I feel guilty when I have to write stories about the VA that put them in a bad light. The Veterans’ Affairs Department has been very, very good to me. The Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) represent me in my dealings with them, and they’ve been stellar, too. They got my disability claim approved in 45 days. <\/p>\n
For those of you who may not know, I have Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) a motor neurone disease, which causes the destruction of neurons, which control voluntary muscles. In most cases, there is no known cause of ALS with 90% of 95% cases being a mystery. Doctors at Walter Reed first diagnosed my condition back in 2010, but I didn’t apply to increase my disability claim with the VA until 2013.<\/p>\n
Within weeks after my claim was approved, the local clinic in Cumberland, Maryland (a satellite of the Martinsburg WV, VA Medical Center) began making appoints with me for my general health care. They reached out to me. All of my dealings with the clinic have been great. It’s almost as if I’m the only patient assigned to the clinic. You know, the way health care should be.<\/p>\n
Now, the Martinsburg hospital is an absolute shithole. It’s like going to a hospital in the 1950s, but the care there is pretty good, though, despite the working conditions. I spent a year there one week last February.<\/p>\n
My condition makes it harder for me to get around, so my doctor recommended that I get on their “Home Care Team” program – the nurses and doctors come to my house and gather their bloodwork and check on me every three months or so. They decided that I needed to talk to an ALS team. The nearest teams were in DC (about 2 1\/2 hours away), so last week, we set up a telelink by computer so that I got to “see” my team as they paraded across my computer screen. It was the first time they had done anything like that. So, I’m like a pioneer, I guess.<\/p>\n
I know my story may not be typical of the treatment many of you have received from the VA, but what happens in my part of the country is what should be happening in every VA facility in the country. I know that its popular to advocate for a privatization of the VA health care system, but my experience here proves that the system can work for veterans and the other facilities should be learning from the systems that are working.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"