TARBABY HEALTHCARE

whitehead sunrise, 8nov09

This morning, Sunday, at sunrise I drove TarBaby to the vet at Twin Oaks. I woke at 5:30 and saw TarBaby hunkered in a corner breathing heavily and fast. I went to the computer and an online vet with the description of what he was going through. Respiratory distress. Emergency. May die any minute. Get to vet. I called Nash Williams at 6 and got him out of bed full of apologies. He said, 'It's what I do.' He gave TarBaby 3 shots to settle down his internal systems, then put him in a cage to wind down for the day. Later in the day he wanted to do some blood work on Tar to see what the problem is. It has to do with fluid in the lungs, a kind of pneumonia and a kind of asthma. Tomorrow I'll probably bring him home.

It was a bit of a fright to arrive home from Jr's and find TarBaby having a rough time. This is perhaps notification that the cats are getting old. I told TarBaby it's not a good time to die. I've just lost one friend, don't want to lose TarBaby too. I have a feeling he'll be fine. Also, what he has, I believe he's had for some time, and it will be good to have it turned off. TarBaby has spent time locked in a cage at the vets before. He doesn't like it, but it's how we do things. I haven't yet found a way to convince him it's good for him that I take him to the doctor when he comes down with something deadly to cats. He has his own way of seeing it.

I went back to bed upon returning home. Slept til after 1, tried to sleep some more, but it didn't happen. Got up, made some phone calls, letting myself rest as much as I feel like. Took a short walk in the woods by the creek, doing what I feel like doing, not doing what I don't feel like doing, laying about. When I'm talking with somebody not involved with Jr, it doesn't feel right. My arms just hang down. Don't feel any urge to do anything, so I don't. There's plenty of time.

Heard a little bit of the news today about health care package going through Congress, now on the way to the Senate. I haven't been following it, and don't care to. I can't imagine it will be more than a dent in the way things are. I don't see how what we have can be used as foundation for changes needed. The changes needed are too great to get past the American emphasis on self first, others last. I pay it no mind, because I don't believe it will come to anything worth while, though it might be a first step along the way toward some intelligent legislation, if that's not an oxymoron.

Nursing homes will go on being lumberyards. The important part, that our humanity be respected by the medical community, I doubt will be a part of the package. Justifications for our failure of a system I hear like, they don't have a South Central LA or an East StLouis in Sweden, make me wonder if a sensible healthcare system might be the reason Sweden does not have either of the above. What it means is racism is the reason we can't have real healthcare, because the white men with power are about keeping the Africanamericans down, as well as the Hispanics, not helping them up. They vote democrat. That's a bigger change than I can look forward to any time soon. But then strange things happen.

Doctors fresh out of medical school will continue to choose to practice in urban areas where there's more money over rural areas where the money is not so good. Too much has to change for it to change overnight. A major part of our government is dead set against the people, and that has to change first. The venality of American wealth toward everybody else is something to be ashamed of, but it turns out they're proud of it. It seems like at a certain age when one thinks of oneself as not much longer in the fray, the importance of politics wanes even further until there's not much left. When I turn on the news anymore, I turn it off soon after; it's all about politics and people talking in Arab accents about atrocities. I'd rather watch Purple Rain the 16th time.

I sit at home in silence as I did at Jr's. No electronic sounds except for refrigerator motor, the monitor kerosene stove, and the toc-toc-toc of a battery operated wall clock. I don't want auditory distractions or visual distractions either. Walking in the woods is a quiet time where the visual part, the trees, the moss, the rocks, the water, the sky are all soothing to the spirit. Water falling over rocks is the earth's music. It seems to my way of seeing the direction humanity has taken to needing multiple ongoing distractions via pop culture is emptying our collective intelligence pool. I don't mean intelligence like book-learned. I mean intelligence like ability to pay attention.

I'll put on Townes Van Zandt's album A Far Cry From Dead.