Recently a relative was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. The prognosis with or without surgery is poor, but he elected for the surgical route. Recovering from surgery, he contracted pneumonia while in the hospital. The pneumonia got very serious, to the point where it almost killed him. He ended up in the ICU on a ventilator (breathing machine) in critical condition.

Gradually the IV antibiotics worked and he recovered after nearly two weeks in the ICU. He left the hospital with great fanfare, having survived such a crisis. There is one key point that many family members managed to forget. He still has the esophageal cancer. And it has grown and gotten worse. (Surgery is rarely curative in such cases.) But everyone was so happy when he recovered. The pneumonia was the fault of the hospital. It was an iatrogenic (caused by medical treatment) disease. He never would have gotten the pneumonia if he hadn't been in the hospital in the first place.

I find it very entertaining how excited everyone is going to be when this ridiculous bailout bill passes. We all will have recovered from our pneumonia, so to speak, but guess what? We've all still got the cancer. It's not going anywhere. Bull