For those who don't know, or those who knew but forgot because you didn't care, or those who knew, forgot, have no idea who I am or why you're reading this blog, here's the backstory-
I am the spouse of a 100% service-connected disabled veteran. That means they pay us a stipend to live on- a fixed income on which to raise three small children (who are no longer small) and they give us quite adequate health insurance (but, no dental... with three kids, no dental, go figure). About ten years ago- no, actually, it has been ten years, we checked yesterday- ten years ago, the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Madison, WI sent me a letter informing me of a "new" program. The CITI program. If you want to know what it stands for officially, just Google it. Basically, they see the spouses of 100% service-connected disabled veterans. Grand, say I. At the time, I was taking one pill a day for my hypothyroid disease. But, it would be free and well-worth the one hour drive (because the adequate health insurance still required a deductible and a co-pay; which doesn't sound like much, but when you live on a fixed income, that 25% co-pay can be a lot). So, seeing the VA doctors would cut down on at least one expense- me.
Shortly after arriving as a patient, I was no longer able to hide my high blood pressure. "Oh, no," I'd say, "I'm fine. I just walked from the other end of the hospital/parking lot/its hot/fasting lab..." and for a while, they bought my excuses. One day, on the electronic blood pressure machine, my BP(how's that for the lingo, Sparky?) was something like 240/170. The alarm went off on the machine. There were two doors to the nurse triage room and nurses and a couple student-doctors rushed in from all directions. "Are you all right? Do you have a headache? Do you need to lie down?" These questions were bombarded at me from all the medical professionals. I had to lay on my left side for a half an hour and they took my BP again. It was lower, but it was still far too high.
What I didn't know was that having it that high, unchecked, could cause a stroke. Not that I'm not well aware of stroke causes and such, I do live with the poster child of stroke victims. I just didn't think it could happen to me because I didn't feel unwell. They gave me a great blood pressure medication and I can't recall the name at the moment. It was a smooth muscle relaxer and it slowed my pulse down. By the way, my pulse raced all the time. My resting pulse was 120 on average. Normal resting pulse of an active adult (because I was back then) is 60 to 80 (tops, even that's pushing it). Well, the medicine worked fantastically. I no longer felt my pulse in my neck. When I say that, I mean, I no longer felt it pulsating in my neck. I could count my own pulse simply by turning my head to tighten my neck muscle. I could feel it without putting my fingers on my neck. I was in my late twenties. High blood pressure is hereditary (thanks, Dad!) and I dealt with a high level of stress on a daily basis.
A few years later, I suffered a long-term lung infection. I assumed that with three kids, what was happening, I was simply re-catching the same cold that was being passed around. One kid gets it, then I get it, then another kid gets it, then I get it, then- and so on. I spent almost five months living on Nyquil Cough (they'd just come out with it then) and just assumed I'd be fine. Till the day I was making the bed and had a severe asthma attack. Eventually, months and months later, they realized that my smooth-muscle relaxing BPmeds were aggravating the newly-acquired asthma. So, they changed my BPmeds and the asthma was under control. I have a very mild form of asthma. Quite controllable and seemingly only bothered by high heat and high humidity.
So, in less than three years, I went from one pill a day to two pills, then to a plethora of inhalers, to one Advair and a rarely-used emergency inhaler. My medication bill would have been in the double-digits had I needed to pay for this myself. But, the CITI program covered it all.
Now, I'm on a whole mess-'o-drugs. None of them are really all that fun, but together, they'd create a monster pharmaceutical bill. So, I kind of have to stay with the VA doctors.
For the most part, VA doctors are good. They're students and under the very watchful eyes of quite experienced attendings. After a few years of being seen by the "Ruby Team" (they code the team names based on the last four digits of your social security number- my dad sees "Gold Team", the disabled guy sees "Silver Team"), they moved me to the "Women's Health Clinic/Team". I had assumed, stupidly, that the name implied my lady bits were being taken care of- but that's another rant altogether. When I made the switch, they also took from me the doctor I'd been seeing and liked. I was given a young (very young) doctor. I don't even remember that doctor's name. But they weren't great. Rarely listened to me, didn't seem to take my complaints seriously. And when my thyroid went all wonky, they told me that my TSH (thyroid hormone levels) was "in the normal range". Sixty pounds and loss of energy seemed to be telling me different. Finally, in came Doctor Doogie. I call him that affectionately because he was great and I really liked him (and he looked extremely young).
He looked at my TSH and said that yes, the numbers were normal, but had been steadily rising. So, he helped me. And I started to feel better. I liked him a lot. He had been to Australia (which, as we all know and you probably don't care, is a big deal to me) and he even had a tattoo (which I never saw because it wasn't in an appropriate place for showing a patient). When I injured my knee in 2006, he was the doctor who started my care. MRI, physical therapy... and BAM! He graduated! Noooooo, I wailed... okay, I didn't really, but I did ask him to blow an exam so he could stay on a while longer.
Well, of course he didn't. Luckily, I do have an opportunity to see him again- his specialty is Asthma/Allergy and I see that clinic once a year.
I ended up with Jerk Doctor (sometimes referred to as Boy Doctor in my earlier complaints). He saw me, knee-injured, thyroid-messy, didn't look at my past records and declared, "Your knees hurt because you're overweight. If you lost some weight, your knees wouldn't hurt so much."
Uh, no, Doctor, and I use that term loosely, if you look back, I gained this weight after the knee thing, so yes, my knees hurt and because of that, I am overweight.
Three years of this dance. Three, long, painful, swollen years. Oh, and of course, he assumed I was lying on my "food diary" even though I put down that I ate birthday cake and tacos on Jase's birthday that year. This is the doctor who would tell me I needed to exercise to lose the weight, and in the same ten minute conversation would tell me to stay off my feet to ease the foot pain I was suffering. When I learn the art of self-levitation, I'll let you know.
After those three years, Jerk Doctor finally gave me a letter of referral to go off-site for my knee-replacement and that's all recent history.
I was looking forward to seeing Jerk Boy in May. I'd lost thirty pounds after surgery. What did he say to that? "It was that strict hospital diet..." Uh, no. One, I was only in the hospital for two weeks. Two, I was on an unrestricted diet, which means I could have had milkshakes (and I did) with my meals.
Lo and behold, I had an appointment yesterday. Jerk Boy somehow graduated- must not have been graded on bedside manner. Now I have a nice lady doctor. Gender doesn't matter to me because I'm a child of the Army. I'm used to having different doctors of different ages and genders. I've given birth in Army hospitals and I've had a major surgery in one. The VA cannot throw anything at me that would shock me.
My new doctor, Nice Lady Doctor, is great. She's working with me on pain issues. She doesn't assume my weight is the cause of my problems. In fact, she looked at my past records- all the way back to 1999, which is why I know how long I've been going to the VA hospital. She watched my weight steadily climb in my records over the last three, four years. Oh, and the health problems I now have? Got 'em all while I was skinny, so take that for what its worth when you think "obesity= health problems".
At the moment, the main concern is my arthritis pain. We've started a regimen of Ibuprofen. Wait, you say, Don't you have an adverse reaction to Ibuprofen? You swell hugely and it causes other problems? Well, yes and no. NLD thinks it may have been the massive dose I was told to take (800 mgs three times a day). We're starting low-dose and we're going to see if it eases the swelling that causes arthritis pain. If it does, great. If not, we'll move on to something else. I have a follow-up appointment in two months with her. She's also referring me to physical therapy to get a proper arthritis diagnosis, because in the last 20 years of my life, I've never been "officially" diagnosed with the arthritis that I've been treated for- yeah, go figure.
I also found out yesterday, that the VA changed some policies along the past ten years. Such as, if you don't like a doctor for any reason, you can request a change. Before, if your reason wasn't good enough (say religious- females preferring only female doctors), you didn't get considered. Basically, like the Army, you get who you get and you make the best of it. Which is why I stuck it out with Jerk Boy. Now I can call and change. Well, great news, but why didn't they bother telling existing patients about this change?
I'm simply looking forward to living my life as a good Cyborgian Human (we prefer Cyborg-Sapien) and being as pain-free in my human parts as I am eventually going to be in my bionic parts.
And to end on a good note- I did my entire day at the VA hospital in Madison, WI without my cane. So, boo-yah, Sparky.
I am the spouse of a 100% service-connected disabled veteran. That means they pay us a stipend to live on- a fixed income on which to raise three small children (who are no longer small) and they give us quite adequate health insurance (but, no dental... with three kids, no dental, go figure). About ten years ago- no, actually, it has been ten years, we checked yesterday- ten years ago, the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Madison, WI sent me a letter informing me of a "new" program. The CITI program. If you want to know what it stands for officially, just Google it. Basically, they see the spouses of 100% service-connected disabled veterans. Grand, say I. At the time, I was taking one pill a day for my hypothyroid disease. But, it would be free and well-worth the one hour drive (because the adequate health insurance still required a deductible and a co-pay; which doesn't sound like much, but when you live on a fixed income, that 25% co-pay can be a lot). So, seeing the VA doctors would cut down on at least one expense- me.
Shortly after arriving as a patient, I was no longer able to hide my high blood pressure. "Oh, no," I'd say, "I'm fine. I just walked from the other end of the hospital/parking lot/its hot/fasting lab..." and for a while, they bought my excuses. One day, on the electronic blood pressure machine, my BP(how's that for the lingo, Sparky?) was something like 240/170. The alarm went off on the machine. There were two doors to the nurse triage room and nurses and a couple student-doctors rushed in from all directions. "Are you all right? Do you have a headache? Do you need to lie down?" These questions were bombarded at me from all the medical professionals. I had to lay on my left side for a half an hour and they took my BP again. It was lower, but it was still far too high.
What I didn't know was that having it that high, unchecked, could cause a stroke. Not that I'm not well aware of stroke causes and such, I do live with the poster child of stroke victims. I just didn't think it could happen to me because I didn't feel unwell. They gave me a great blood pressure medication and I can't recall the name at the moment. It was a smooth muscle relaxer and it slowed my pulse down. By the way, my pulse raced all the time. My resting pulse was 120 on average. Normal resting pulse of an active adult (because I was back then) is 60 to 80 (tops, even that's pushing it). Well, the medicine worked fantastically. I no longer felt my pulse in my neck. When I say that, I mean, I no longer felt it pulsating in my neck. I could count my own pulse simply by turning my head to tighten my neck muscle. I could feel it without putting my fingers on my neck. I was in my late twenties. High blood pressure is hereditary (thanks, Dad!) and I dealt with a high level of stress on a daily basis.
A few years later, I suffered a long-term lung infection. I assumed that with three kids, what was happening, I was simply re-catching the same cold that was being passed around. One kid gets it, then I get it, then another kid gets it, then I get it, then- and so on. I spent almost five months living on Nyquil Cough (they'd just come out with it then) and just assumed I'd be fine. Till the day I was making the bed and had a severe asthma attack. Eventually, months and months later, they realized that my smooth-muscle relaxing BPmeds were aggravating the newly-acquired asthma. So, they changed my BPmeds and the asthma was under control. I have a very mild form of asthma. Quite controllable and seemingly only bothered by high heat and high humidity.
So, in less than three years, I went from one pill a day to two pills, then to a plethora of inhalers, to one Advair and a rarely-used emergency inhaler. My medication bill would have been in the double-digits had I needed to pay for this myself. But, the CITI program covered it all.
Now, I'm on a whole mess-'o-drugs. None of them are really all that fun, but together, they'd create a monster pharmaceutical bill. So, I kind of have to stay with the VA doctors.
For the most part, VA doctors are good. They're students and under the very watchful eyes of quite experienced attendings. After a few years of being seen by the "Ruby Team" (they code the team names based on the last four digits of your social security number- my dad sees "Gold Team", the disabled guy sees "Silver Team"), they moved me to the "Women's Health Clinic/Team". I had assumed, stupidly, that the name implied my lady bits were being taken care of- but that's another rant altogether. When I made the switch, they also took from me the doctor I'd been seeing and liked. I was given a young (very young) doctor. I don't even remember that doctor's name. But they weren't great. Rarely listened to me, didn't seem to take my complaints seriously. And when my thyroid went all wonky, they told me that my TSH (thyroid hormone levels) was "in the normal range". Sixty pounds and loss of energy seemed to be telling me different. Finally, in came Doctor Doogie. I call him that affectionately because he was great and I really liked him (and he looked extremely young).
He looked at my TSH and said that yes, the numbers were normal, but had been steadily rising. So, he helped me. And I started to feel better. I liked him a lot. He had been to Australia (which, as we all know and you probably don't care, is a big deal to me) and he even had a tattoo (which I never saw because it wasn't in an appropriate place for showing a patient). When I injured my knee in 2006, he was the doctor who started my care. MRI, physical therapy... and BAM! He graduated! Noooooo, I wailed... okay, I didn't really, but I did ask him to blow an exam so he could stay on a while longer.
Well, of course he didn't. Luckily, I do have an opportunity to see him again- his specialty is Asthma/Allergy and I see that clinic once a year.
I ended up with Jerk Doctor (sometimes referred to as Boy Doctor in my earlier complaints). He saw me, knee-injured, thyroid-messy, didn't look at my past records and declared, "Your knees hurt because you're overweight. If you lost some weight, your knees wouldn't hurt so much."
Uh, no, Doctor, and I use that term loosely, if you look back, I gained this weight after the knee thing, so yes, my knees hurt and because of that, I am overweight.
Three years of this dance. Three, long, painful, swollen years. Oh, and of course, he assumed I was lying on my "food diary" even though I put down that I ate birthday cake and tacos on Jase's birthday that year. This is the doctor who would tell me I needed to exercise to lose the weight, and in the same ten minute conversation would tell me to stay off my feet to ease the foot pain I was suffering. When I learn the art of self-levitation, I'll let you know.
After those three years, Jerk Doctor finally gave me a letter of referral to go off-site for my knee-replacement and that's all recent history.
I was looking forward to seeing Jerk Boy in May. I'd lost thirty pounds after surgery. What did he say to that? "It was that strict hospital diet..." Uh, no. One, I was only in the hospital for two weeks. Two, I was on an unrestricted diet, which means I could have had milkshakes (and I did) with my meals.
Lo and behold, I had an appointment yesterday. Jerk Boy somehow graduated- must not have been graded on bedside manner. Now I have a nice lady doctor. Gender doesn't matter to me because I'm a child of the Army. I'm used to having different doctors of different ages and genders. I've given birth in Army hospitals and I've had a major surgery in one. The VA cannot throw anything at me that would shock me.
My new doctor, Nice Lady Doctor, is great. She's working with me on pain issues. She doesn't assume my weight is the cause of my problems. In fact, she looked at my past records- all the way back to 1999, which is why I know how long I've been going to the VA hospital. She watched my weight steadily climb in my records over the last three, four years. Oh, and the health problems I now have? Got 'em all while I was skinny, so take that for what its worth when you think "obesity= health problems".
At the moment, the main concern is my arthritis pain. We've started a regimen of Ibuprofen. Wait, you say, Don't you have an adverse reaction to Ibuprofen? You swell hugely and it causes other problems? Well, yes and no. NLD thinks it may have been the massive dose I was told to take (800 mgs three times a day). We're starting low-dose and we're going to see if it eases the swelling that causes arthritis pain. If it does, great. If not, we'll move on to something else. I have a follow-up appointment in two months with her. She's also referring me to physical therapy to get a proper arthritis diagnosis, because in the last 20 years of my life, I've never been "officially" diagnosed with the arthritis that I've been treated for- yeah, go figure.
I also found out yesterday, that the VA changed some policies along the past ten years. Such as, if you don't like a doctor for any reason, you can request a change. Before, if your reason wasn't good enough (say religious- females preferring only female doctors), you didn't get considered. Basically, like the Army, you get who you get and you make the best of it. Which is why I stuck it out with Jerk Boy. Now I can call and change. Well, great news, but why didn't they bother telling existing patients about this change?
I'm simply looking forward to living my life as a good Cyborgian Human (we prefer Cyborg-Sapien) and being as pain-free in my human parts as I am eventually going to be in my bionic parts.
And to end on a good note- I did my entire day at the VA hospital in Madison, WI without my cane. So, boo-yah, Sparky.