Power and sex seems to dominate today’s political conversation a little too much. You would think that we as a nation would move away from these things but we are still electing people to office that exercise that power. Why does it keep going on? Because too many people allow it. I wonder how often and by how many congressmen have shown pictures of their conquests on the floor of Congress like Matt Gaetz. Matt Gaetz can’t be the only one because no one seems to have a whole lot of outrage. We have a whole lot of politicians that talk about morals and family values to get votes when what they really want is to get reelected and are willing to say anything to get elected. I have read that his defense fund is being funded by donor donations. If he is so innocent why does he need a defense fund? Also who were the Congressmen that were being entertained by those pictures? These are people that run on morals. They have courted the Evangelicals when they really do not care about the teaching of Jesus. They do not have respect for women or family values. Could the problem be that the Evangelicals have been so obsessed with abortion that they themselves have abandoned family values. If they had concentrated on family values maybe that would stop a lot of abortions but that is for another posting.

 I normally try to stick with one subject but today I am going to change course a little. It has been about 10 days since my last posting and the reason why is that I have been experiencing the healthcare system of Southwest Florida. Tuesday April 6^th I was experiencing a lot of lower chest pain and I thought I might be having a heart attack. My wife drove me to the hospital we where I sat in the waiting room with those chest pains for 3 hrs before being admitted to the ER. From there I laid on a gurney for another 2 hours in the hallway of the ER. About the only attention I received was they put a Nitroglycerin pill under may tough. After that they finally put me in a room in the ER with an actual nurse attending to me. About 3 hours later they found me a room and hooked me up to a heart monitor. Now that is 8 hours before finally being admitted. Over the next 2 days they ran a series of tests. First I got a chest  x-ray. Then I had an ultra sound. They had pretty much ruled out a heart attack. Next they scoped my upper GI  thinking maybe an ulcer, nothing. Now they did a CT Scan which showed up a little inflammation of the intestine but they didn’t know what to think of it. Now I have been in the hospital  for 2 days and they still didn’t know what was wrong with me. Now they suggested an Ultra Sound and I said they had already done that. Now I had had nothing to eat or drink for 2 days. That is when they consulted a surgeon. He looked at all the test and order a scan were they injected a fluid into me and watched it flow through me. That test took 2 hours. Now it was Friday so I was on day 4 with the pain and day 3 with no food or water. I finally got a couple of sips of water and a couple  little containers of Jell-O. Saturday morning at 6 am the Surgeon walks into my room and tells me he thinks it’s my gallbladder and that he will have to do surgery. I ask when and he says 9:00. So I call my wife and 3 hours later I am wheeled into surgery.

The Surgeon removed my perforated gallbladder which he said to my wife that gangrene had set in. I have a couple of nasty bugs in me that they are treating with Anti Biotics. Finally after about 4 days I can drink some water and eat a little. I spent the next 5 days recovering in the hospital. Now during that time not once was a cleaned up. It took me three day to be a clean gown. I did try to clean myself a little but being hooked up to an IV and having the heart monitor on it was hard and I was still in a lot of pain whenever I tried to move.  Thursday after 9 days in the hospital I am finally discharged. They give me a list of stuff I have to do when it get home and one of them is wound care for the drain that is still in me. My care said that the dressing for the drainage had to be changed daily. Now this is day 5 after surgery and not once had it been changed. The first time it was changed was when my wife changed it the next day after I showered 6 days after surgery.

Now I will tell you I really do not know what was going on but I do not feel that the care I got was not very good. Maybe being still in season down here with a lot of snow birds  and with Covid - 19 the system is just too overwhelmed. I don’t really know but I feel that change is necessary. In my opinion healthcare is part of the infrastructure of a nation and our healthcare needs a lot of work.