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The Screaming Moderate

Tales of a hospital stay

1/31/2021

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I had surgery recently. I won't go into detail because, well, it doesn't matter to the story I want to tell. But I will say that a couple of my wife's friends have been calling me "semi-colon" since the operation.

Let me start by saying the nurses and staff were fabulous. I had a nurse and Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) assigned to me every day, and they were professional, expert and quite pleasant to deal with. They took care of my every medical need.

Okay, one did come in every day at 5 a.m. to take my vitals. That definitely could have been done during a waking hour, I think. And, the rest of the staff from transportation (pushing you in a wheel chair or bed to get to far locations) to the dietary were equally fine.

For some reason, the great care fell apart on the day of my presumed discharge, about five days after the surgery. It wasn't the nursing staff that was to blame.

The doc filling in for my surgeon’s rounds that day told me at 7:30 a.m.  he was discharging me.  Normally you walk out the door early afternoon, the nurses told me after the doc signs off. Now, I'd been in the hospital since Tuesday and this was Saturday. If you've been in the hospital for longer than one night, you'll know the desire to get home and recuperate there.
 
Logical, normal people might deduce that as a doc makes his rounds and leaves a floor, he’d report to the nurses any special instructions, such as discharging a patient. As Steve Martin would  say  ‘but noooooooo.’ 
 
Remembering the nurses told me discharge normally was in the early afternoon, I asked the nurse at about 2 p.m. my status. She said the doc hadn’t signed off on my release yet and they had a call in to him but he was in emergency surgery.

Now I had the moral gut check to go through: Do I hope for a quick emergency surgery to hasten my release or pray the emergency surgery patient gets all the attention he or she deserves to bring him/her out healthy, no matter how long that takes?
 
Also, as one who was anxious to leave I told the nurses I really would  like to be released early enough so that my wife, who was picking me up, didn’t have to drive the half hour to the hospital and half hour home in the dark.  They said they could  work with me on that.

They also told me, in a generous gesture, that they would start my release paperwork without the doc’s sign off to save a half hour when he did sign off. As I've said, really nice, considerate nurses.

As the nursing shift changed still no word. In fact, the CNA I had the day before and came in for today’s shift said to me, ‘’I thought you were going home today but your name is on the board with a notation ‘DC (discharge) with a question mark.’ ’’
 
Soooo, at about 3:55 my nurse for the new shift, Caitlyn, came in to say the doctor signed off and she’d start the paperwork which takes about 30 minutes. No, I didn’t mention the previous shift said they’d get ahead of things and do the paperwork in advance. 
 I was grateful the process could begin.

I called my wife and told her I’d be out in half an hour making the timing perfect, and still with sufficient time to get home before dark. 
 
But, nooooo.
 
Caitlyn disappeared. Then after about  45 minutes reappeared minus the paperwork but with machines to take my pre-discharge vitals. My blood pressure has been fabulous for years. In fact, when I met with my surgeon the first time his nurse, Zach, took it and said, ‘with that BP you’ll be vertical for years!’
 
But noooooot this time
 
On first taking I was at 190 over 80 something. A number I’d never seen before. Take it again and it’s 180 over 80 something. I said this has to be because I’ve been anxious/pissed off about my discharge taking so long. She let me rest 10 minutes and took it again, manually this time. 150 over 70 something. Unfricking believable. 
 
She finally got the ok from someone she consulted with to let me go with that number.
 
Home free! So let’s say it together, but noooo.
 
She disappeared again to print out the paperwork to review discharge instructions with me. Half an hour later she did that and said, I’ll call for a wheelchair to take you down. Twenty minutes later, no chair.

I pick up my bag, which weighed more than the 10 pounds the doc warned against me lifting while the stitches healed, walked to the nurses station and said, can you tell how to get to the main lobby?  But we ordered a chair, they said, please I just checked and it’s listed as "pending." I’m outta here, I said, making sure to point out, and I meant this, that the nursing staff has been fabulous through my five-day stay! I also said, if awards are given out for ‘longest discharge wait,’ I’d better win. 
 
With that, the pending wheelchair arrived and I was on my way.  Ten-and-half hours after the doc told me I was being discharged, I really was discharged!

Once again, the nursing staff and all were fabulous, all knowing that one floor away were the COVID patients and their colleagues were facing challenging, life-threatening circumstances daily on that floor.

I realized what a jerk I was being all day being angry about a dismissal that, a floor away, patients would kill for.
 



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They may be coming to take me away (ha ha, ho ho)

1/9/2021

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I have come around to thinking this entire Trump presidency has been, and is, far more than a grift. 
 
I’m not one who buys into conspiracy theories.  And I’ve not seen this one circulate anyway so maybe it’s just the result of five years of focused attention on Donald J. Trump.
 
I’m beginning to believe, though, that the last four years have not been a rambling, unfocused presidency led by a moron but an ever evolving conspiracy at taking over this country by Trump and other forces.

I doubt the Russians were involved because I don’t think Putin is stupid. But he’s smart enough to go along to watch the damage Trump would do to our institutions and norms. For Putin, that would be more than enough.
 
But what if you believe that pushing Mark Esper out as defense secretary was necessary to be sure no one would block Trump attempting to stop the National Guard from being deployed during a planned charge against the U.S. Capitol.

Next, then, you can accept that appointing an even flunkier flunky to the job just weeks before the final coup attempt.  That way Trump would have an easier time stopping the National Guard from deploying.

How many of the cabinet secretaries are ‘acting’? Therefore easier to get around?

How orchestrated was getting thousands to attend a Stop the Steal rally the day electoral votes were to be counted, especially after for five years you nurtured a cult of followers who would draw their guns to help if you did indeed shot someone on Fifth Avenue?

Did you watch those thugs desecrate the U.S. Capitol with destruction and feces?

Did you see the guy with white zip ties?

Did you hear that criminal calling for the mob to ‘string up’ the Vice President, who was about to betray Trump?
 
Have you taken in the fact that for at least five years Trump, praised and nurtured white nationalists and egged on right-wing crazies like Q Anon? These were the people most easily recruited to his racist, authoritarian philosophy. They were a mob waiting for a leader.
 
Rudy Giuliani? He goes along with it as does Michael Flynn and the bizarre Roger Stone, the godfather of conspiracy theorists, the strongest voice that a “deep state” exists among the career federal bureaucracy to destroy a President. 
 
I have a hard time believing this wasn’t far more orchestrated than we think.
 
And, believe me, I know how that sounds. Like I’ve gone around the next bend or three. But it is not beyond the realm of possibility either. Is it?
 
It is not hard to imagine, after watching those anarchists attack our U.S. Capitol and look to do more damage than they did, as if the loss of five lives and our country’s global reputation wasn’t enough. I do believe there were potential murderers among that crowd.
 
Trump won’t resign. He has too much more damage he can do. His “peaceful transition of power” is no more believable than when he said he didn’t sleep with those many women. Or rape many of them. Or that he did not know about a six-figure payment to one to buy her silence.
 
Plus, he needs to hand out some more pardons before he leaves office to cover his ass for the many misdeeds and crimes he’s committed.
 
Meantime, I’ll be on the lookout for the men in white jackets and butterfly nets coming after me.

 

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Revolutionary-in-chief

1/7/2021

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Yesterday’s display of attempted revolution by Donald J. Trump’s supporters was about the most frightening, disgusting and horrible things we have witnessed in our country.

And that covers a lot of ground.

We should not be surprised though.

Trump, if it wasn’t clear enough before, is a dictator wannabe. He is a narcissist who is never wrong and will never be the worst thing in his limited vocabulary – a L-0-S-E-R.

Indeed, though, that’s what he is and always has been.

Other politicians (hello, Sen. Mitch McConnell) used him to achieve their own ends. Though McConnell gave a true statesman’s address yesterday.

The rats jumping off the Bad Ship Trump are just that, rats. If they couldn’t see what this man was made of before he sent his followers and anarchists to invade Capitol Hill, then they didn’t belong in their jobs of major responsibility in the first place.

Doing the “right” thing two weeks before the Administration ends is hardly heroic.

And good that cabinet members are reportedly discussing the 25th Amendment – that’s the fastest way, if they act literally today, to get this monster out of the Oval Office before he launches a war either against another country or his own fellow citizens.

Just ask Vice President Mike Pence how quickly you can go from loyal solider to enemy in an afternoon.

And they should have invoked the 25th years ago Those cabinet members have seen what he is for years, up close and totally unvarnished. Remember when Secretary of State Tillerson called him a "moron?" Remember when defense secretaries resigned in fear of his approach to foreign policy and defense?

Impeachment would be nice, but that’s not gonna happen. Maybe the Senate would even convict him this time.

Anyone who’s been even a casual reader of this blog knows I have been opposed to this man since, literally, he first rolled down that faux gold escalator. That isn’t an “I told you so,” I was far from the biggest Trump critic. Well, I've been pretty big but certainly not the most prominent Trump critic around.

And many of my friends from when I served in Republican administrations have labeled me a traitor or disloyalist. As the kids used to say, “Whatever.” This is a very bad man and I quit the GOP so I wasn't a total hypocrite.

He should be removed from office because now we have proof that he is capable of anything.

Those folks who stormed the Capitol yesterday were led not by merely “supporters” of Trump, but anarchists who have been looking for any excuse to cause havoc, danger and more. If the “average” Trump supporter among them could stand and watch what those people did to the Capitol yesterday, they are accomplices.

As President Trump would say, “and I’m sure there were good people, too.”

But they stood around and watched those penny ante thugs break into the Capitol and desecrate everything they could get their hands on or their asses to sit in.

It was disgusting, and that’s not a strong enough word.

Expect Trump to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration? I doubt it and, honestly, the Secret Service might want to weigh in on what a security risk and potential leader of violence he would be at the inauguration.



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A truly consequential 48 hours

1/5/2021

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The next 48 hours or so will be the most consequential political hours in the nation’s history.

First, we have the two special elections in Georgia that will determine control of the U.S. Senate and, largely, how successful legislatively President-elect Joe Biden will be.

Then, Wednesday we have the Republican challenge of electoral votes. That challenge will fail to change the election results.

The Georgia election, as they say, is what it is. Who wins is up to the voters in Georgia. And as the state's election officials have demonstrated, they know how to run a fair election.

The Wednesday challenge is in the hands of senators and House members who will debate and vote. There is no way the November vote will be overturned but it will be indicative of what the Republican Party views itself as – at least in the minds of the current elected congresspeople – for years to come.

All the arguments have been presented and I won’t repeat them here. Bottom line, the challenges – while allowed by the Constitution – are frivolous and are seriously damaging our democracy, a democracy whose institutions have held up well in the face of serious challenges over the last four years and, especially, the last couple of months.

Republican senators and congressmen, who claim to be conservatives, aren’t when they challenge the sanctity of the people’s vote. Men and women who have been fierce defenders of the Constitution (this means you Vice President Pence) by challenging certified results from the states, are trying to supplant the will of the people with their own craven ambitions.

I have to believe that at least half and I hope more of those who have signed on to challenging the vote don’t believe they have a leg to stand on, nor do they believe in the argument they'll be making. But they do it for opportunistic political advantage (standing out from the crowd among the Trump base) and to show (as if they haven’t demonstrated it already) fealty to Donald J. Trump and his base of voters.

President Trump appears to have convinced his public self that he really did win. In spite of evidence to the contrary, Trump continues to tout rumors of large numbers of dead citizens voting, illegal votes from out of staters, forged ballots and voting machines that vote the way they're programmed to vote, even though there is no such program or WiFi capability for them to be hacked into.

Trump isn’t going quietly into that good night for, to him, good reasons: his narcissistic ego, the belief he cannot be a loser and the jeopardy he'll be in legally and financially on January 20 at noon.

And leave us not forget the serious potential for violence Wednesday from those who say they are Trump supporters but really are just using him for their own violent purposes. And the President will go to speak to those “supporters” which will only stir them up more as he attacks what will then be going on a mile or so away in the Capitol. A march on the Capitol is likely to follow. Hard to imagine that won't become violent.

These truly are dangerous times with the Proud Boys, a gang of violent folks who are plotting how to sneak guns into the District of Columbia, leading Wednesday's rally. Then again, we have a newly sworn in Republican congresswoman who says she will carry her pistol with her in the Capitol.

Today’s elections will be controlled by the voters in Georgia and what they think is right for their state.

Wednesday’s election challenges will be political warfare over an election that’s been over for weeks – and every one of those congressmen knows it.

The institutions of our democracy will continue to control our democracy.

The potential violence Wednesday, I hope, will be controlled too.


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    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

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