Heeeere’s John E. This is a tribute to the pride of Chicago – a man so impressive that he was born three days before Christ. He said that he had no trouble turning 50. He’s done it 10 times. Happily Birthday! 😀 I wish him many more, but I want “Quality Of Life” to go along with that wish.
This is the man who put the ILL in Illinois, to the point where they forced offered him a free lifetime citizenship in South Turnipville, Ohio. Older bloggers have seen his muddy footprints in their posts for years. They can be distinguished from Sasquatch footprints by the fact that there are two left feet.
The (at least temporary) ouster of Donald Trump, has removed a pain in his ass, but as the age counter inexorably ticks upward, he has accumulated aches and pains elsewhere – migraines, and rheumatizz.
Bureaucrats at all levels are rushing to be at the forefront of the Woke movement. To solve the problem of opioid overdoses and addiction, the DEA raided the offices of the only pain-management doctor – a physiatrist – in a large section of Kentucky. Aha, you’re prescribing thousands of pills! That’s dealer level! He protested that he had hundreds of patients in extreme pain, careful, complete documentation, and justification. Doesn’t matter! We’re shutting you down, and seized his computers, files and stock.
A pharmacist in Virginia refused to fill an opioid prescription for a woman in final cancer stage, because he didn’t want her to become addicted. Her adult daughter came in and screamed at him that her mother was in final stage, in constant, debilitating pain, that the medication had been legally prescribed, that her mother would be dead long before she ever became addicted, and if she wasn’t, addiction would be the least of her worries, and that if he didn’t perform his legally-mandated function, she would sue his ass. Even then he wouldn’t do it without a signed waiver form.
My daughter is in a similar situation, not for any ethical or moral reason, but because the Provincial Government has wasted so much money on projects like paving over fertile farmland, to build unwanted, unneeded highways, that they’ve cut back on benefits to the vulnerable. They wouldn’t replace her power wheelchair until a local manager raised a huge fuss. I used to drive her 75miles to get xylocaine pain-med infusion – and met others who had driven 150 miles. Too expensive the government said. Go to one of the now-legal cannabis dispensaries, and pay for you own CBD oil, that doesn’t work anywhere near as well.
Johnny-In-A-Spot – Dear John – Big Bad John’s doctor, possibly worried about the same thing, recently sloughed him off to a local pain clinic, who told him that they had also stopped providing any opioids. Dear Big Government, thanx for saving us from ourselves. We’d like to remember your care and concern for us at the next election, but those of us still alive won’t be able to reach the polls.
I baked John a special birthday cake with a surprise ingredient – some oxycontin pills that ‘fell off the back of a truck’, near my dealer’s place. This getting old is a real pain.
Happy Birthday John E. May your next go around the Sun be as pain free as possible.
LikeLiked by 1 person
John seems to have slept in this morning. He may need it. I didn’t specifically say that I was responding to a prompt that he sent me, but I asked him if I could use the photo of him and his twin brother. 😉 😆
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much! Yeah, I’m a little late in the getting going – I take the night shift feeding our wood-burning furnace. Getting ready for a bone-chilling weekend (I could handle -26 degrees in Chicago when I was in my 20s, but 4 degrees in my …. very late 50s ain’t so easy!), which will only be a couple days. Here’s hoping you have it a bit warmer, or a lot whiter, whatever makes your Christmas bright!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Damn! It’s colder down where you are, than up here. Temps are hovering just below freezing – although we’re supposed to get slammed with snow over the weekend. Have a safe and happy – whatever you call it. 😀 😀 😎
LikeLike
I joined the mass exodus from Chicago to Detroit last night. It was bumper to bumper out. Currently, it’s just rain in the D, but snow is knockin on the door. Be safe!
LikeLike
Archon – Yep, save us from ourselves. What if anything have you heard about the doctor assisted suicide? Some satirical sites have a punch card. After the 10th punch, the game of Life is over. You are straight up, so I’d love to hear your thought if you want to share. Thanks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not a lot, here. I’ll tie it and gender-reassignment together, and do a post about them in the new year. Thanx for the prompt. 😀 🌯
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you. Thank you. It’s a Clown World for sure.
LikeLike
First off, thank you VERY much. I was expecting something a bit lighter, making fun of me, to which I was going to respond with your last response to me – “Hey, that’s my line”!
For the elucidation of you and your readers, the US experience with opiods went (briefly) like this. Pharma came to US legislatures and offered a “wonder drug with no side effects” – alongside huge wads of money. Lawmakers – not doctors – pushed approval of the new drug family, whereupon doctors were offered more cash to prescribe them, for literally anything. (A co-worker of mine had a simple broken ankle, clean break, no complications. He got more painkillers prescribed for a 7-day recovery period than I currently use in a 17-20 day period for intense headaches!) Naturally, with a drug based on opium, people got hooked, or just abused them outright. So then the lawmakers started passing laws, not on the pharma companies to limit availability, not on the doctors to limit what health conditions should require these drugs, but on how easily the patient could get them. I went from one doctor visit a year, and 6-month long scrips, down to 3-month visits and 1-month scrips, requiring someone to go to the office to pick up the scrip and drive it to a pharmacy for filling. As the access to opoids became drastically harder, many people went to street drugs – hence the rise of fentanyl. The press jumped on that and convinced the public that a person taking opiods for constant headaches was just as evil as a street-dwelling junkie.
And that’s where I’m at. Many doctors won’t touch me because they think I’m an addict. Others won’t because it’s too much paperwork. And these “pain management” clinics are all about taking away a medication that helps with my health problem, and substituting things like massage and acupuncture. Considering it took almost a decade to get to my current drug regime, and that before I stabilised, I had days where all I could do was lie in bed and scream in pain all day (literally – just ask my wife), I am VERY loathe to try alternatives, many of which I HAVE already tried and which failed to give me relief. I can see why many people go the street-drug route, but I refuse to take that risky path.
Okay, okay, enough rampant self-pity. Thanks again, my friend, for the birthday salute, and thanks to all your readers for their well-wishes. A very happy holidays to you all, whatever holidays you observe. And a salute to my old buddy Blackjack the goat (he’s the handsome one in the photo, I’m the schmuck in the hat 😀 ), gone but not forgotten, a friend through thick and thin … grass. My best to all!
LikeLiked by 1 person
If you haven’t seen it, here’s a report on MY last visit to a doctor – a little humor to take some pain away. https://archonsden.wordpress.com/2020/05/06/i-have-never-felt-so-alive/
LikeLike