The Pill Pushers

While I write this post, please understand that I speak from experience, with Senior, and my father in law. Are or where under the care of Veterans Administration doctors. Senior was once stationed with another chief, who's wife was in an accident, she was prescribed hydrochodone, went back for more, then she soon learned it had street value and began to traffic it. She was so far gone and over the edge, she was facing jail time for the trafficking  to avoid that fate she chose to take her own life.

What we saw on the news tonight,  we could  most certainly relate too: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50155446n

The rise in over medicating the nations veterans has surged nearly 270 % in the last 12 years.  Whenever you go to the VA for a medical problem, you get all kinds of thing prescribed to you. You walk through the door, tell the doc your problem, get examined, and "poof" you get a prescription of narcotics, with refills. Then begins the abuse. Then you go through your prescription , go back again, and "poof" another refill. Before the patient knows it, they are addicted.
Then it is realized that the first prescription is no longer affective, or the pain has worsened and "poof" you get something else stronger prescribed...Before you know it, you are on as much as 8 different pain killers all at the same time.  Going to the VA is like being a kid in a candy store.

You are depressed,  suicidal, you hallucinate, you can't sleep at night, but once you do fall asleep you will sleep until the late afternoon. Even worse is you are more confrontational and abusive towards family and friends.

Another fellow veteran friend of ours, was recently hospitalized. His wife demanded he go to a civilian hospital, it was learned that the VA had over prescribed his blood pressure medication and he nearly died.
The same was also the story for my father in law, after he did pass from heart failure, we learned just how much medication the VA had prescribed, and was still sending to his home.

Below is a map the dark orange areas are the facilities with the worse cases of abuse :

The VA Hospitals in
Oregon,
Las Vegas, NV
and in Alabama
All have the highest rate of narcotic/prescription drug abuse.

 If you know a Veteran who you believe is being over prescribed pain killers, and are possibly addicted to them then please talk to them. Encourage them to get help, Before they hurt themselves, or some innocent person.....

-JUGM






 

Rainy Sunday

Senior got packed up and back on the road again to check on his dad in SC. His Dad has got another blockage in his stomach and the VA elected to transfer him to a civilian medical center. I think after a month of him being there, they wanted him out.
 We got the call at 5am Saturday morning that he was being transferred. Senior was elated with the news, because it is actually what we were hoping for.
 This time, he packed up our camper and moving it up there to a campground. The cost of hotels is starting to put us in the red.
So after much discussion, we knew this to be the best option for these weekly trips.

After he left this morning, rain moved in. A nice little low pressure system has set up and giving the region a shower. So, when it rains I get out and wash the car. I know you all must think me crazy, and so do probably most of my neighbors. But, really do I care? 
It was Senior who got me started in the practice of washing a car in the rain, why you ask? Because silly, you don't have to dry it. And isn't that the worst part of the job, the drying?  actually I think the worse part is vacuuming it out and waxing.

ND and a much better NW donned rain coats and got in on it too. Its a warm spring day, and the cool water felt good.  They miss their dad so very much , so being silly and playing outside in the rain was a good way for them to take their mind off the fact  that he was gone again.

We have a complete weekend in May where there are no baseball games, so we are taking them up to the SC campground to visit Grandpaw in the hospital and get a little camping in before it gets too hot. 

So now the rain is coming down harder. I hope it last all night.....

-JUGM

Lots going on...

I know Senior and I both have been MIA. We just ask for our followers not to give up on us. We are still here. Just please excuse us if we don't post or respond to any comments.. We have just had a lot on our plates this past month.
Seniors dad is still in the VA Hospital out of state. He has been spending a part of the week up there, then coming back home for the rest of the week.
It is getting to be a lot on all of us. The good news is, his dad finally had the long awaited orthopaedic surgery on his hip. Poor man was in there almost a month waiting to get it done. It was one reason or the next why they wouldn't. Finally it took a  bit of complaining to his dads doctor about it all..  What an ordeal this has been for all of us.
So now his re-hab and physical therapy starts. Hotels are getting costly, so Senior has decided to pull our camper up there and park it in a campground...doing this will save us quite a bit.

On top of it all, NW got sick again. A violent gastrointestinal virus has been circulating around his school and classroom. Five other kids in his class have had it, along with 2 other boys on his baseball team. My poor child has been vomiting and having severe diarrhea since Sunday. He has had no appetite and has dropped 6 pounds. He has had severe stomach cramps that make him double over and cry in pain.
The doctor has given us a kool-aid solution with honey and salt to raise his glucose  and electrolyte levels because he was getting dehydrated. I feel so bad for him- It is always him getting sick and he doesn't understand why everything happens to him. My baby has missed out on so much this week at school and with baseball.  But today was better, he drank all the kool aid and ate a bowl of animal crackers..hopefully there is a light at the end of the tunnel for this nasty virus.

My garden is flourishing. Here are some pics of my baby cauliflower heads, and broccoli sprouting up.. I took these just a few days ago and the broccoli heads have doubled since...

And my beautiful first yellow rose of the spring:

 

Even Little Libby Lu-Lu got in on helping me water the roses:

 



-JUGM