It's Late In The 4th, Sports Fans!

By Bill Craig

 When I began working as a respiratory therapist many years ago,  I thought I was "King Shit of Turd Mountain". 

If you smoked, I - fresh out of school with my new white lab coat on - would get all altruistic on ya and tell you how one could recover a certain amount of lung function if one only stopped smoking.

I would speak to students and watch their eyes get saucer-huge as I'd show them the slides of Black Lung and Lung Cancer and explain how, if one has COPD, one could die on 100% oxygen because effective respiration ceases to take place and you would "suffocate if we don't shove a tube down your windpipe and hook you up to mechanical life support." I used simple words like "windpipe" rather than "trachea" because I knew if I didn't their eyes would get glassy and I'd lose them. I also used 1st and 2nd person pronouns. I didn't pull punches - even back then.

I told myself I was doing good work, but of course, once a person starts seriously smoking, no amount of talk is going to slow most of them down. The great majority of them never even try and only increase their intake of poisonous nicotine. My own parents were 2 pack a day smokers and, through second-hand smoke, made me and my brother smokers too.

As my time as an RT continued, I became less and less of a "white knight" and told myself to just "let 'em go". 

Does that shock you? 

I stopped "preaching the non-smoking gospel" and just took care of them the best I could just as I took care of both my parents and watched them draw their last breaths. They were both of them my patients and I never felt so helpless in all my life. Dad went first, and then - just a few years later - my Mom gave it up. Both of them locking eyes with mine as they left me. I had to just ... "let 'em go".

But this is not about smoking (Awww, how'd you guess??) it's about the new kid in town: Covid 19.

No - don't stop reading - I promise I'm done preaching about this one too. It has to be a personal choice and you have to follow through. All the information has been made available. You have only to act upon it.  I promise I won't Fauci or Biden you over the head with it anymore. (I wonder if those two ever thought their proper-noun names would become verbs?)

Recently, I came in contact with a former classmate, and that old hero of mine, "Altruistic Man", surfaced once more. I guess he never really went away, or if he did, he didn't go very far. 

It was a life-changer, this contact because I realized not only did I care about my friend, I care about all of us. So I began writing again - hoping to make a difference - however small.

So here I am, at 71 - cancer in remission and dementia not too bad - telling you I want to live and want you to want to as well. I not only want you to live, but I also want you to want to. Catch the difference?

Okay, maybe you will at least give some thought to what I have written and act accordingly. 

Admittedly, it is late in the 4th quarter, but we can kick a field goal and still win this thing if we hold together. "Ain't nothin' to it but to do it."

Despite the title of this journal entry, I am not stopping the writing, so thanks as always for reading, and never ever give up. Please.

Bill


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July 21, 2021 at 7:57 PM
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