The Wisdom of a Nurse

Pilgrim · January 10, 2026, 10:09:15 AM

The best comfort I find today is my shaky trust that the US is strong enough to ride out the current internal conflicts and find a new spot on the pendulum swing between right land left wing approaches. That pendulum swing is constant, and I see signs that's it's moving. I'm hoping for the mid-terms to restore some checks on the current occupant.

westen44 · January 10, 2026, 10:50:48 AM

Here is a video I happened to just now run across while eating breakfast. I sometimes feel I don't post enough music videos here. Good ones can be hard to find. Here is an attempt to correct that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhDkW5o1gKw

Grog · January 10, 2026, 02:02:58 PM

I just got home from a three day ordeal with AFib. I went to my local hospital ER last Wednesday & was told they wanted to keep me overnight. There ended up that no rooms were available in any hospital close by so I got sent by ambulance to Abbot Hospital in Minneapolis. I was just blocks from where this sad story took place. The nurses & workers would comment on the news saying how close it was to us. They wondered if they could make it home from work. Minneapolis is sadly in another national news headline. Sad loss of a young woman.

westen44 · January 10, 2026, 04:18:18 PM

Quote from: Grog on January 10, 2026, 02:02:58 PMI just got home from a three day ordeal with AFib. I went to my local hospital ER last Wednesday & was told they wanted to keep me overnight. There ended up that no rooms were available in any hospital close by so I got sent by ambulance to Abbot Hospital in Minneapolis. I was just blocks from where this sad story took place. The nurses & workers would comment on the news saying how close it was to us. They wondered if they could make it home from work. Minneapolis is sadly in another national news headline. Sad loss of a young woman.

Good luck with the AFib. I don't know if you're actually from Minnesota or not. But so many of those people they show on TV from there seem so bold and defiant. I would be proud to be from such a state.

Grog · January 10, 2026, 05:47:48 PM

Quote from: westen44 on January 10, 2026, 04:18:18 PMGood luck with the AFib. I don't know if you're actually from Minnesota or not. But so many of those people they show on TV from there seem so bold and defiant. I would be proud to be from such a state.

Thanks! They gave me a jolt & straightened my heart rhythm out, I just have to work on a couple likely causes so it doesn't happen again. I am a lifelong Minnesotan!

Son of Dave W · January 11, 2026, 12:12:35 PM

Quote from: Grog on January 10, 2026, 05:47:48 PMI am a lifelong Minnesotan!

We won't hold that against you

(BTW I graduated from Col Heights and went to the U, so I include myself in here)

Pilgrim · January 11, 2026, 12:54:45 PM

Quote from: Grog on January 10, 2026, 05:47:48 PMThanks! They gave me a jolt & straightened my heart rhythm out, I just have to work on a couple likely causes so it doesn't happen again. I am a lifelong Minnesotan!

My youngest brother (@65) is a nurse and had Afib without being able to identify it for some time. He's OK, but it required a procedure to stop it. I hope you have a handle on it now.

westen44 · January 11, 2026, 01:41:27 PM

I would like to amend a previous statement I made about Americans becoming the new barbarians. I wouldn't put Minnesota in that category. Minnesota appears to be cut from a different cloth. I don't know why.

In addition, there are a few notable figures from there. Bob Dylan, for instance, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Also, I have a good friend from there. But that's mostly because we both like Gibson basses. He is the only person I personally know who is more obsessed with playing bass than I am.

Pilgrim · January 11, 2026, 05:03:32 PM

There is a reason for the saying "Minnesota Nice."

There is also a reason for the normally nice folks to get REALLY pissed when something bad happens and they are lied to by everyone involved. They know darn well they have been betrayed and lied to.

Grog · January 12, 2026, 07:53:52 AM

Quote from: Pilgrim on January 11, 2026, 12:54:45 PMMy youngest brother (@65) is a nurse and had Afib without being able to identify it for some time. He's OK, but it required a procedure to stop it. I hope you have a handle on it now.

I feel great now but for a long time felt off. Last Wednesday it kind of came to a head. My magnesium was quite low from something & I was told by several of the medical staff to check for Sleep Apnea. When my lifelong dentist retired, my new dentist told me I had a high likelyhood of Sleep Apnea due to the way that I was grinding my teeth. I didn't want to sleep with one of those contraptions so I didn't take it too seriously. I'm taking it seriously now!

uwe · January 23, 2026, 01:25:58 AM

I mean in Germany we're Nazis and all, always follow orders and are ruthless in our jack boots, but even when we do deportations forcefully we don't shoot women in the face. Weird, I know.

But liebe Amerikaner:

Tribalism never works out in the long run.

westen44 · January 23, 2026, 02:20:38 AM

I don't think it would be fair to Dave to actually let this get political. Something which, of course, hasn't happened. Nevertheless, personally this is one instance in which I would actually like to say something political. Very political. This is kind of like one of those movies in which the werewolf asks someone to lock him up in a room for a while. Because he knows the full moon is coming out. And he knows once that happens, he may go berserk.

Another thing I keep in mind is that such a potentially volatile topic as this one could literally wreck the entire forum permanently. I've been on forums in which just one incident could just about destroy everything. I usually don't get emotional about politics. But this case is an exception. One close friendship with a non-musician is already being strained. When you've got two sides deeply locked into their fixed ideological positions, communication and comprehension can get very messed up. And when you've got somebody like me who is genuinely interested in being apolitical, that can get very confusing to people. I don't even care for politics much at all. But I do believe there is a difference between right and wrong. And I'm not going to let somebody's political ideology try to decide things like that for me.

"The time is always right to do what is right."
---Martin Luther King, Jr.