back.

The taste of rust is now there all the time, not front and center, mind you, but lurking back there ready to pop out and tell me I am being far too optimistic.

I have a pneumonia, a bad one, that has taken up residence in my left lung.

The way it was explained to me was is that there is this mass situated above scar tissue from one or more of my previous bouts and that it has to be treated with precision which is why they are feeding a combination of three AB aimed directly at the area in question.

The rust taste tells me that the blood is still there, not it in the quantity it was when I first came in, but it's still there.

My fever is gone, my appetite is returning and yet the blood is still streaking almost every tissue.

Now is the desperate time. The blood has to abate or I am not going home anytime soon.

The mishaps and funny stories, well I though they were funny when they were happening, are turning mundane and threaten to sap what any optimism I may still have in reserve.

They tell me this is important but it is hard to read these canny health professionals as they hide behind the safety of the surgical mask.

I keep up the banter, the jokes that they have come to expect from me but what was once plucky determination at 40 is turning into grimly hoping to survive until the promises of new technology in the field of lung transplant is realized.

Don't get me wrong. I still think I will live a long but compromised life and that I probably will never sing at carnegie hall. But this evolution of hope is turning me inward, making me more reflective something I have not been. I went for the cheap laugh, the rubber chicken, if you will.

Now I still want to make you laugh but perhaps I can make someone think about life in a different way. Even if it only for a moment. Empathy is the most powerful emotion and if you can make me understand your plight and i can share mine, perhaps we will grow closer and maybe just discover that we are not alone in all of this, that there is a connection buzzing about that makes us all part of something greater than the sum of the parts.

The leaves have turned toward away from very vivid back to just plain vivid, still, all in all a nice view...

The overcast sky fits my mood this morning. I feel well enough to go home yet I know i isn't the best thing yet. I am going to have to administer home IV bags and it kind of scares me. But I've done it before and after the first time, it's really easy.

Not much happened and that is good. Pizza actually tasted like pizza last night which to me, at least, is a sure sign I have turned the corner.

Slept through the night except for the ten or twelve time when the interns woke me up to ask how I was sleeping.

I just let that one sit.

Anyway, cleaned up for the football games, the microwaved wash rags are really a great innovation. Taking a bath in bed like they use to do just sucked.

So far nothing unusual happened except I think I can sleep and so I know I will be getting well soon...

You writing these few days of observation have really helped me get through this this time. Having my computer and being able to connect to a place where everybody knows your name is such a big help in getting over the illness hump that it should be studied.

I wonder if I could get a government grant?

Maybe I'll get that guy with all the ? on his jacket book.

As I may have mentioned before, i can't sleep in hospitals, especially when I am coughing almost non stop and the staff is attracted to all of this commotion made more entertaining with quips from me channeling William Powell and Shecky Greene. It also helps that my sister, the nurse practitioner, we are so proud, and her husband the doctor, we are blessed, make me almost one of the family. Did I mention the candy and donuts? Every little bit helps.

So last night they forgot to read a key gremlin factor; don't feed the beast, me, Ambien especially if you Have given him a flexoral.

The thing is I hadn't been sleeping. In the last 6 days, maybe, maybe I slept a total of about 6 or 7 hours. Non of this in any thing longer than a nap. I was on the edge, weepy sentimentalist, deep thinker and providing poignant and spot on analysis on any range of subjects.

They decided to give me a Xenix, which I had never taken before. I instantly napped and in one short hour, I felt like Neo when he realized he was the one. It was all in slow motion and nothing anyone could through my way would stop me as I proceeded to tame my wild side with the same goofy calm Neo had as I fought off Mr. Anderson and his cronies to reach ultimate calm.

My problems and fears had been taken in and put under the control of Xenix.

But somewhere, way off to the other side of calm came that Al Pacino voice yelling out Say Hello to my little friend and so Ambien made a fateful appearance.

Suddenly, paranoia burst out of me like an Alien springing from Riley. "Chips, Chips, there are chips, oh there are chips in your head and they will tell you things, convince you that New Gingrich is an intelligent sentient being and you will never know from this point on what is true and what are stings of figments cobbled to together as a supposed reaality...

I tore the pic from my shoulder knowing I could escape if I could just get past the door. The pod in the middle of the circular designed set of rooms was the key. It was late, after 3 or 4 am. I had to make my move.The blood was oozing from the pic hole as i pressed against to window not wanting t draw attention to myself.

And then, I was suddenly back in my bed, deep in sleep.

My knew nick name on the floor; Secret Agent Man.

I am so embarrassed.

My doctor said today in complete deadpan manner, we will try to monitor you more carefully Mr. Green...

It is the same hospital, btw, where I was born almost exactly 52 years ago right now...

Anyway, I have had to piss so much that it seems as if I am back on a bender.

I was twenty-six years old when I gave up libations (man am I thirsty) and to that day, I am 52.

Been in the hospital since Saturday. Went in with a 103.5 temp., very high for me, coughing up blood, not just the tinged mucus stuff, but literally palms full of vivid, red blood that just a few seconds ago was traveling around inside of me keeping the whole system greased up, if you will.

I have not slept for more than an hour, hour and a half since last wed so if I posted anything a tad bit Looney, well, there's the reason.

How do you handle a birthday when they actually are giving you vicadin while wearing masks just so they have a little protection from the catchiness of your illness, loonesy?

Not well, it seems, as it took me a few minutes to put all that had happened over the last few hours into some kind of perspective when I came too after falling into a deep, deep hour and a half sleep. Doesn't seem like much but boy was I under. I have a pic in my shoulder, a tube in my nose, and every so often, the blood comes back from sneaking into and then out my lungs.

This past week has been, as you can see, all over the map for me.

Now they transferred me to luxurious new room that looks more like a suite at the Ritz than a double room at the local hosp.

I almost think I had some kind of psychotic break but it is just the combination of getting older and, as the one called Pink pointed out decades ago, one day closer to death that seems to have me so discombobulated.

I think it's being in the same hospital I was born in on my birthday that is making this a little more poignant than it should be. Still, I have been reflecting more than usual yet still less than I should. I am blessed to have several people in my life who care deeply for me, perhaps are wondering at this very moment how I will come out of all this in the end.

This guy moved in to share the room with me two days ago and we became fast, deep friends simply because we shared a moment of bittersweet mortality. It was special to me since my "roomy" had an heart attack episode that stripped him bare to the bone with only me to turn to in those frantic moments when you are sure life is ebbing away swiftly. He was frantic; calling his wife to come quickly and share what he felt could very well be his slip into oblivion.

I couldn't help but to be pulled into his life-sized drama as only the thinnest of drawn sheets kept us separated but drawn as close, I imaging, as two men clinging to the hope of life in a battlefield might be. His heart pounding as fast as it had decades ago when he ran just because he could. Me checking to see if more blood was getting ready to flow useless from my mouth.

His wife burst in looking ten years older than she had just three hours ago when she had left with a twinkling Irish smile brought on by the forced bonding hospitals often cause spread across her still cute face.

A few more hours and the drama for him was over. She sat in a chair next to her still but still husband with the top of her draped over his body, as if telling his spirit it would have to go through her this time, buster.

Ten hours later when nervous laughter had turn into joy and then, of course because I was involved, ribald guffaws, I received the call that I had the call to the private room I sit in now.

She looked at me, half expecting me to refuse the upgrade. I over tired my stare, not knowing what to say. We both knew those moments of the most intimate sharing were over forever before any one of the three of us wanted them to be. She knew I would be better off and only time would tell if either of us would reach for the phone to try and reclaim this frenetic span of stranger to intiment sharer of pain and joy and back to strangers again.

It was a strange way to slide into my birthday. I reached out to my dear friend, she let me ramble on, and on about my newfound maturity when faced with what is quickly turning into what surely would be a life-altering day. I had forgotten this all happen around my birthday in the same hospital I was born in 52 years ago today until someone else, dear to me in different way, had reminded me.

All in all, I would have to say, a very good start for year 53…

103.50 fever, lots of coughing and lots of pain.

I hadn't been this sick in a long time. The night I wrote may last post about Joan Rivers I was up all night and still haven't been able to sleep for a stretch of house longer than .75...

But the good news,I don't have H1N1.

I have a very serious pneumonia and am so glad I have pretty good insurance as well as the fall back of Medicare.

I can't imagine what I would be doing if I didn't have Health Insurance.

I do know what I would have done is loaded up on Nyquil, Tylenol and cough syrup trying desperately to stay out of the emergency room so that I would be tainted with a pre-existing condition.

I will still be here for at least 3 more days. The best part is I was able to stay in contact while in th hospital.

What you are seeing is the equalization of currencies all through out the developed and developing world.

One of the main reasons that so much industry located off shore was because the dollar was so strong compared to all the other currencies that no one could afford to buy exported consumer products made in the US of A.

Now, US exports can start to compete at least in the more developed economies across the globe.

It will also be cheaper for brands from over seas to start locating their manufacturing and distribution centers in the US geared toward the US market.

It's going to get awfully expensive to ship even on the cost effective super container ships.

What we are seeing is the equalization of the market place.

Just because the dollar is losing value, that doesn't necessarily mean the US is going to suddenly devolve into Germany of the late 1920's.


Have at it, this is probably going to be my last post for awhile. I need to head off to the hospital to fight off a nasty infection developing in my damaged lungs...

I have always enjoyed my time at DU and it has gotten me though a whole lot of personal pain and anguish. This place is therapeutic for many of us and keeps those of us with limited access to the outside world a chance to stay in touch. I want to sincerely thank all of you here on DU...

Peace out. See you on the other side...