post pneumonia delerium

The fever broke sometime over the weekend during a couple of sweaty sessions complete with trembling and begging for mercy from Big Ernie. Since I am rarely ever sick, this was not one of my favorite experiences. About the best thing I can say about the whole deal is that I didn't throw up, which totally freaks me out. I should have known from the get go that the big fat honkin' fever blister last week meant bad news. I just didn't know HOW bad. After begging for mercy asking for permission to take an afternoon off and gettin' shot down, I soldiered on through the end of the week. Occasionally management fails to notice when the horses need water. By Saturday I was full blown miserable with a suspiciously low O2 sat and nurse Jane hooked me up with some things that helped. Like a double breathing treatment and high powered antibiotics. I've never had pneumonia before...don't ever want it again. She said she thought I had the flu, and that it hit there and stuck like glue. Probably because I never got treated for the LAST round of funk and ya'll know how that shit multiplies. When it comes down to groceries or healthcare, a hungry stomach usually wins out.

On a brighter note, the screeching squawking dryer that we had to run only when nobody's watching TV or trying to hold a conversation finally said to hell with it and quit for good. Presently, I hear the very quiet swishing of a new one "burning off the new smell" as the delivery guy put it. In case you wondered, that was not in the budget either. Whatever. We shall overcome and all that, right? This one even has a handle and doesn't require pliers to pull the door open. Low maint? You bet your sweet ass, I am. Being the realist that I am, I figure something will happen to the trusty old Camry next and that will be BIG bucks. Tires are bald, needs an oil change and tune-up. Oh, and there's that really redneck no hubcaps thing. Well, there's one.

All of this just goes to prove that my priorities are all in the wrong place, as people will readily tell me at any given moment. "You make good money!" they say. What's the problem? Hmmm. Beats the hell out of me. Could it have something to do with this raging quicksand pit of recession that is eating everybody's lunch, and not just mine? We live in the greatest country in the world according to everybody else. WTF is up with working your ass off for 34 years just to live paycheck to paycheck? It's enough to make me pick up a sign and join the protest if it ever happens here. Which isn't likely because the CIA and Homeland security would never allow it. I work in the healthcare industry and see, on a daily basis, the fallout from insurance companies and big pharmacy ripping off consumers and partying on the profits. Congress can't touch that, because they can't learn to get along and get past who's in charge to see who really needs a change. Like me and you. Not the "disabled" people who spend their checks often times not so wisely or the rich ones who have everything that they need. Just us...the working schmucks who bankroll the entire thing for them. Before ya'll all go ACLU on me, let me say that there are many very needy and deserving people who draw a check every month because of some disability or another. My problem is with how this extends into the courts where sleazebag lawyers fight the SSA so they can earn their cut to make the Mercedes payment. And how perfectly able bodied folks sell their food stamps for fifty cents on the dollar to people who wouldn't eat without them....but don't qualify themselves. Give me a card, man. I'll show you some savvy shopping.

Yes, I'm rambling again. Instead of being grateful to be a United States citizen with all the perks I'm pissed off at the way the whole thing works. Nobody listens to my voice, or anybody else's for that matter. When the president pitches out a plan to reduce astronomical debt by saving a trillion over ten years, that is laughable in my book. There is no way in hell that the national deficit will ever become history unless everyone is willing to give up something. And that won't happen because the greed factor is way too strong and has the old devil on its' side. Somebody's family would be mighty disappointed not to have designer clothes and frequent vacations.

Enough with the bitching, already. Maybe I've purged enough to be able to be faithful again. Time will tell ^j^