THE WEAPONIZATION OF HEALTHCARE, My Story

I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (afib) in early 2015. Afib is a condition where the top chamber of the heart beats at an abnormally high rate of speed while the lower beats at a normal pace. During the episode blood tends to pool in the lower chamber, increasing the risk of clots and stroke. Needless to say, afib is a serious condition.

Initially doctors tried to treat my condition with medication, which were only somewhat effective. But as time wore on I began to experience increased occurrences that would last several hours at a time, one more than twelve hours. Living with it became unbearable, so in August of that year my doctors and I decided on a treatment called ablation, a procedure that scars the heart in order to block the abnormal signaling causing the irregular heartbeat. Ablation was explained to be a “common” procedure that had certain risks, most of which were rare.

I spent the night in the hospital and the performing doctor visited the next morning to check on my condition. Of course I was tired and groggy, sore, and complained of sharp pain on my right side. It was impossible to lay on the side. “Normal,” he said with a twitch of the head, and recommended to take it light for the next three days and to only return to the pool once the wound by my femoral artery (where they insert the catheter to perform the ablation) was completely healed.

Swimming is a requirement in my life not because I love it – because I don’t – but because it is the best therapy for my broken back and neuropathic feet. (Yes, it’s a joy living in this body of mine.) But now in the advent of waterproof iPods and decent sounding underwater headphones, three or four one-hour stints in the pool each and every week is a tolerable exercise for a land creature like myself.

Still sore on my right side I returned to the pool four days later and did as I always did, jumped feet first into the deep end and go all the way down to the 12 foot bottom and spring off like it was a trampoline. But this time something was different. The bottom had no spring, and it felt as if I was swimming against a strong tide to get to the surface – and, at just a few feet off the bottom, I was completely out of air.

Oh my God.

I grew up playing all kinds of sports and working out, so I have strong arms, a wide back, and skinny but strong legs, all of which were inherited from my father, a brute of a man in his day, skinny legs notwithstanding. I remember focusing on the bright light hanging on the ceiling above the water’s surface and hoping it wasn’t the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel we hear so much about. My arms pumped and legs kicked with the force required to move through quicksand (because that’s how heavy the water felt), and with the fury as if my life depended on it. Of course it did.

When I finally reached the surface and clung to the side I was completely out of wind. What had just happened?—Did I forget to take a breath? Did I get lost in the music and blew the air out by accident on the way down? Could I be that stupid? Jesus, I hoped not. But thought maybe, after all, I hadn’t swam in several weeks due to escalating afib episodes that led up to the ablation. Whatever the case it was time to get back to it, so I let go of the side to start my swim and immediately sank. I tried again and again, but couldn’t stay afloat and constantly lost my breath. Something was wrong.

I left the pool and called the doctor who seemed surprised by the situation. He believed it was the post-op medication, so he ordered me to discontinue using it and to return to the pool three days after being off it. Four days later I returned and true to form jumped feet first into the deep end – and the same thing happened, with the same outcome. Go figure.

Diaphragmatic paresis is when a diaphragm in the lung becomes paralyzed. And that’s bad because the diaphragms work together – so if one only opens at 25%, so does the other, even if it’s healthy. That condition causes dyspnea, a sensation described as “air hunger”, or shortness of breath.

Note to swimmers: the human body needs air to float, and come to find out, weak diaphragms cannot hold air under the pressure of water.

The vagus nerve is perhaps the most important nerve system in the body. The usual location of vagus through the chest is on the back side of the heart. As luck would have it, I apparently suffer from a birth defect that places it on the front of the heart – where the ablation procedure was performed.

In all of the materials regarding ablation received by my doctors or returned by Google, nowhere could the lung conditions diaphragmatic paresis and dyspnea be found as possible side effects. But those are indeed the symptoms I experienced. The vagus nerve was nicked during my ablation procedure causing both conditions, something that would take a long 18 months to remedy.

But as with most ailments or corrective surgeries, especially those that occur in mid-life or later, nothing returns to the previous normal because the body’s ability to heal decreases substantially with age. Besides, no condition can ever match God’s original version, whether they are healed broken bones, hip replacements using modern science and technology, or injured nerves. Sad to say, I still suffer from dyspnea from partial diaphragmatic paresis, and my lungs are extremely sensitive to many new conditions.

Now five years later afib has returned with another side effect that was known prior, high blood pressure. And let me tell you, having a lung ailment with afib and high blood pressure is no picnic – especially in this world of mask mandates and vaccines with noted side effects that affect the heart.

When I wear a mask it obstructs my breathing and throws me into afib, which raises my blood pressure, and makes it extremely difficult to breathe. Not to mention with every masked breath taken I feel particles entering my lungs, which my doctor said are micro particles from the mask itself. This cannot be good for anyone, let alone someone with a legitimate pulmonary ailment.

Needless to say, I have never worn a mask during this whole Covid era. In that time I have ben accosted twice in restaurants by other patrons, been spat at in the Post Office, had my phone slapped out of my hand in the grocery store when trying to retrieve my medical records to prove my condition, lost my primary care doctor and been denied access to other healthcare services, and have been excoriated by healthcare workers like a criminal with the audacity to keep my nose exposed so that I can breathe clean air freely – even though the Executive Order signed by Connecticut’s overzealous governor exempted me from the mask mandate.

So what happened when I recently returned to the cardiologists’ office who damaged my lungs?

Well, it took like ten phone calls and more than two months of banter to actually get in to see my doctor who objected to seeing me without a mask even though he had firsthand knowledge of my medical condition – and even though I had Covid-19 in 2020 and still had active natural antibodies – and even though I offered to be tested for Covid before entering the office – and even though I offered to be the first or last patient in to “protect” others in the office.

In the time it took to finally get into the cardiologist I ended up in the emergency room three times due to rapid afib (176 heartbeats per minute) and high blood pressure (179/119) as I continued to plead my case that the mask impedes my breathing, throws me into afib, and raises my blood pressure. This is not to mention that breathing in the tiny mask particles makes me cough, which tells me I am hurting my body, which further worsens my  cardiac condition. Yet they still insisted on me wearing a mask “to play the game.”

Why must someone hurt themselves in order to gain access to health services?

As one of the few Americans to have read the entire Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, and every Supreme Court case relating to it in their entirety the government’s Covid-19 response could have been predicted. Hence the reason Joe Biden was caught on a hot mic whispering, “This is a big fucking deal,” into Barack Obama’s ear after signing the ACA in 2009. It would be the tool government used to seize control over the populous, courtesy of all the bailout provisions included in the Act, which paved the way for monetary incentive for healthcare providers to tow the government’s line.

To take-over the healthcare industry they must first buy it out.

To do so they used Covid-19 as the excuse for government overreach that destroyed the economy and stripped away individual freedoms by mandating unconstitutional compliance to tyrannical edicts in the name of “community” and “safety”, while using Obamacare as legal standing.

Mask mandates are not about good community health, they are about showing compliance to government edict.

And that’s politicizing healthcare to the point of weaponizing it to seek compliance even if it runs against good health protocol and discriminates against those with pulmonary handicaps – something the American Disability Act sought to prohibit.

The problem today is that America never had more reason to repeal Obamacare than it does right now, and no one, not one Republican or even the guy who won the presidency on repealing it, Donald J. Trump himself, are calling for its repeal to preserve individual freedom and choice, and to remove politics from an industry it has no business being in – because healthcare is an individual, private matter.

And for that we all lose.

About the Author:

Dan Calandro is an award winning author and technical writer with a passion for business and investment, economics and the impacts of government policy. He is an independent free thinker disgusted with both political Parties, and by no means shy about it.