Complaint Central

Well I've had the flu for the past 12 days now. I was diagnosed with influenza type A + (positive) on 2-14-05. Happy Valentines Day!! Hey Great. I cannot in my life remember it being this hard to breathe. I suffer asthma and occasional bronchitis and still, this is the worst it's ever been. So much so, that I have decided at my young 41 years here maybe it's time to quit using. I'm thinking the smokes are 80% of the reason I am still sick. Coughing up more sludge in a day then I would in a year. It's time to get healthy. I haven't had a beer since 2-12 and the thought of one quite honestly is repulsive right now. I did manage to make it to the post office today and managed to walk to the end of my driveway and back. Both of which afterwards took me 5 minutes to recover semi normal breathing patterns. The hospital doctor is a quack. They let me leave the hospital with a blood-oxygen count of 94. My family doc told me 5 years ago when recovering from pneumonia that I shouldn't be allowed to leave until the count was at least 96. When I got pneumonia back then and went to the emergency room my blood oxygen count was 88. That's like trying to breathe through the water they told me. This time when I checked in my count was 91-92. They had me in an ER bed for 8 hours. I got one breathing treatment and an IV to rehydrate. That's it. A chest XRAY and they stuck an 8" long swab through my nose, and 2 pints of blood. They made me piss in a bottle and then let it sit on the table next to me only to throw it out before my eyes while I was getting dressed to leave. They told me my XRAY showed no signs pneumonia but that I had tested positive for the flu. I was told there is nothing that can be done for the flu, here's a prescription for Albuterol and to use it as frequently as I wanted....Bye. I don't expect preferential treatment. I know a lot of arrogant people that up until about a month ago I would not have considered arrogant. As a matter of fact, up until about 2 years ago I still thought I was better than most. Maybe not richer with money, but "better" because of how I grew up. I hate to admit that, but it's the truth. So now here I am, nothing more than a lousy bill collector with a severe case of cynism and a nasty damn flu. But, before I've reached the end of the road I got a chance to realize that there isn't one person out there that I am better than. But, I've also realized that there isn't one person out there better than me. Oh sure, Trump is a rich sonofagun he certainly is. And Bush is a damn great president. bin Laden is a murdering crook, and T Kennedy is a fake. But, they are no better than me. My brother works his ass off and gets little or no recognition for his time. As a matter of fact, some peckerhead stole 10 minutes of the 15 minutes of glory he's more than earned. But, no matter what that dickwad thinks, he's no better than my brother. I think that's what I like about our president so much. He's never come across to me as arrogant. His tone has been clear and calm. I admire him. As hard to do as it is, we must all realize we are equal. That your neighbor with all the toys is really no better than the family on welfare. What separates us is our desire. People like Trump have far superior desire to those living on welfare. My Brother's desire is far superior to that of the f-stick that all but claims to be the deity of digital processing. The difference is the dickhead doesn't know a think about humility. Desire does not make a person better than another person. It does however provide more opportunity. Opportunity is never given, it is earned. Earned through ones own personal efforts. No one can make you desire, no one can make you successful and certainly no one can make you fail. It's all about ones own personal desire. How have I gone from telling you about my flu, hospital visit, pneumonia and then a rant about desire. Glad you asked.
I have spent a good portion of my life looking to others for a reason why I haven't gotten to a place in life I want to be. The line on the bottom is desire. When our desire exceeds our expectations we succeed. It's that simple. The whole thing - life that is - is dependent upon our willingness to push ourselves harder to achieve our desires. If we wish to smoke, we will learn how to force our mind and body to accept the pollutant. With regard to that, if we desire to stop smoking we will find a way to force our mind and body to let go of the addiction.
I ramble a lot and most of my thoughts I never conclude, and most of the time I'm the only one that sees the correlations I make. I would hope that the correlation between the flu, Bush and Trump, and my desire to quit smoking is easy to see. If it's not, then you don't have the desire to see it.