Category Archives: medical news

medical news

This idiocy takes the cake … seriously!

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Donald Trump continues to violate the Law of Idiocy by lowering the standard to never-before-seen levels.

Take his response recently during a two-hour Cabinet meeting about the MRI he received from the White House medical staff. A reporter asked Trump about the exam and its purpose. What were the docs looking for? the reporter wondered.

Trump answered with a lie that defies one’s ability to understand anything. You can’t make this up.

He said he “didn’t know” the reason for the MRI. Many millions of us have gone through an MRI procedure. It involves lying perfectly still on a tube that makes a whole lotta noise. It usually takes about 30 minutes to complete the exam.

You must understand this: There isn’t a medical doctor alive today who doesn’t tell the patient precisely why he or she is being asked to subject themselves to such discomfort. That only can mean that Trump lied about his supposed ignorance about why he received the MRI. Why in the name of medical malpractice would Trump have to lie about that? Never mind. He probably wants to hide whatever medical condition from which he might be suffering. Can’t reveal his humanity … y’know?

Anyhow, he lied about a subject that should become public knowledge. After all, he is the president of the U.S. of A., and that includes millions of us who don’t give a damn about the man personally, but who do care about whether our government is working for us.

And this moron is the nation’s chief executive!

Donald Trump, medical news, military news, national security

Why surround yourself with morons?

It’s a fair question, so I am going to ask it: Why does Donald J. Trump insist on surrounding himself with imbeciles and then put them in charge of vital organizations designed to protect our health and everyone from foreign and domestic enemies?

Two examples stand out. You know who they are, but I’ll spell it out anyway: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth.

RFK Jr., scion of one of the nation’s great political families — and namesake of my first political hero! — continues to astound me with his lack of knowledge of vaccines, of the value in investing in scientific research and his insistence that vaccinations do as much harm as good.

RFK Jr. needs to be shown the door. Rapidly. Without hesitation. Before more people die on his watch as secretary of health and human services. It won’t happen because RFK Jr. embodies the one thing that Trump demands: total loyalty to the notions that fly out of his mouth.

What about Hegseth, the former “Fox and Friends Sunday” co-host whom Trump plucked to become defense secretary? Spoiler alert: I categorically refuse to call him “war secretary” and head of the “war department,” per his and Trump’s name-change effort.

Hegseth summoned every flag officer in uniform to the nation’s capital, where they gathered in a room to listen to Hegseth and Trump talk to them about the need to eliminate “fat generals and admirals,” how women should have to meet the same physical training standards as men and how Trump’s deployment of troops to our nation’s cities should serve as practice for when they go into actual combat.

What is unintentionally hilarious is how Hegseth’s applause lines were greeted with stone-cold silence by the command staff … many of whom have served multiple combat deployments. These men and women are seasoned, highly skilled and effective warriors who need no lecture from a tinhorn soldier such as Hegseth about physical fitness.

And yet … Hegseth continues to disgrace our military — the most lethal and skilled organization of its kind in human history — simply by serving in a capacity for which he has earned zero qualification.

God help us!

medical news

Is Trump in decline?

The headline on top of this blog post demands an immediate answer … I have no clue as to whether Donald J. Trump is suffering any loss of mental acuity.

My reluctance to declare Trump to be off his rocker is more complicated than it seems. Consider the four years when Joe Biden was president of the United States. Critics asserted without a hint of ambiguity that they were certain the 46th president’s butter had slipped off its noodle. Did they have access to medical exams? Had they seen any test results? Were they fluent in body language that often gives away symptoms of mental decline?

No, no and no. Yet they persisted. I resisted the urge to join them. Why? For starters, I am a Joe Biden supporter. Second, I had no access to medical records. Third, I was not qualified to make any assertions about a high-profile politician’s mental fitness.

I am going to apply all those standards to Biden’s immediate successor.

Let me be clear on key point: I am likely to comment on the huge verbal gaffes that appear to be happening with stunning frequency. I cannot in good conscience, though, declare that Donald Trump needs a one-way ticket to the Funny Farm. Still, he does make me scratch my head when he said he ended a war between Azerbaijan and Albania.

Fair is fair. In fairness to the White House incumbent, I’ll let others talk among themselves about whether he belongs in the loony bin. I won’t join them.

medical news

RFK Jr: wrong man for wrong job

As I watch Robert F. Kennedy Jr. get pilloried by Democrats and Republicans in Congress, I am filled with a baffling mix of confused feelings.

Kennedy, the scion of the nation’s premier Democratic family, serves as health and human services secretary in a Republican administration known for its ignorance on health matters. That makes RFK Jr. the enemy of the right and the left.

The right detests him because he is a natural political lefty, the son and namesake of the martyred former attorney general and U.S. senator who was gunned down in 1968 as he was surging toward the Democratic presidential nomination. The left detests RFK Jr. because he has adopted the policies espoused by Donald Trump.

The man is firing health officials left and right. He is endangering the lives of Americans. He is hiring vaccine deniers who buck the views of millions of doctors and other health professionals who proclaim that vaccines save lives.

RFK Jr. cannot give a straight answer to direct questions, such as: “Do you believe vaccines save lives?“

He is becoming a prevaricator to a degree shared only by the nimrod who hired him … Trump.

The guy has to go. How do we get him out of there? Beats the stuffing out of me. The guy who hired him continues to stand behind him.

It pains me greatly to say this about him. I happen to admire his father very much. I miss Bobby Kennedy to this very day and wish he could have finished his race for the presidency, won the office and changed the course of history.

His son, meanwhile, is putting lives at risk. The HHS secretary has to go. Somewhere … just nowhere near public health policy.

medical news

Another conspiracy given birth

Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis is bound to run its course, no matter where it ends up.

If the former president is able to beat back the aggressive form of prostate cancer — which I and others hope happens — we’re going to see the temporary end to what is likely to occur if the president’s cancer fight ends in another fashion.

What will occur will be the birth of yet one more never-ending conspiracy theory. This one will center on allegations that the White House covered up President Biden’s cancer, that staffers knew he suffered from “aggressive prostate cancer,” but wanted him re-elected in 2024, so that he could resign and hand the presidency over to Vice President Kamala Harris.

I don’t feel good about the former president’s prognosis. He is 82 years of age. He has had cancer before, many years ago. But no one ever talks about that.

I am not privy, nor is anyone outside the White House, to what people knew during Biden’s term as president and when they knew it. A couple of questions keep nagging at me regarding the conspiracy theorists.

One is, why even worry about such a thing now? Joe Biden is no longer president. He has exited the political arena after serving what many millions of us consider to be a successful presidency. I am not going to spend a moment of my time thinking about what the White House medical staff knew and whether they covered it up.

The other is that we’ll never know the answer, except that if the White House medical team says it hid nothing, that is going to be good enough for me.

Conspiracy theories are the stuff of individuals who have too much time on their hands and too little to fill their vacuous noggins.

local news, medical news

No redeeming value in this loss

Two years have passed since I experienced the worst day of my life and I still am getting the reaction from those intending to offer some semblance of comfort.

I recently explained to someone who inquired about my marital status. “I am a widower,” I responded. “Oh? Tell me what happened,” came the reaction. I told this individual about the glioblastoma that struck Kathy Anne, about the surgery to removed part of the mass in her brain, the rehab, the grand mal seizure and finally the end that came six weeks after the diagnosis.

“At least she didn’t suffer,” the individual said … to which I shot back, “There is nothing positive I can claim from all this.”

To be clear, I am rebuilding my life and the foundation for my new life looks promising. The brevity of my bride’s battle does not lessen the pain that came at the end of her life on Earth.

I have been through all kinds of family tragedy. Dad’s death in September 1980 was sudden and shocking. The last words I said to him were, “I’ll see you Wednesday.” He left on a weekend fishing trip to British Columbia, but then perished when the skipper of the boat he was in crashed into a log jam. Dad died instantly. I got the news and I felt the numbness of the shock consume my body.

Mom died nearly four years later to the day. She suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. We watched her disappear before our eyes over several years, losing cognitive skill bit by agonizing bit. The end came. I was expecting it.

Both instances inflicted enormous pain on our family.

Then came Kathy Anne’s sudden illness and then she was gone.

I never will accept the end of my bride’s life as a “blessing” because she “didn’t suffer.” The pain, although it still twinges, has become something I am able to manage and control.

Life does go on.

medical news

45 years of tobacco freedom!

It was 45 years ago today that I lit the last cigarette I ever would attempt to smoke … only to snuff it, toss it and turn my back on a nasty habit I had acquired at the tender age of 15.

I was 30 years of age when I quit the habit cold turkey. My bride had been badgering me to do so, in that I had developed a “smoker’s cough.” I was smoking two packs a day, man! I wasn’t feeling well that day, so when I lit the cigarette, I damn near choked on it. My immediate thought in the monent was: What the hell am I doing to myaelf?

I knew the answer. I was killing myself. I was not prepared to die, given that I had a beautiful wife and two young sons who told me they wanted me to part of their lives.

I knew nothing about the cost that the habit would bring to those who still light ’em up today. Cigarettes sell now for about $7 a pack. Multiply that by two and that’s $14  each day going up in flames in my house. Ninety-eight bucks each  week, and $5,096 annually.

Wow! I can think of many more productive and enjoyable ways to spend that kind of dough.

And healthier, too!

As I look back, I believe today that decision — made immediately and acted on with dispatch — was among the smartest acts I have commited in the long life I have been granted.

local news, medical news

Placebo effect takes hold … maybe

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Three weeks into a nutrition and health management program run by the Veterans Administration and I am going to issue a preliminary progress report.

I signed up for this program a few weeks ago because I determined I need professional help with shedding the weight I gained after I lost my bride, Kathy Anne, to brain cancer. I devoured far too much comfort food and I paid the price with a lot of excess weight.

The program I joined is 16 weeks long. We just finished the third week of lessons delivered via online connection to my laptop here in North Texas.

Have I lost significant amounts of weight? Am I now able to look at myself in the mirror? No on both counts. However, there must be some sort of placebo impact taking hold of me.

Why? I feel better. It’s tough to define. I am proud of myself that I am able to exhibit some long-lost dietary discipline. I am keep strict daily logs of the calories I consume and the calories I expend through exercise and, well, just moving around and about.

I have heard about docs prescribing placebo medication — which, of course, is fake — as a sort of disguise to determine whether a patient is really sick. I will consider this positive effect on my outlook as a form of placebo I am receiving from the dietitian I am meeting each week.

I know that Billy Crystal’s SNL character “Fernando” would say it is “better to look good than to feel good.” Baloney. I feel great. I’ll settle for that gladly as I continue along this journey.

local news, medical news

New year, challenge await

Long ago, I vowed to cease making New Year’s resolutions for reasons you’ll understand … I don’t follow through on them.

So, what the hell is the point?

However, 2025 is going to mark the start of a new journey I intend fully to complete. I wrote on this blog a while ago that I have sought professional help to lose the weight I gained since February 2023. I buried myself in comfort food after losing my dear bride, Kathy Anne, to glioblastoma brain cancer.

I packed on way too many pounds.

I reached out to the Veterans Administration Medical Center where I get my medical care. They have a nutrition program at the Sam Rayburn Clinic in Bonham. On Friday I will engage with a nutritionist to begin a 16-week class on building a better, healthier lifestyle.

The VA calls the program MOVE. I don’t know what MOVE means, although the all-capital-letter identifier suggests it’s an acronym; I’ll ask when I sign in Friday morning.

I used to have sufficient self-discipline to accomplish weight-loss goals by myself. That discipline has vanished. I decided to admit to a lack of self-starting ability. The VA has been most helpful in preparing me for the start of this class.

My weight-loss goal is substantial. I hope to achieve it by the end of 2025. I figure that if I succeed in meeting the MOVE goals during my class period, I’ll reach my target weight according to plan.

I won’t chronicle my progress regularly on this blog. I am taking a moment today to tell my friends and family members — and others who read my messages — that this old man is about to try a new approach to achieving what we all want … to live a long and fruitful life.

I am not yet ready to check out of this Earthly world. Therefore … I’ll see y’all at the end of the road.

medical news, national news

Trump adds new ‘wack job’ to lineup

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Wack jobs have found a home in what is shaping up as the weirdest presidential administration in history.

The latest of them also happens to be a scion of one of America’s most revered political families: Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr.

How in the world can I begin evaluating Donald Trump’s selection of RFK Jr. to be health and human services secretary? I’ll start with the obvious. Dude is an anti-vaccine activist who then says he doesn’t oppose vaccines per se, only those used to combat the COVID pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of people around the world.

He also once picked up the carcass of a bear cub and delivered it to a national park and also declared that a worm got into his brain and ate some of the tissue inside his screwed-up noggin.

This is the moron Trump said he would allow to “run wild at HHS” in an effort to protect Americans against disease.

What the … ?

I feel compelled to re-state that RFK Jr.’s father, the late U.S. senator and U.S. attorney general — who I believe would have been elected president in 1968 were it not for the asshole with the pistol in Los Angeles — was my first political hero,

To think that Junior has become such a weirdo only makes me wonder: What would daddy think of his namesake?