[Stick]

One week ago I was coughing terribly all day long but on Sunday morning I got up and went to Church anyway. When I got home from Church I climbed the steps and into bed. I couldn't breath because of the pain in my chest and needing to cough whenever I took a few steps. Considering that I haven't had a cigarette in almost two years, coughing isn't something that I do much of lately.
Sunday night I tried to sleep but that meant laying in the bed and on my chest so I got about three hours sleep before I had to sit up with no pressure on the chest.
Monday morning, 6:30 a.m. I'm on the road to Decatur, just east of Atlanta through morning nightmare traffic and get to the VA hospital who immediately sends me off to the E-R where a doctor that performs a miracle is.
He pumped me up with some kind of fluid and took me to x-ray where he let me watch the same screen he was watching when he spotted a tiny blood clot on my left lung. Before he sent me home I could feel it no more and I didn't need to cough every other step.
What the VA was in 1970 and what the VA is today is two entirely different systems. In '70 you were a job, you were work but today they really seem to give a d@mn.