Frederick Clarkson, who has been writing comments and diaries at Daily Kos for the past five years, is in the Cardiac ICU at Bay State Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. He's recovering from a serious operation to remove a spray of blot clots from a lung and a clot in his right leg.
And, despite this, once again demonstrating why he is one of my favorite people, he's in good spirits (helped by a morphine drip) and joking with the nursing staff. He had an exclusive comment for all of us, delivered via his good friend and fellow Kossack, Jonathan Hutson:
"Fight on for a public option, Kossacks. Everybody should be able to receive the kind of expert, quality care that has saved my life."
Frederick doesn't just blog here. He was a co-founder of Talk to Action, blogs at his own site when he has time and has a quarter-century of experience writing exposés about the Christian Right and about the theocratic designs of Americans who think there should be no separation of church and state. Five years before the Oklahoma City bombing, he was the first to report that right-wing Christians were forming militias.
In 1991, he conducted an undercover investigation of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition and revealed the group's plan to take over the Republican Party. In 1997, he wrote Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, which The Humanist magazine called "the best book yet written about the religious right." He co-authored Challenging the Christian Right: The Activist’s Handbook, for which he and his co-author were named among the "Media Heroes of 1992″ by the Institute for Alternative Journalism. Most recently, he edited an anthology Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America.
Before the ambulance sped him to the local hospital Sunday, Frederick had had a low-grade cough for several weeks that had been misdiagnosed as walking pneumonia. When his leg swelled up, however, his doctor told him to get to the hospital right away. When tests showed the problem was a blood clot and that the lungs might be involved, he was transferred to Bay State, a facility with the capacity for dealing with his problem.
The doctors first dealt with the clot in his leg, which is now being treated with antibiotics. Early this morning, while he was drugged but conscious, they went in with a catheter through his groin to his lung, installed a vena cava filter, an umbrella to prevent further spread of the clots, and performed an embolectomy, pulling out what Frederick said appeared to be a string of little clots.
Hutson said the nursing staff, which is "skilled, attentive, compassionate" seems to be on top of things.
As someone who knows the seriousness of a pulmonary embolism - I flat-lined for 90 seconds due to a pair of them in 2004 - I can't tell you how glad I am to hear that Frederick is breathing more easily, and although exhausted, seems to have passed the crisis. He will be in the hospital for another few days.
Although the Cardiac ICU does not allow flowers, I am sure that Frederick would appreciate a card or two. You can mail them to him care of: Bay State Medical Center, 759 Chestnut Street, Springfield MA, 01199
And think about buying his book. Go to his site and click on the link.
I think he'd also appreciate it if you made a few calls to any Senators you think might be wavering on health coverage reform.
You're in our thoughts, Frederick. Get well fast.