After months of being patient and asking the wrong, then the right questions. I receive the following, a letter that the VA had paid the bills in October from January 2019 - July 2019 dated 29 November 2019, I received on 16 December. The stress of receiving bills for therapy that the Veterans Administration said they authorized, caused many sleepless nights. Many anger issues, many days and hours pacing, it was unproductive. This is what it did to me. More than unproductive, useless, wanting to use drugs, alcohol and wanting so close to end my day. Sleep, endless sleep, which my body needs to heal from all my damage. One which has been referred for medical attention as far back as August 2018. The medical professionals have no idea how to handle, they gave me a 10 step plan and I look at it thinking, then shaking my head. If it was your loved one would it take this long for them to be in pain. The issue wakes me from a sound sleep when I roll over and hit it, its golf ball size scar tissue on my both my glutes. From ten years of intra muscular injections for my MS. I have lost so much weight its has no become an issue that I cannot lay down, my fused lower back surgery still is painful and that was part of the therapy. But the glutes get painful going through these scar tissues, the knee being rehabbed go through the scar tissue. I begged for aqua therapy. I went and received 10 ten sessions, two were land assessments. So my question was, how is 8 hours in a pool going to help. I went into the pool with a pain of 9, came out with a half. Wow. It was addicting, can I have more, the stress was down that day, I ate, I slept, it was invigorating. It induced the old athletic endorphin of more, but sadly I had to ask, beg. That's not me, but I bowed down to the establishment, I asked, I was proactive in my health, always have been. I want to live a quality of life, life before. The go to Marine in the USMC, the leader of Marines, fired for being diagnosed with MS. I thought I was going to have a 30 year career, devastated and depressed I was lost for many years. Now fighting back, with energy I structure with every minute through my day. The pool is my salvation to getting back in shape, I've lost all my muscles and weighing 115 lbs. I can do this again, climb another mountain, I earned this right to therapy, I served my country. I broke my body for you. The sessions approved. I continued and I was excited to wake up those days, eating, sleeping, not angry. My therapist, the chaplain noticed I was in a different mind set and calm. It ended and I ask to continue, denied. Ask again, denied. Then it started. The bills arrived. Confused and upset I went to the appropriate people and was told it was a filing mistake. I listened and understood, but then told privately, more therapy was authorized than probably should have, we are not here to give you a personal trainer. Pay for it yourself. The summary that came from the assessment was patient needs one on one, due to the MS, coordination and balance, knee, back and other issues, patient would benefit greatly from this continued therapy. Denied. $40 an hour, they read it as $40 a month, group therapy would be an issue because somedays with the MS I have balance issues. Im not worth it. I have not been in the VA system for dozens of years. I have used my civilian providers, it was easier, I came to the VA because financially and medically I had to make some changes. The laws changed with the last few years. The VA has billions of dollars, wasteful spending and fraud, so many managers upon managers, double dippers, double retirees. Im screwed, I should of gotten a job with them long ago, but the MS was an issue, some days good, some days real bad. Some days PTSD was an issues and I am very jumpy and fight back, what to do. Professional therapist with tens of years of experience have given their opinions and say this veteran would greatly benefit from more one on one therapy.
How do get that back, the trauma you have imbedded from years of service harassment and hazing. Years of hiding behind a façade of strength, that never really existed. You wear a mask, the uniform is your superwoman cape. I'm bullet proof and willing to stand up to any person. I have no fear, leaving every apprehension of what society thinks of me now, behind me. Walking into the lions den, the VA, the macho men in that den, with the elder statemen watching and talking their talk. They own it, they can talk as they wish, without any reservation or consequence of who hears what they say. Invading your personal space, rudely demanding you move over or aside, hurry up woman just like did back in the day. The day when I first enlisted, there were no points for enlisting women in services, no recruiter needed you. The pregnancy rate of women recruits by recruiters, I would like to see the numbers. As a former Drill Instructor, we were informed to ask certain question, but quietly, yes it was usually, the recruiter. Is anyone going to verify this, probably not, they would defer to how many drill instructors were suspended or removed from service for being gay. No one will verify how many lives that ruined during those years, never being able to have friends. On a probable cause, not even substantiated just hearsay, from somewhere, from someone. I was there, it happened.
The veterans administration is slow to pay the bills. Yes. Slow to pay for all therapy that I need to have a quality of life. Your messing with the wrong woman, I going to make too much noise, I can find the fight within. The moral, ethical obligation to do the right thing is deep within me, I wont stop. Its how I have fought since the day I was born with my four brothers in one room, with three bunk beds growing up. I was born to be a Marine and told I was a natural born leader and nurturer. Funny how when you say I'm writing my congressman, writing the Inspector General or calling a newspaper, authorization was found. But, it was the wrong authorization, sent to the other physical therapist I was having sessions with for over a year. Someone, somehow made an error and authorized the sessions to the wrong therapy provider. I have it in my possession, but yet I was told its the providers fault for not filing it correctly. The cover up begins. Your not listening I was told rudely, by the higher up, the people I complained about the error. No. The VA individuals being paid by your tax dollars made a mistake and caused my stress. Not paying attention to the fact I had two separate therapy providers. The cover up begins. Fast and quickly, I have all the therapy paid. Medicare not being billed. All of it. Wow. That was easy. Now lets do your job that way all the time.
Recently, I was at the eye clinic in the Greenville VA. I was checking out and the MSA was talking to me through the glass doing the follow up appointment. Another veteran approached to my left, getting so close to me, he brushed up against me. I slid across the ledge and glanced at him, my face changed from pleasant to now tense. The MSA noticed how close he was, I slid so more to my right. He looked at me and stated, I believe, I'm next, or go ahead, I'll wait. He came right up to me and the MSA saw how inappropriate it was and with her smile ask him to step back and wait his turn, sit down. It was the touching I thought was inappropriate, the closeness. He didn't seem to understand what was my problem and hurry up. I felt angry, hazed, a little violated, my space. But as I talked to someone about it, they said he's old, he doesn't understand. Let it go. But, I don't understand it, if I say something, I am condoning it and the space is not big enough in that clinic. What do I do, I feel like I'm back in 70's again.
Hazing and harassment like USMC men didn't want the women. We had our own company and battalions, we had our own WRTC. Women Recruit Training Command, so long ago, so many stories, I could tell the truth, but too many people would be hurt. Lets talk about Washington DC, where I learned that politics rule the military. That lobbyist and money rule the military. I wish I didn't learn and see what I what I saw, heard what I heard. Did what I what did, compromise your integrity, your honor, I wouldn't and I paid the price. I was hazed, harassed and embarrassed. I thought my early years were traumatic this was child's play, the individuals in DC were messing with wrong person. I watched and listened as they commented about what they wanted to do to me, nothing I could do the higher up turned a deaf ear, what was this woman doing in their man‘s world, adultry, sexual harassmen, abuse and then stealing from the government. Let the richest of individuals into the military gates, as I and my men watched over them. Why. Catering to them with your taxpayer dollars, serving them the best of the best. While I stood in the cold with a dozen Marines under my leadership on the best of holidays, freezing, cold, securing your Mercedes, your Porsche, your jaguar, all hours of the night. I wasn't trained for this, taken out back with drug addicts, DC police, Capital Hill wanting to watch, everyone wanting in the know. Power hungry, never got it, maybe that's why I lasted so long. I wasn't impressed with it all. I can tell you one good story every week, who bounced me around underground, to who hit me up on the back of the head, to who stop me on the sidewalk and told me leave a certain situation alone. Relive every moment, every day, from forty to thirty years ago, every time I walk back into the VA. Go to look at it, it looks I'm driving into a prison and I've asked many times please lets make it look more inviting. Its depressing, stressful and we can do better. One voice, but I'm getting tired and I need help. Anyone listening.
This is a letter I hope is read by anyone out there I hope thoughtfully, that this one incident in a year filled with doubt. Doubt that I could make it to the next year, I don't want to be here I'm, tired and want to sleep.
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