VETERANS DESERVE BETTER

Okay, so this is going to be a long post so buckle up because I am furious. I used to be one of you. I used to be like, "Don't the veterans have enough funding? Our military spending is out of control. Why is our government constantly asking for more money?" I did. I honestly did. I wish I could go back in time and smack myself. Anyone who thinks the state of veteran affairs in the USA is just fine should be forced to go to their local VA hospital for an emergency situation. But since y'all can't do that, I'll just describe some of the shit that people who fought and lost for us have to go through. I should also mention that I've never been a super hardcore patriot, and I really really really really hate war. I would be happy if there was never any need for a military and we all just got along. But since there is a need for one, the extremely brave men and women and others who fight to protect us NEED TO BE TAKEN CARE OF AND AT THE VERY LEAST TREATED LIKE HUMAN BEINGS WITH FEELINGS.
Right after I posted my previous post, I took a lovely bath. After the bath, I attempted to take a nap. Suddenly, my stomach cramps were horribly worse and the bleeding was seemingly out of control. I called my Primary Care Manager's office and the receptionist ordered me to go directly to the ER closest to me as soon as I could. Cue me calling my husband at work in a panic. Cue his superiors telling him to "go take care of her." Honestly, my husband has the best people in the world to work with. More on that later. The hospital connected to my Primary Care Manager's building seemed like the logical place to go, as it was the closest and it would eliminate insurance battles and confusing paperwork for some poor overworked Tricare representative (who are all extremely lovely humans).  It just so happened that the hospital connected with the medical unit my PCM works for is a VA hospital. I thought nothing about that at the time, as there was blood everywhere and I was expecting a normal ER experience. Poor, sad, naive little me.
We got to the VA hospital (I'll call it the VA from now on) and secured a parking place. We had left my service dog at home as we were in a blind panic and didn't think, "Hey, Abby has PTSD from many things but ESPECIALLY HOSPITALS so we should probably bring the one thing that helps with that."
The building was disgusting. Run down chairs. Gross floors. Confusing hallways. Old color scheme. Huge pamphlets that were misspelled lined the wall, advertising things like "Homless Shelter's" and "Funerall Service's." We were handed paperwork that asked a bunch of questions about my prior service. Of which I had none. Looking around the waiting area, I felt extremely uncomfortable. I asked my husband if he would ask if this was indeed where we were supposed to go. I did not want to take a bed or doctor away from an elderly veteran with an emergency, which is who the waiting room was filled with. My husband asked the desk clerk about this, was told that yes this was indeed the hospital that was connected with my PCM and we did the right thing. He was handed a new piece of paper that had him fill out a bunch of information about himself and me and our relationship and why and what else I don't know because I was bleeding and in pain. After about a half hour, we were "Triage'd." We saw a nurse and got asked all the intake questions and I got an EKG and some blood work in a creepy side room that if I looked hard enough at, I could see the dust on the walls. The poor overworked tech who took my blood and did my EKG did everything roughly and quickly. I actually have scars on the inside of my mouth from biting everything so hard to keep from screaming from the painful needle insertions. When I warned the tech that I have EDS and my veins would be hard to find, she acted like I was lying and was a huge setback in her otherwise perfect day. After she finished all my "tests," I was left alone in that creepy room for a while to lick my own wounds. My husband confessed to me he'd nearly thrown up six times watching everything happen to me. After this, we were shuttled back out to the creepy waiting area to wait for a bed. A huge TV was playing this awful real crime show that would have been fine if it weren't for the room full of veterans visibly jumping every time a gun shot went off on the screen. I watched a jovial man with a tiny service dog attempt to converse happily with his neighbor, trying and to keep his mind off the screams and shots coming from the TV. His dog "alerted" him to his odd behavior every time a shot or scream happened and he paused in his speech to go to somewhere far away in his mind. His poor tiny dog did its best, but after a few hours it was so exhausted it contented itself to sleep on the man's foot, attempting to "ground" him.
That's right, I said hours. I was actively bleeding. I don't even want to think about what the emergency of some of the others in that waiting area was. And yet we sat in the waiting room for five solid hours. Five. Hours. My husband eventually had to run home and get Riley (as I was not okay) and let Jeph out to pee. While he was gone, I slipped in and out of PTSD flashbacks. So much fun. When he came back with Riley, I cried with relief. An angry nurse came out of some dark corner behind the desk and said my name. And just like that, I got to go to the back where the doctors and nurses were. I thought my troubles were over. I was wrong.
The nurse that we had was the most lovely human being. She was trying her best to keep from drowning in a sea of responsibilities that was too much for one person. As she took us from the angry nurse and led us to a bed, another nurse told her that she better go talk to the guy in bed twelve as he had been there for six hours and was really angry. Bless her soul, her sigh was barely audible as she carefully and firmly asked the other nurse to do some damn work (not her words, but I could tell that was what she was thinking) and go talk to the guy as it was the other nurse's room. She and the student nurse she was training (yes, this woman was also trying to train someone else on top of everything) did a good job taking down my allergies and my vitals. But then, when I told them of the medications I was on, they didn't have anyplace to write down this information. I had told the intake people of my allergies and medications as well, but on my arm band it said "No Known Allergies" and "No Known Medications." After an exceptionally long wait, we got to see the doctor.
I say the doctor because I think she might have been the only doctor there. And she was either overworked or extremely incompetent. Our guess is that she was some lovely combination of the two. The woman spent two hours doing God knows what at her desk after listening to me telling her I was ACTIVELY BLEEDING. Our nurse checked in on us at the two hour mark and apologized, telling us the doctor had probably forgotten about us. And the doctor confirmed this when she came back in. She then did an examination so rough and ineffective that Riley tried to guard me from her. The doctor couldn't see into the orifice the blood was coming out of, so she asked for a light. After ten minutes, a light from some 60's horror movie was creakily wheeled in. At this point, I was shaking so badly that Riley tried yet again to get the doctor away from me. I had to tell my service dog to stop doing her job so that the doctor could hurt me yet again by an exam so rough and incompetent that my very sweet and never violent husband confessed he fantasized about punching her. Her diagnosis? I was bleeding.
That's right, folks. We were now on hour seven of being in an ER for bleeding and we finally got a diagnosis...of bleeding. So glad there was a doctor there to tell me that, otherwise how would I have known I was officially bleeding? I hope you can hear the sarcasm, because I'm not sure I can turn it up any louder. She then disappeared for more hours to "page an emergency Gastroenterologist." She "paged" this person for four hours. Or was it three hours? I don't know. Anyways, at hour nine my husband and I were literally laughing hysterically and blowing up gloves and hitting each other with them. You see, there was no cell service anywhere in the building. So we had spent about four hours in the back of the ER with nothing to do but play conversation games and try to not scream at anyone. So now we've got a total of nine hours. Nine hours. At hour seven, we had begged to be discharged and called by this mystery Gastro person later. At hour nine, the doctor finally told us that was okay with her. At hour nine and a half, a different nurse came in, apologized to us, and told us that she had forced the doctor to let us leave. We escaped from the building like it was burning.
And if you think my experience was bad, let me tell you a few more of the things that I saw there. I saw vet after vet come in on gurneys, having collapsed in various areas of the city. And these brave men and women were collapsing from wholly preventable things. They were homeless or living in poverty and could not afford their medical supplies. There were several who knew the EMTs and the nurses as they collapse every day or every other day due to not having colostomy bags, insulin, etc. And they were treated so rudely. They were talked about as if they were things and not people. They were talked over and ignored. Let me repeat: they were spoken about as if they were objects. A man was trying hard to tell someone, anyone that his problem was his colostomy bag and if they would just change it then he could go and not take up room in the ER and instead of speaking to him and acknowledging him, they kept putting his oxygen mask back on and telling him to be quiet and wait his turn. When it was his turn, a woman listened to his feeble mumblings and, without saying a word to him, yelled to a co-worker, "Hey *name*, I've got a disgusting job for you!" A disgusting job. Yeah, I get changing a bag is gross, but still. The questions "Are you homeless" and "Do you have supplies" were repeated over and over again. Excuse the dark humor, but if anyone was looking for a VA drinking game... And they called security on one man who had to be in his seventies, as the EMTs said he was just going from ER to ER all day getting the supplies he needed to stay alive. And security made him leave. Another man had a severe PTSD episode and was kicked out by security. Veterans who had a friend or caregiver with them were relying on that person to get them to and from the bathroom, bring them water and medical supplies, etc. Can you imagine having to go from ER to ER to stay alive? Can you imagine being a veteran who is saluted in the media and USA culture as being brave and heroic, yet being forced to rely on that hell hole for your medical care, treated roughly and ineffectually, and sometimes thrown out for trying to stay alive? I had the option of going somewhere else. These veterans do not get to choose.
On my way out, my husband went to get the car while Riley tried to find a place to pee. I met a Navy veteran who told me that yes, the VA is terrible, but it was the only warm place he could find for the night. He was headed in to fake an emergency so that they would let him sleep in the waiting room.
I heard chatter in the waiting room that this hospital was actually one of the better ones. The VA hospitals are understaffed, underfunded, and wholly unsuitable for the care our veterans need and deserve. It breaks my heart. It is still breaking my heart. And making me furious.

Compare and contrast that horrible day with my second ER experience. In the middle of the night, my already terrifying condition got twice as terrifying. My husband rushed me to a different hospital near our home that happened to be rated the best in our state, a fact we didn't know at the time. Within three hours I had a bag of IV fluids, a CT scan, blood tests, urine tests, had seen a competent doctor four times, had gotten a competent exam that didn't make my husband want to punch anyone, had multiple needle sticks that were done so effectively and quickly that I actually didn't realize they were happening, had a medical record typed up and had everything documented, was apologized to at 90 minutes for my visit "taking so long," as they were "super busy" that evening, and had a diagnosis and a referral to a specialist for further management. A specialist that I actually ended up seeing the same day because I was an emergency case. And now I've got tests scheduled and e-mails sent to me confirming these appointments.

My diagnosis, by the way, is that I am internally hemorrhaging, but at a very slow rate. I'm not in life-threatening danger because of the slow rate of bleeding, but holy hell it hurts. I am home now, resting until my tests the first week of March. In the meantime, I am supposed to rest and to try to not let this awfulness make me worry. I'm home now. I'm safe, warm, I have food and water, and I have a TV and Netflix and Hulu to keep me calm and help me rest and heal. I wish I could say all of our veterans have the same luxuries.

I don't know who to call about how awful the veterans have it. I don't know if writing to my senators or the president or anyone will help. I hope that this blog post, however tiny and not widely read, will shed some light on their plight.

A brief note - Remember how I said that my husband and I are blessed with how wonderful the people he works with are? Several of his direct superiors stopped by the house yesterday with flowers and told me that if I ever have another emergency and cannot get my husband on the phone, I can call them and they will either get him or come here and drive me to the hospital themselves. "Air Force Family" is a phrase that is said often, and I have found it to be true. Because there is so much talk about "Military Family," I feel even more responsible to speak up about the conditions retired "Family" members are forced to endure.