It was a Thursday, and I was talking to my boss. He said “Are you sick again?” I had been sick for two months, intermittently, with maybe a week in between sicknesses. It was like a wave that kept coming. I said “Yes, I am, but I refuse to go to the doctor. I’m going to treat this holistically and knock it out once and for all.” I had been to the doctor repeatedly and was on my third round of antibiotics in 2025 alone. So, understandably, I was done.
Three days later I was in the hospital. Turns out I had undiagnosed pneumonia (probably since January). I was there for three days, and it was the scariest time of my life. It knocked me out of my complacency with my health. When I followed up with my new primary care doctor, we went over my slew of borderline health issues. Fortunately, the bulk of them are able to be eliminated by me eating correctly. I was incredibly lucky that everything was caught in time, before my heath spiraled out of control.
The parallels between this and our country hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew my eating had been on the decline. I live with TL who eats like he’s a college frat boy and it’s easier to go along with frozen pizza than make a separate meal of salmon for myself. Easier and more enjoyable to eat chips than chop up fresh fruit…and so it goes. I knew it was a problem, but so much easier to go along and not inconvenience me as well as those around me.
Our country. How long have we been complacent? How long have we “not been political?” How long have we not paid attention? And here we are, in the proverbial hospital, waiting and praying that the health of our country hasn’t gone too far down the path of not being able to recover. WAIT, we say! We’ll eat the salmon, cut up the fruit! Boycott Target and Amazon and Walmart. Let me go get a Costco membership – stat! Let’s research the truth with every headline. What can we do to get out of this? Let me join in the local political groups, let me call my local politicians. Please, let me do something that matters.
Is it too late? Have we gone too far? I don’t know. What I do know is that like my health, I’m hitting this in every way possible. Donate to causes I believe in, join and support the groups I know to have value and truth. Spend my dollars wisely. Rest. Join. Move. LFG.
