He commited suicide. He hasn't worked at our office for a few months but was in a couple of weeks ago to see everyone. He made sure he got around to talk to all of us. He had to quit because he had terrible hip problems. He is a veteran and was waiting on the VA for a hip replacement. At his last visit they moved him further down the list and told him it would be another three years. Poor guy couldn't take the pain anymore and certainly couldn't wait another 3 years. He was 56 years old....his sister contacted someone at the VA and filed a complaint. They are sending some one in to do a full investigation.
I feel so bad.....this shouldn't have happened. Our veteran's deserve better than this! He was a good guy!
Lori
Another co-worker passed away...
Moderators: Rosie, Stanz, Jean, CAMary, moremuscle, JFR, Dee, xet, Peggy, Matthew, Gabes-Apg, grannyh, Gloria, Mars, starfire, Polly, Joefnh
Another co-worker passed away...
"The manner of giving is worth more than the gift." ~ PIERRE CORNEILLE
Aw, Lori. Stories like that make me want to kick some butt!!!!!!
The medical profession (Polly, close your eyes) seem to think about themselves more so than their patients sometimes. What really gets my goat are the decisions that the insurance companies make about patients. And they don't have medical backgrounds. Grrrrrrrrrr
I'm sorry about the news. That is just so sad.
The medical profession (Polly, close your eyes) seem to think about themselves more so than their patients sometimes. What really gets my goat are the decisions that the insurance companies make about patients. And they don't have medical backgrounds. Grrrrrrrrrr
I'm sorry about the news. That is just so sad.
"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful." -- Buddha
It's not the medical profession--it's the VA, and the VA hospitals. I've heard so many negative stories about the VA hospitals from vets I've known, who desperately needed help and couldn't get it, that I see red every time I think about them.
The VA hospitals seem to treat their patients like dirt. Remember Jack Kenedy's book, We Were Expendable? That title reminds me of the VA hospitals--they apparently have the attitude that most of their patients are expendabe. Probably, most of the blame lies with the Congress, though--they don't provide enough money to run the VA hospitals the way they should be run.
Tex
The VA hospitals seem to treat their patients like dirt. Remember Jack Kenedy's book, We Were Expendable? That title reminds me of the VA hospitals--they apparently have the attitude that most of their patients are expendabe. Probably, most of the blame lies with the Congress, though--they don't provide enough money to run the VA hospitals the way they should be run.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
I am so sorry to hear this Lori. I can relate to his feelings though, I have been that low, and thought that way too. Its just not something that should happen. The cycle of pain can be very hard to deal with. One of my landlords just had knee surgery, on both knees, and will be off all summer, but he is a real go getter usually, always on the go. So this is just the hardest thing he has ever done, the difference is that he knows he will. When you get a real bad day, or week, or month with no small reprieves, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. And when you no longer can work either, you can lose a big sence of what the meaning of your being on this earth is for. I went through so much when I went off work almost 10 years ago, I am glad that I got myself out of it. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't keep sneaking back up on me from time to time. But that poor soul most likely had set his sights on a certain time and then having that changed on him again was just too much to bare. It really is sad when that happens. And who knows all of what he actually has gone through too? Since most men tend to not always say what it is that is truly happening, and keep too much inside them. Suicide also leaves so many questions for the survivors, and so grief and guilt, and I should have's and so on. The pain he must have been in?
It just shouldn't have come to this, insurance companies are notorious for turning down people for coverage just because they have a bottom line. And they go home and sleep just fine, because it is their job. But rarely are they also shown the other side of the coin. They hire investigators and take pictures of a person doing things to prove that they are lying and so forth. But they don't see, nor can they take pictures of what the results are to a person for doing the things that have to be done, and so forth. It just maddening, because the people that really need the help, suffer because of the few that do take advantage of the system.
It really burns me up, and really feel for this person.
Wendy
It just shouldn't have come to this, insurance companies are notorious for turning down people for coverage just because they have a bottom line. And they go home and sleep just fine, because it is their job. But rarely are they also shown the other side of the coin. They hire investigators and take pictures of a person doing things to prove that they are lying and so forth. But they don't see, nor can they take pictures of what the results are to a person for doing the things that have to be done, and so forth. It just maddening, because the people that really need the help, suffer because of the few that do take advantage of the system.
It really burns me up, and really feel for this person.
Wendy 
JJ -
annie oakley
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I'm a former gov't worker and back in the 80's, went with several employees, after leaving gov't service, to tell a then prominent US Senator what was going on there.
Since I'd already left my long time position there (I've worked three gov't agencies including military service), I really don't know whether our group made any difference, but I do know tha the professional employee they hired after me murdered a patient. If you don't believe me, ask the FBI as they're the ones who did the investigation.
Problem with this agency is that there have been years and years of empire building, and the crude has literally risen to the top, and you know, it's rotted from the head down since then. What they need to do is scrap every gov't agency about every 10 yrs and start over to prevent this from happening.
My best friend's husband who had PD opened her eyes to what goes on with the VA. She suffered for so long taking around the clock care of him with extreme contractures of his legs and arms, a G-tube, being a diabetic on tube feedings, having to have his respiratory secretions suctioned every few hours during the night, and through incontinenence and long term urinary catheter care, etc. His speech was so bad that she was the only one who could make out what he was trying to say as she'd been military herself, and figured out the terminology he was using.
Since he was 6'1" tall, and she's only a little over 5 ft, although strong, you can only imagine how tough she had to be to do this around the clock.
If there was anyone more deserving than he, I wonder who that might've been? He was a marine pilot veteran of WWII, Korea, and VietNam, having been shot down twice, and spoke fluent Chinese from being imprisoned in a Chinese POW camp for a year. After all that, I think it was Viet Nam that really broke him, and exposed him to chemicals that lead to his PD.
She was a career AF nurse, having been a flight nurse, and also taken care of hundreds and hundreds of combat victims in the Phil. Isls during that conflict.
They were both senior officers as well.
The name of the game now is to just not tell people what they're entitled to in the first place. Eventually, some of them find out, or in their case, she just happened to tell them she couldn't take it any longer, and that's how she eventually got some help. (We'd started to pray for them -- pulled rank, guess you'd say -- pretty amazing story, but no time to relate that here.)
My friend also had service connected cancer, and had had very thorough follow up at Willford Hall AF Hosp. in San Antonio every year. Then, all of a sudden, one year she called for her appt, and it was like, "Who are you?" is the way she explained it to me.
Long story short, vets are now having to use their Medicare and Tr_-Care supplement, and it's hard to get anyone in the private sector to take retired military because the supplemental company is apparently pretty bad to work with. (We citizens of the USA really need to pitch one big FIT to have the BEST supplemental insurance for our vets, particularly the ones who've suffered so as a result of combat, and their service connected illnesses.)
The retirees had anticipated full care through military and VA hospitals through their retirement years as recruiters had told them this was a benefit to them, not that they didn't have other reasons to serve, but remember, they might've been able to make other arrangements had they known in time to have a good policy while younger. They have found out since that that was never an official promise, but the government at that time, never bothered to correct the misperception.
I know that this is a big city, but it's my observation that the WORST kind of people have taken over just about every gov't position at all levels of gov't, city gov't and on up, and they even move from one level or agency to another, and are related one way or other to people in other agencies often times. These are NOT people who are elected, they are just hired, so having an election doesn't get rid of them. They really know how to work the system, too. That's another reason I'd love to see them be scraped and start over at relatively short intervals rather than have lifers. It's soo frustrating working in a situation where you fear for your life everyday, that it breaks your spirits. Sometimes I honestly felt like I was in prison with a bunch of murdering thugs, they were so mean. I really wondered if I'd still been there, and that guy had been hired to work with me if he might not have killed me instead of that patient??
This is a strange thing to say, but when one of my former subordinants called to tell me what had happened, in a way, I felt relieved to know that my fears hadn't been irrational.
Also, two floors below where I worked, a guy was admitted with depression who turned out to be
"protected" by the witness protection program. He was found at midnight in a bathroom, having supposedly hanged himself with his bathrobe. It was a bit suspicious because he was found sitting down, and it's a bit hard to hang yourself that way! A friend of mine is one of the people who found him.
Another incident involved the head of the credit union. Turns out he was taking out insurance policies on people who were getting car loans, making himself the beneficiary, and then having them knocked off. You know there's something drastically gone wrong whenever the VA ADMITS to any problem, so we knew when they sent out a memo saying there'd been a problem with the credit union, but it was being corrected, that something major must've been wrong -- then we found out!
Incidentally, this was when interest rates were in high double digits, and interest on outside CD's was also high for investors. Well, the interest at this credit union was about like it is now, so where did all that profit go -- difference between what they charged and what they paid out to investors??
Did anyone ever read that book by those two scientists in communist Russia who were admitted to a psych hospital for punishment for publishing a paper that, for some reason, the party didn't like? And these were party loyalists!! This was a small Norton Press book, and if it helps, these two guys were both signers of the Humanist Manifesto. Don't ask why I remember that!! Ha!
Anyway, the book showed how crazy things were over there during those years, and that's the way it was at the VA. I often compared myself to a woman who won't leave an abusive marriage -- after a while, you just don't have the energy to leave. I had a friend who gave me the courage to leave, and my next job did wonders to improve my self esteem. Still, I had symptoms of post tramatic stress that I think contributed to the breakdown of my health.
Didn't mean to get off on my personal stuff here, but if ever there was a cause dear to my heart, it's fighting for our vets, particularly the combat ones.
By the way, my complaint wasn't with the docs. Most were good.
Yours, Luce
Since I'd already left my long time position there (I've worked three gov't agencies including military service), I really don't know whether our group made any difference, but I do know tha the professional employee they hired after me murdered a patient. If you don't believe me, ask the FBI as they're the ones who did the investigation.
Problem with this agency is that there have been years and years of empire building, and the crude has literally risen to the top, and you know, it's rotted from the head down since then. What they need to do is scrap every gov't agency about every 10 yrs and start over to prevent this from happening.
My best friend's husband who had PD opened her eyes to what goes on with the VA. She suffered for so long taking around the clock care of him with extreme contractures of his legs and arms, a G-tube, being a diabetic on tube feedings, having to have his respiratory secretions suctioned every few hours during the night, and through incontinenence and long term urinary catheter care, etc. His speech was so bad that she was the only one who could make out what he was trying to say as she'd been military herself, and figured out the terminology he was using.
Since he was 6'1" tall, and she's only a little over 5 ft, although strong, you can only imagine how tough she had to be to do this around the clock.
If there was anyone more deserving than he, I wonder who that might've been? He was a marine pilot veteran of WWII, Korea, and VietNam, having been shot down twice, and spoke fluent Chinese from being imprisoned in a Chinese POW camp for a year. After all that, I think it was Viet Nam that really broke him, and exposed him to chemicals that lead to his PD.
She was a career AF nurse, having been a flight nurse, and also taken care of hundreds and hundreds of combat victims in the Phil. Isls during that conflict.
They were both senior officers as well.
The name of the game now is to just not tell people what they're entitled to in the first place. Eventually, some of them find out, or in their case, she just happened to tell them she couldn't take it any longer, and that's how she eventually got some help. (We'd started to pray for them -- pulled rank, guess you'd say -- pretty amazing story, but no time to relate that here.)
My friend also had service connected cancer, and had had very thorough follow up at Willford Hall AF Hosp. in San Antonio every year. Then, all of a sudden, one year she called for her appt, and it was like, "Who are you?" is the way she explained it to me.
Long story short, vets are now having to use their Medicare and Tr_-Care supplement, and it's hard to get anyone in the private sector to take retired military because the supplemental company is apparently pretty bad to work with. (We citizens of the USA really need to pitch one big FIT to have the BEST supplemental insurance for our vets, particularly the ones who've suffered so as a result of combat, and their service connected illnesses.)
The retirees had anticipated full care through military and VA hospitals through their retirement years as recruiters had told them this was a benefit to them, not that they didn't have other reasons to serve, but remember, they might've been able to make other arrangements had they known in time to have a good policy while younger. They have found out since that that was never an official promise, but the government at that time, never bothered to correct the misperception.
I know that this is a big city, but it's my observation that the WORST kind of people have taken over just about every gov't position at all levels of gov't, city gov't and on up, and they even move from one level or agency to another, and are related one way or other to people in other agencies often times. These are NOT people who are elected, they are just hired, so having an election doesn't get rid of them. They really know how to work the system, too. That's another reason I'd love to see them be scraped and start over at relatively short intervals rather than have lifers. It's soo frustrating working in a situation where you fear for your life everyday, that it breaks your spirits. Sometimes I honestly felt like I was in prison with a bunch of murdering thugs, they were so mean. I really wondered if I'd still been there, and that guy had been hired to work with me if he might not have killed me instead of that patient??
This is a strange thing to say, but when one of my former subordinants called to tell me what had happened, in a way, I felt relieved to know that my fears hadn't been irrational.
Also, two floors below where I worked, a guy was admitted with depression who turned out to be
"protected" by the witness protection program. He was found at midnight in a bathroom, having supposedly hanged himself with his bathrobe. It was a bit suspicious because he was found sitting down, and it's a bit hard to hang yourself that way! A friend of mine is one of the people who found him.
Another incident involved the head of the credit union. Turns out he was taking out insurance policies on people who were getting car loans, making himself the beneficiary, and then having them knocked off. You know there's something drastically gone wrong whenever the VA ADMITS to any problem, so we knew when they sent out a memo saying there'd been a problem with the credit union, but it was being corrected, that something major must've been wrong -- then we found out!
Incidentally, this was when interest rates were in high double digits, and interest on outside CD's was also high for investors. Well, the interest at this credit union was about like it is now, so where did all that profit go -- difference between what they charged and what they paid out to investors??
Did anyone ever read that book by those two scientists in communist Russia who were admitted to a psych hospital for punishment for publishing a paper that, for some reason, the party didn't like? And these were party loyalists!! This was a small Norton Press book, and if it helps, these two guys were both signers of the Humanist Manifesto. Don't ask why I remember that!! Ha!
Anyway, the book showed how crazy things were over there during those years, and that's the way it was at the VA. I often compared myself to a woman who won't leave an abusive marriage -- after a while, you just don't have the energy to leave. I had a friend who gave me the courage to leave, and my next job did wonders to improve my self esteem. Still, I had symptoms of post tramatic stress that I think contributed to the breakdown of my health.
Didn't mean to get off on my personal stuff here, but if ever there was a cause dear to my heart, it's fighting for our vets, particularly the combat ones.
By the way, my complaint wasn't with the docs. Most were good.
Yours, Luce
By the way, did you know that Willford Hall AF Hospital, otherwise known as "Big Willie" cause it's huge, is on the closure list.
Apparently, the powers that be think that private hospitals can absorb all these folks, including the mass casualties of war, but right now, I think the VA's are handling the bad injuries, so guess that's the long term goal according to the grapevine.
Anyway, you in the USA need to contact your legislators and talk it up to friends to do the same, so that we can do right by our vets.
Yours, Luce
Apparently, the powers that be think that private hospitals can absorb all these folks, including the mass casualties of war, but right now, I think the VA's are handling the bad injuries, so guess that's the long term goal according to the grapevine.
Anyway, you in the USA need to contact your legislators and talk it up to friends to do the same, so that we can do right by our vets.
Yours, Luce
-
Tessa
- Rockhopper Penguin
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- Contact:
I am very sorry, Lori. 
I have no words...
Such kind of news is never easy to cope with. And more difficult when it happens to someone you knew... I am really sorry for him and for those he has left without his physical presence...
I hope you are better now. We will pray for him.
Love,
Tessa.
I have no words...
Such kind of news is never easy to cope with. And more difficult when it happens to someone you knew... I am really sorry for him and for those he has left without his physical presence...
I hope you are better now. We will pray for him.
Love,
Tessa.
DX Secondary Adrenal Insufficiency= Panhypopituitarism,POTS & MC. Anaphylactic reaction to foods & some drugs.
Gluten & Dairy free diet+hydrocortisone, Florinef, Sea Salt, Vit B Complex, Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium...
Gluten & Dairy free diet+hydrocortisone, Florinef, Sea Salt, Vit B Complex, Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium...
Oh, Lord, Lori, that's just horrible. I am so sorry for you and for this man and for all our vets who deserve better.
I'm afraid we can't hang this one on the medical profession. As Wayne and Luce (so eloquently, by the way) have said, it's the VA and Congress. It's a systemic problem which no one seems to be in a big hurry to fix and it is shameful.
I'm sure we all feel a little bit diminished that this man's only relief from his pain was death.
Love,
Sally
I'm afraid we can't hang this one on the medical profession. As Wayne and Luce (so eloquently, by the way) have said, it's the VA and Congress. It's a systemic problem which no one seems to be in a big hurry to fix and it is shameful.
I'm sure we all feel a little bit diminished that this man's only relief from his pain was death.
Love,
Sally
Mitakuye oyasin
(Lakota for "We are all related")
(Lakota for "We are all related")