Why I am grumpy.

I have COPD; chronic obstructional lung disease according to my doctor. But I don't. I have lost 50% of the oxygen producing cells in my lungs due to contracting a strange virus some years ago. I am now told that standard drug procedures for someone suffering from Emphysemia is the way to go, not because I have emphysemia but because it is the easy answer.

I've been grumpy for a while, I'm grumpy with myself for being grumpy. I'm beating myself up for being a grumpy old man.

For the past six weeks I have been unable to do anything other than try to breath and do nothing and while doing nothing I have been indulging in grumpyness. I promise you, living with me has been hell and I am the first to admit that I have considered hiring a hit man to take me out.

I saw a new GP today.

A new day a new dawn.  I had been prescribed steroids, knowing that steroids fuck up the immune system, without the essential antibiotics to protect a vulnerable body. Ergo: I have been getting every nasty little bug known to man so that my GP can remain happy in the fact that he is not over-prescribing expensive drugs.

My new GP diagnosed a long present lung infection and prescribed antibiotics as well as the steroids necessary for tissue growth.  If the drugs don't work I'm looking at a trip to hospital for intravenous antibiotics before the pneumonia kills me. All because a doctor didn't want to prescribe the right drugs at the right time. He was probably too busy thinking about his golfing holiday courtesaey of the drugs reps.

350,000 people die from respiratory diseases every year, a lot of them unnecessarily.  863,000 GP's go on drug company funded holidays in return for prescribing their wares... Unnecessarily.

That is why I am grumpy.

I'm so fucking grumpy that I am staying alive for the next 60 years to complain about it.