Some more of my story, I have some mental issues. I suffer from PTSD and developed a drinking problem. I've been self medicating since I started jumping out of air planes in 1990. That's a long time to have insomnia and trying to drink myself to sleep and kill both emotional and physical pain. When I do sleep, I have horrible nightmares, night sweats, and fight constantly. Not to long along a broke my big toe kicking the coffee table in my sleep.
I've been complaining about this for years and no one want's to help. I'm currently at Louisville VA Medical Center working on these issues; however, I do not have an official PTSD diagnoses from the VA and the PTSD Doctor at this unit won't even try to do so. They won't let me go to the PTSD clinic inside the same hospital that I am at. Good times here at Robley Rex Med Center. The problem is if they diagnose me it would be service connected and they would have to pay me. We were told from the doc, "not my job" that's a different branch of the VA. She's just here to treat and teach.
That is just the tip of the iceberg. My story begins in '89 when I started my first enlistment. No one ever went to the Doc. You might have seen a medic and all he did was give you Ibuprofen. So I have little or no records from the early years. I do have seven collapsed vertebrae in my cervical and lumbar spine but that's has nothing to do with jumping out of air planes or off tanks, howitzers, Bradleys, 5 ton trucks, etc... Nothing to do with strapping 100 pounds on my back and doing a 20 mile road march. But it has everything to do with alcohol abuse. My ears constantly ring from tinnitus but that also is do to drinking and not the 155mm cannons, M-1 tanks, and years of small arms fire. I have multiple health issues but I don't want to cover them here, so I'll go on with my story.
In 2009, I woke up one day and could not move or feel my legs. I literally had to roll myself out of bed and drag myself to the toilet. A couple of days later I made it to the emergency room here in Louisville and they told me there was nothing wrong. Several appt.'s and test later still nothing wrong. In 2012, my wife brought me to the VA ER again. After four, four and a half hours the triage nurse came out with an appointment letter for the VA clinic at Ft. Knox. The appt. was for two weeks away. I never once saw a doctor and that was the first time I tried to reach out to the VA for my drinking problem, which I still believe is a symptom of my PTSD. Needless to say, I got back in the car and opened a beer. Two years later my wife witnessed my first seizure. She called life squad and I was transported to the ER, sent to ICU, then to a regular floor for a couple more days. Since then I've seen some civilian therapist but mainly one psychiatrist and one psychologist with the VA. I've had several more hospital stays before I've landed myself here at the SARRTP Unit. I've made several attempts to get in here, along with multiple calls from my wife. It's now been five years since 2012 and I find myself homeless, transportation less, penniless, and spouseless. Thanks VA. BTW, the women who did my C&P exam (compensation and pension) was a nurse practitioner. Now, if you listen to the doctor that is assigned to the unit here, they're all doctorate level professionals. So I have only been rated at a 10% disability and therefor, have been denied SSDI several times also.
Here's where the fun comes in; again, I've been admitted to this hospital several times. I've always been allowed to go to the smoke shack for a cigarette. I have had nurses push me in a wheel chair themselves. Not this time, and that 7mg patch doesn't do anything for you. I just wish they had some consistency. Let me walk with my cane, put me in a chair or push me in a chair, I don't care but one or the other. Make up my mind. WTF Over?
Since I've been here I've written several "Tell The Director" comment cards. The last of which you see here. One I praised the staff at 7 North in the hospital (see previous post). Another praising the first head shrinker that I saw there. It took that guy all of ten minutes to take away my nightmares. With blood pressure medication no less. I'm sleeping without drinking. Again, WITHOUT nightmares for the first time in 27 years!!!! I saw three doc's on 7N and all were amazing. The VA has some really great people, it's the management that sucks, and sucks bad. When I got to the SARRTP Unit, I wrote one thanking the Director for allowing me in here because they were not going to let me in. They were worried about my caffeine use. The questions were like how much caffeine did you use before you got here? How much are you going to use when/if you get to SARRTP? Hell, I don't know. WTF Over? I never have never nor will I count caffeine mg's that I take into my body. However, I could not put the card in the box without first crushing down the others with my pen. I guess it's been awhile since they've emptied that one. Nothing against the staff here, it's under lock and key and they don't have access. I did complain about it and one of the nurses told me that she made a call and it was going to be taken care of. One week passed by and nothing, so I wrote another and put it in the box stating that, "I don't know how long it takes to empty a box but it's obviously longer than a week". Along with that note, I also had to explain that I was the one that took the sugar off of the server's cart and put it in the snack room. You see, sometimes if there is leftover coffee we can microwave it, so I thought it would be nice for people to have sugar with their coffee, I know I like it. But we were told that, "we could not use "their" sugar". That's funny, I'm a patient in a VA hospital but I can't have any sugar unless it's chow time? Oh wait, I can buy sugar at Wolly World but not use the VA's. That's cool, I just thought I earned that right but I guess not. Oh wait one more time, I forgot to mention that until the divorce is final the VA is billing BC/BS (my soon to be ex's insurance) for all of this, I guess BC/BS doesn't cover more than one teaspoon of sugar per meal. We have to mic the leftover coffee because they lock up "their" pots and filter racks, along with the cords to "their" microwave, stove and fridge's etc...
The second week passes and still no MT box. Of course this makes me happy, so I write another card and walk it down to the Director's "suite" and push it though the double doors. Must be nice to have a suite instead of an office. During the sugar incident I had to apologize for taking the sugar but I assured him that I would never do it again. That said, I did explain that when the cafeteria reopened on Monday morning that I would be forced to go down there and buy a cup of coffee and steal all the sugar packs there. I thank him for being such a good steward of the tax payers dollars and that I was sure that the packets of sugar was much cheaper than buying in bulk.
What you see here is my third card and yet another attempt at getting the box MT'ed. It also states that as I was walking though the hospital, I would stop by any boxes that I saw and redistribute those with comment cards because we are out at the SARRTP Unit. I know you are saying to yourself that it's a waste of time if no one reads them; however, in my short experience with the VA I have found that they are a moral boost and people feel like they're being listen to, I haven't told them any different.
I take full responsibility for every can and bottle that I have picked up in the past. But it does make me think that maybe, just maybe that if the VA would have taken care of me with a PTSD diagnoses and treatment, that they would have one less homeless, divorced Vet out here.
Thanks Again VA.....
OUT!!!
