Oh Yeah

Oh, yeah, I knew it was there.

I knew there was poison ivy in that there plum tree. I knew what it looked like. And I knew it was poison ivy I was yanking out of that there plum tree.

What I didn't know was that my long sleeved shirt and leather gloves wouldn't protect me from the poison ivy that was in that there plum tree.

It showed up yesterday morning. Big, itchy blotches over both forearms. The one on my right arm covered nearly half my forearm. The one on my left arm almost as big.

After a nearly sleepless night of itching, after waking myself up several times scratching, after lying awake to the sound of said poison ivy cackling maniacally at the Benadryl I was futilely bombarding it with, I decided this morning that I would go to the doctor and get something a little stronger, to clear it up a little faster.

Off to the doctor I went...

I saw Dr. Reid this time. He is a hoot. While my regular doctor, Dr. Armstrong, is fairly quiet, Dr. Reid will talk your ear off. He's a bit of a clown, too. First thing he said to me was, "Ah! Someone I can actually help! All these other people have been coming in here today, and I don't know what's wrong with them. But you, I can help."

I came home with some steroids, and some ointment and it's working already. But that's not important.

The key phrase in that story up above...can you guess what it is?

"I decided"

I decided. Yeah, I knew the poison ivy would clear up on its own in a couple of weeks. But I decided I didn't want to itch for a couple of weeks. I knew there was stuff available over the counter, but I decided I wanted to get the good stuff, even if it meant paying a little more.  I knew it wasn't a medical emergency, but I decided I didn't want to deal with it.  I knew it wasn't even remotely life threatening, but still I decided I wanted treatment.  I decided I wanted to feel better sooner, rather than later. 

So, I decided to go to the doctor.

Whether I will be able to make those decisions for myself in the future is being debated before the Supreme Court even now.  I don't hold out much hope, since one of the justices hearing the case wrote the law.  She wrote the flipping law and has refused to recuse herself from the case.  I guess we already know which way Obama's "wise Latina" is going to rule.

Here's a clue...not with the Constitution.

It's a frightening prospect, if the Supreme Court does not rule in favor of freedom.  Those kinds of decisions-- like the one I made today-- will be taken out of our hands, out of our doctors' hands, and placed in the hands of a faceless bureaucracy who sees you not as a person, not as a human being, but will weigh you in terms of an asset or a liability.

It will be he, not you, who will determine if you deserve medical treatment.  It will be he, not your doctor, who will decide what treatments are not the most effective, but the most cost effective.  It will be the government, not the physician,  who decides who receives medical treatments and what those treatments will be. 

It will be the government who will decide who lives and who dies.

And then, my friends, we will be under the thumb of a tyranny much greater than what our ancestors fought to throw off.

Our forefathers must be so ashamed of us.  They would have been shooting long before now.