I just spent about a month in my local VA hospital with a serious case of Pneumonia of the right lung. It was my third trip to the ER with the same problem. It was my second admission to the hospital. The first time I was given x-rays and a small spot was seen on my lung. They gave me a shot and oral antibiotics and sent me home. The next visit, for the follow-up, I was seen by a nurse. Doc was on vacation, Nurse ordered another x-ray. The nurse said the x-ray showed improvment, but there was still a small spot. She just sent me home. Then after about a week, I felt the pain comming back and returned to the ER, where I was again x-rayed and given a CT scan. The CT showed the small spot was now a mass about the size of a golf ball. I was admitted after sitting in the waiting room and exam room for a total of 8 hours. I spent a week in the hospital on IV antibiotics this time and then told it is either pneumonia,plurisey and or cancer. After a week in the "hell hole" they call a hospital I was told the mass had gotten smaller but I needed to have a biopsy on a visit that would be a week later. I was released until the biopsy. The first biopsy was done through my nose and came back negative. Then I was sent home again and the pain returned a few weeks later. I am back in the ER again and in bad pain. I also suffer from cronic back pain after having surgery about a year ago. So this time they do another CT and the mass is now the size of a tennis ball.Another biopsy later, this time with a needle through the chest wall and back to admission. That was on Dec. 14th. I then spent the rest of December and first week of the new year in the VA on IV drip. After a month, I was way past ready to get out of this place. It was like being in jail, only the bars were replaced with my illness. After many days of suffering, I was told I needed atleast another 30 days of antibiotics via IV. Oh hell no!! I raised hell enough to get them to let me out too serve the rest of my sentence on house arrest...aka Home Care. I am now at home,Thank God, with an IV pump I can do myself.Actually my wife does it, but you know what I mean. I am told I am gonna do this for another month and then I will need oral meds for another 6 months. What??? I have some rare kind of pneumonia that is hard as hell to kill. Don't I know this by now!!! I have not even began to tell the entire story,as it will be coming out in a book I plan to write while at home and disabled. But I can say this...the Veterans of this Nation deserve much better and we need to take a much closer look at the people we hire to work at the VA. Many, or I should say most are worthless and have attitude problems. I can only imagine how the veterans too sick to speak up are treated. I gave them all they could handle and heard some pretty bad stories from those few good ones who really care. I plan to make my book available free to the VA head man in the White House and to every person in the chain of command from there on down to the amistrators of the VA I was in. This cannot go on...I may not make much of a difference, but I will die trying!!!
GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!
