And decrease the surplus population

Donald Trump doesn't care if I die. I can't help but take that personally.

I've been so angry for months now. Trying to figure out what I could possibly post that someone else hasn't already said, and better. Then I realized that that was it. Trump literally does not care if I die. It is my humble opinion that this is a serious flaw in a president.

When I was 26, I got a job as a temp for a major oil company that I will not name. My son Daniel was three, and in day care. I was desperately broke and had no health insurance, and when I began coughing uncontrollably and the cough lingered for weeks, I did not go to the doctor. Because I did not have money to go to a doctor. I could barely pay for rent and day care.

Over a year later, the oil company offered me the job I was doing as a temp, but as a full time employee with benefits, and I had a physical administered by a company doctor that included a chest X-ray. He called me later with the results, telling me (1) I had lesions all over my lungs which he diagnosed as (2) tuberculosis, that would need years of extensive treatment and could very well kill me, and (3) needless to say, I wasn't getting the job. Yes, he was clearly a very shitty doctor.

And postscript, I did get the job simply because the executive I'd temped for for so long wanted me badly enough to override the shitty doctor and hire me anyway. I got my health insurance and received drug treatment for tuberculosis for a year. The executive's name was Dick. He was clearly not a dick. Thank you, Dick.

Long story short, I never had tuberculosis, but I thought I had for years. Until it happened again. Just over ten years ago, I again developed a bad cough, but this time it was accompanied by three hard lumps that appeared almost overnight under the skin of my hands. My doctor referred me to a hand specialist, who told me I should have surgery to remove the lumps immediately, and he recommended that I not have the lumps biopsied.

Stupidly, I thought he knew what he was talking about, and agreed. If I had gotten a second opinion, I might not have four inches of surgical scarring on my right hand. A couple of days after the surgery, the doctor called and told me the lumps were granulomas and that I had a disease he'd never heard of before: sarcoidosis.

Sarcoidosis, also referred to as "sarc," is rare, the cause is unknown, and there is no cure. It can affect any or all of your organs, although it mostly damages the lungs. Most people only get it once; I'm one of those lucky people who keeps getting it. I went through my third active bout of sarc a couple of years ago.

The thing is, sarc has permanently damaged my lungs. It's described as "ground glass opacity" because of how it looks on an X-ray. The winter before last, I was hospitalized with bronchitis and could barely breathe. It was not fun. And I'm also an insulin-dependent diabetic, which I don't think is my fault since my father and three of my grandparents were diabetic. Also, I am not young, although I'm not elderly, either.

To conclude. I fit the profile of a person most likely to die if I get covid-19. If Trump had taken the action a competent president should take when initially faced with a pandemic, we might have gotten past this already. But all he seems to care about is the fact that the tanking economy might ruin his re-election chances. He wants to "reopen the country" by May 1, no matter who it endangers.

I can only conclude that Donald Trump sees me as acceptable collateral damage. He doesn't care if I die.