My Friend is Dying
When a friend passes it forces me to take stock of life. Happens every time. My next door neighbor is a guy who is smart and has worked hard for many, many years. A chemical engineer (so we talk a lot of shop) who works in vaccine manufacturing. We talk some pretty deep shop. He signed on to all the mRNA products and took them. He has worked into his 70s while his wife and kids live a life of luxury - with condos in sunny climates elsewhere. My friend has almost never been home. He works in a large midwest city and comes here to northern NV for a few days every few months. We get caught up and trade stories when he's back here. He, personally, has been a very frugal guy - often offering me a discount on his gasoline card, having me follow him to the gas station to fill up my truck. Nice guy. He recently told me that he's suffering from heart failure. He is a little frail...typical of many engineers. And, he's worked well past the age people should. Desk jobs destroy your body, really. I've always really liked this guy. He's like a kid in some ways. Good man. Last time I saw him he was heading back to our local airport to get a flight back to work, back east. He was putting on a bike helmet and riding his cheap little bicycle down the hill from our places. He pointed at the bike and said it only cost him about $75, and that he spoke with airport management because he leaves it locked there on the bike rack for months at a time. He informed me via text a couple days ago that he's on life support now and will probably need a heart transplant (talk about multi-tasking...texting me on life support). I realized I may need to go down to our airport soon and get his bike. He's a good man and has worked hard forever. If I see him again I'm giving him the biggest hug...
I feel for you and your friend. You're right about the engineering. Everybody I know either becomes frail or ends up, like me, 150 lb overweight. I've gone through college twice and spent 40 years fixing and designing other people's stuff, and all I got out of it was a triple bypass. I hope they can get his heart problems worked out,
I read recently that they have a new system where they take an otherwise healthy cadaver heart, bleach out the donor's cells in introduce the patient's on heart muscle cells, which grow onto and take over the cellular scaffolding. That's the ultimate solution, because there's no problem with rejection. You're essentially replacing your heart with a new, lab-grown copy of your own heart. But I don't know where they are in terms of getting this technology in to the patients. It may be a few more years.
I seem to remember you losing a family member fairly recently, at about the same time I lost mine. That's always hard and it takes a while to adjust.
My father-in-law, who lived into his '90's said one time that he was grateful to have lived that long, but the downside was, that he had, over the years, buried most of his friends.
Hang in there.
I'm 77 and sometimes I feel like a survivor due to all the departed to the other side people I used to know. Some were friends and relatives.
I fully retired due to health reasons during 2013.
I have reasons to believe that is why I'm still alive.
We can compare and contrast for a reason.
His decisions doesn't make him wrong. In fact, I know more and more people who took the Jab that I did not expect... They all had their reasons. NONE of them will take it again. That's a start.
But I feel ya. It's hard watching the world shrink around you.
Even harder when it's the good that are gone. I have 1 BFF left from my early years. And a recent "little brother" from Russia.
In the end, I am reminded of how lucky I have been.
(of course, there MIGHT have been some hard work along the way, LOL)
Good argument for retiring on time.
I need to check in with his wife...