don’t look for an inciteful fishing tip on this blog. Obscene conditions make any outdoors activity beyond stupid for the next couple days BUT if forecasts are accurate ice fishing should be outstanding this time next week..

Following is a personal rant more about life than fishing. However, if you believe fishing is life, feel free to stick around while this old river rat rambles.

I haven’t been on the ice ONCE yet this season due to some serious health issues which put me in hospital AGAIN from Monday through Thursday. Mayo LaCrosse sent me home worse than I went in…with a pneumothorax and a broken of piece of wire still in my belly. The experience convinced me the Hippocratic oath (do no harm) has morphed into the Hippocritical oath as medical care works through the 21st century.

Paramedic training back in 1980 taught me to be objective & pragmatic in all things medical. Being a paramedic is mostly about patient assessment, then taking the appropriate measures focused on patient care.

Not so today!! Health care is all about flow charts, checking boxes and following one size fits all protocols mandated by the gov’t while looking at a computer screen instead of the patient…and gov’t mandates are dictated by Big Pharma. In a nutshell, this is the sad , sad truth.

Say an MD has 10 patients but only time to care for one. The guy with Cadillac health insurance and a hangnail gets the slot instead of the guy with a more serious–even life threatening problem.That’s a fact, Jack! It’s all about the bottom line. The Cadillac reimburses @ close to 100%. medicare–even with a good supplement–maybe 70%.

I’m not the guy with a hangnail. From a pragmatic and objective standpoint the wire surgeons left in my belly along with a shriveled up gall bladder shrink wrapped around several gall stones can be put on hold for another month because the mortality chart says there will be better results 6 mos. after being on a blood thinner than 4 months or 5 mos, 29 days.

Well, Skippy, the sun sets on lake Michigan about 13 minutes earlier than it does here on the Mississippi river. If you’re looking at the patient instead of a chart on the computer could there be greater benefit for the patient if a gall bladder was removed @ 5 mos. 29 days? how ’bout 5 mos 14 days?

In my recent hospital experience I can provide a half dozen flat out stupid, zero common sense decisions driven by check boxes rather than good patient care–beyond little things like sending me home with a broken off piece of wire in my belly and no way to vent the toxic stew which will come out of my gall bladder if it decides to wake up again.

Take note any malpractice attorney reading this blog! Also all you folks who have the epiphany that the widow Peck will likely have the mother of all garage sales if this course is maintained. Now hear this: I will seek out and haunt anybody who short changes the Admiral for a St. Croix rod or shotgun.

That said, if not belly up I plan on getting out on the ice next thursday. If this is part of God’s plan look for another blog shortly thereafter.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Y’ALL!