Glug, glug, glug

Glug, glug, glug, glug, that is the sound of me drowning.  That’s what if feels like right now anyway.  I’m sinking deeper and deeper in the hole of bureaucratic red tape.  I guess that just goes with the territory when you rely on the government for, well, everything.

I’m a disabled vet trying to get a college degree so that I can find gainful employment in a job that won’t hurt, all the time.  I have this totally awesome part time job (one of three right now), but even if I could do it full time, my back would not tolerate it.  My other two jobs are tutoring jobs, so I’m sitting at those.  I can’t sit all day either, my back won’t tolerate that.  I’m currently working on making my totally awesome part time job into a full time job that I can physically do.  That would mean combining some of the office work into my job description. 

I only have one class left to graduate and I was approved to take a full time course load on December 14, 2012 by my fourth VA case worker.  Well, my fifth VA case worker sees things differently and now I have a bunch of documents that need to be created so I can submit them.  No, I don’t get to create the documents.  So, here I am now that classes have begun both in school and at the ranch, next week the writing center opens and I have to have the schedule completed before then, plus the extra side job (computer tutoring) that I started this morning, I get to track people down and ask them to please write statements or make documents for me.  Ugh!

I don’t think I would be so frustrated at that, except the VA has closed down the hospital in Kerrville.  I have no other insurance.  We also do not have an urgent care clinic.  This is a great inconvenience to me and very frustrating since if I am ever ill enough or injured bad enough to need the hospital, I will not be in the condition to drive all the way to San Antonio.  It is dicey as to whether the VA would pay for me to have urgent care at the local hospital, not that I’d want to.  It’s not known for successful recoveries.

When I think of Veterans who are much worse off than me I am furious.  Kerrville is a retirement community.  Most of the Veterans that were serviced at our hospital couldn’t have driven to San Antonio to start with.  I’ve been in the system for quite some time.  There are Veterans that ride out at the ranch that are not getting the care they need because of all the bureaucratic red tape that gets in the way.  The cutbacks are making it harder and harder for our real heroes (I am so not in that group) to get the help they need to transition back to civilian life after combat. 

I feel very bad right now because I snapped at my newest caseworker (through e-mail) in my frustration.  I know she is just trying to do her job the best that she can, and that she has no control over the underlying issues, but that was the proverbial change that broke this camel’s back.  I did apologize. 

I don’t even get to speak to this woman face to face.  I have doctors I see through a TV screen, it’s called telemed.  I really don’t like the telemed, I find it offensive.  There are face to face appointments, but I don’t take them.  There are others that need that face to face a lot more than I do. 

That’s my rant for today, and I’m afraid that is just what it is.  I’m frustrated for myself and totally appalled at the way our service members and veterans are being treated.  We were never supposed to get the Cadillac treatment, but we were supposed to get the Chevy treatment.  Somehow, it has started trickling down to the rent-a-wreck treatment.  What a way to thank those who keep us free.