The day COVID hit me, I did 75 pushups and 18 chin-ups without stopping, ran for 30 minutes, hung upside down for several more on a gravity bed, worked nine hours, and walked an additional 20 minutes with my dog Pepper to finish the day.

By the next morning, I was unable to hold up my head, and within a week I was in the hospital. I stayed there in one fashion or another for two and a half months – including five weeks on a ventilator.

The part about exercise is not bragging. It’s for contrast. I went from being a fit 69-year-old to a wreck in 24 hours. I’m still a wreck.

Without my wife, prayer and higher authority’s grace, the lingering blessings of exercise, and a parade of wonderful caregivers at Mission and Care Partners, I wouldn’t be here. 

Actually, per the odds from being that sick, that long, and the dependence on a ventilator, I shouldn’t be here.

But, I am. Now I’ve got to put whatever time I have to best use.

I’ve had to learn to talk, walk, and eat all over again. Having lost 58 pounds – very little which of what was fat – I’ve gained back 10.  Per on-going nausea and gastro distress, most of my meals are a bit forced. 

OK, enough of that.

Where from here?

I’m off oxygen. I’ve got a Total Gym on the way to begin the physical recovery process. I can now walk six minutes – minus a walker – without stopping and collapsing. I’ll keep it up.

I’m beginning to write again – you’re reading some of that right now – and it’s work for a weary brain. But it is also good medicine.

The biggest thing with my writing is working to complete the 10 percent left on a book I had almost completed right before I got sick. I am so grateful God gave me a chance to put the cap on this long-term effort.

I have secured an illustrator and plan to have the finished product ready for submission within less than 60 days. It will be called ‘The Soft Spot: The Search for a Soft Place in a Hard World.’

But that’s not where it all lands.

I’ve had a front-row seat for the first time in my life – not counting the military and Vietnam, where I was too young to really understand – on my imminent mortality. I get that I need to get ever tighter with my maker. I’ve been working hard on that for a long time, but now I understand it needs to top versus share my high-priority list.

You might consider my experience and giving thought to your own spirituality.

Some other stuff

No, in answer to your question, I didn’t get a COVID vaccine. I did wear a mask in public spaces, mostly avoided crowd atmospheres, and practiced proper protocols in my office. It worked for two years with me seeing a full-schedule of patients face-to-face every day.

 It worked until it didn’t work. Sadly, that day came when an angry and otherwise distressed person decided he wanted to expose me and my assistant, and not let us know until it was too late.

I got fooled by COVID. My associate was sick five or so days. I thought I’d follow her lead.

Big mistake — and by the time I realized what was happening, it was too late to take the traditional COVID interceptors.

Oh, well, it was meant to be.

Why the resistance to the ‘shot’

There are a number of reasons, starting with an experience with government induced health interventions when I was eighteen.

On the way to Vietnam, I got the standard gamma-globulin shot. It was supposed to protect us from Asian pathogens. Instead, either through the air-gun administration or a corrupted vaccine, I was infected with hepatitis. I recovered just fine, but I’ve not been able to give blood since then and have a pretty fixed mistrust of Uncle Sam and medicine working in tandem.

But there’s more.

Vaccine resistance explained

Our government, elected officials, and publicly funded health agencies advocating for the vaccine are stuck with a large percentage of independent thinkers.

It is hard to find trust with politicians more accurately described as actors and all of the conflicting abuses of the scientific model.

Then there’s that repulsive reliance by so many vaccine advocates on mockery, anger and threats as compliance motivators. Where debate is not allowed, truth disappears.

America’s left-minded persistently confuse enabling with love, vanity with conviction, authoritarianism with leadership, and spending other people’s money with progress.

COVID-19 vaccine resistance is just one piece of a broader movement by America’s majority who value conservative prudence over liberal pretense.

Should you take the vaccine? From my direct experience – yes, but it remains a personal decision.

Will I take the vaccine going forward – no, and for many of the reasons mentioned above.

I am very grateful for the medical care, time, expertise, and energy I have received.

It remains that too many ‘do as I say – not as I do’ government mandators have been excessively reckless, controlling and wrong.

Chameleons make poor leaders.