How it Went Down

 If you were raised in New England in the 1940's and 50's, especially if you read any Robt. Frost--not just the lyric poems, but story poems like The Death of the Hired Man, you are likely to have acquired an affinity for austerity, and a polite resistance to other people's ideas for your improvement. So it should not surprise anyone that last Wednesday, a day I might cheerfully have died (except for all 'those promises to keep'...) I finally succumbed to my wife's oft repeated suggestion that I call the 'advice nurse' at our wonderful HMO. The nurse listened a minute and advised me to go to 'Urgent Care'. I ordered a Lyft--and was duly delivered to Urgent Care, which was on the verge of closing. There didn't seem to be anybody around--but a transport tech showed up with a wheel-chair (Lord knows how the nurse had detected the necessity) and whisked me past other late arrivals, no doubt wondering how my 'urgency' could be more urgent than their urgencies. 

At this point I was fitted up with the usual IV annoyance on my right arm--because I have no veins in my left arm, and was interviewed by a fabulously good looking Dr. whose name I did not get, partly because I was too polite to stare at her name-tag, but mostly because she was asking a lot of personal questions, like what were my resusitation directions, death options, etc. She was Spanish, or perhaps Portugese. Her name might have been  Dulcinea del Tobosa, a student of the great Avicemma. I was getting a little confused, but a lot of these HMO doctors are from foreign schools--and more power to 'em, I say.

With these consent issues resolved to her satisfaction, I was once more transported past the 'not quite sick enough' petitioners in the Urgent Care Waiting Room, and delivered to Emergency Care. There I enjoyed the attentions and services appropriate to that department, memorable only for the unexpected stick up my right nostril, and shortly afterward (so it seemed to me--I may have fallen asleep) the ER Doc, announcing through a crack in the door, to my already compromised caregiver, "Positive". Some paperwork followed and I was transported, by gurney this time, upstairs to room 349--where I was to remain for three more days. The people there were wonderful--regular ministering angels--possibly saints. (I'm not Catholic, or even a believer, so I'm not 'up' on the rules for admission.) 

I hold them entirely responsible for my survival. 

Let it be duly noted that a bunch of them were also immigrants, or American women of poor back-grounds, who had worked hard to become 'Health Care Professionals'. Oh what a valuable class of people! Note to Joe and Kamala: We need to elevate them, not with some dinky certificate or bonus check. They embody the best hopes of the America. Their aspirations for themselves, for their families, their touching belief in America, deserve Something Transformative, like the GI Bill. We should help them become their very best, and in their turn, they will raise up America with their dreams and hard work. The truth is, we cannot live without them--we middle-class Americans have lost the ability to take care of ourselves. 

(I have other groups in mind for similar 'Hosannahs'. One at a time, one at a time.)

Another unexpected discovery: Trump wasn't wrong about everything. Remdecivir, with a dash of Predizone, is good stuff. In three days you are back on the job, pretending to run the country, or in my case, with lots of highly useful suggestions for Joe and Kamala--an incurable Democratic Party disease, for which there is no known Physick. 

Perhaps the moguls of the Drug Industry prefer it that way.