You know there's been a few things I've had to suspend about reality here on the unicorn stud farm. I promise I did not write that last sentence for a bet I had on Kalshi, the PREDICTION market. Look, I love a good loophole, in fact, it's my third favorite hole, but prediction market? I prediction market you that they have to call themselves that to make certain illegal things legal. And again, all good here. I run a stud farm for unicorns while simultaneously writing a pop culture sports blog--you think all of my shit is legit? You think I'm too legit? Too legit to quit?!
I'm kidding. I pay my taxes literally as soon as possible.
But one of the things that gets lost is a little thing I like to call mortality. I like to call it that because so does everyone else. I've talked about death on this blog quite a bit. Someone's death, my death, the death of literally everything good...blah blah blah. But nothing really shakes up your idea of mortality quite like the death of someone fairly young and in otherwise good health. Kyle Busch, a NASCAR driver, died suddenly a few days ago from pneumonia and sepsis. He was 41.
Look, I've had my fun at the expense of NASCAR and it's fans for quite some time and if they could read what I wrote they would probably be very upset. But if you could read aloud the following for them I would be very grateful:
Nobody should die at 41. My condolences to his family, his fans, and to anybody else that just lost a bunch of money on Kalshi, the prediction market, because he was supposed to race this past Sunday.
I make jokes because this is what I use in the face of mortality, this is nothing to mock the death of Kyle Busch. His death is unfortunate and I'm sorry it happened.
Buuuuuuuut I can't shake it, this nagging goddamn feeling I have about pneumonia. Anybody else have a feeling about pneumonia that they just can't shake?
First of all, that silent fucking P is ridiculous. We all put up with it with pterodactyls because those are badass dinosaurs but why are we dealing with pneumonia?! This is an infection of the lungs so why didn't we call it Lungitis? I think that has a nice ring to it. Pneumonia. Was there an old monia? Just in case, this one's new.
Second of all, pneumonia is very treatable. Antibiotics, son, we've been developing them for ages.
So how does one, a professional athlete, die from a treatable infection like pneumonia? Severe pneumonia lets you know you have it by coughing up sputum. Sputum, kids, is mucus and if you're coughing it up, it's past time to consult your town doctor. In Kyle Busch's case, it was blood. He was coughing up blood. I'm not a hypochondriac, but coughing up blood to me seems a little high on the panic meter.
Look, death comes for us all, nothing matters and we're all hamsters blah blah blah, but we can prolong this shit. It has nothing to do with toughing it out or being manly about it. That nagging cough, that cold you can't shake, that feeling of malaise day in and out, please go get it checked out. Pneumonia is treatable but you have to get someone to fucking treat it. The chest X-ray on lungs that have pneumonia makes it look like a lava lamp.
Get yourself checked out, kids. Don't let this shit get you. We're too epic for that, graceful swans.
