Compensation Pt. II

To go along with the re-evaluation of my service connected disability, I needed to get my asthma under control. Just trying to set up a doctor's appointment at the VA takes an act of Congress and yesterday was my appointment set up over 2 weeks ago. My appointment was for 9:15 am and I left work at 8:30 to arrive in time as Foothill Blvd is quite full of people at that time. I made it to the clinic at 9:00 and by 9:15 I was seeing the nurse for measuring my vitals. That was all taken care of in a rapid fashion and by 9:30 I was sitting the the room waiting for the visit from the physician.

Little did I know that for the next 4 hours I would be the victim of government control. I waited for almost an hour for the physician and then had to give her my complete history, and because my file wasn't in the computer, she even asked me to recal details from 20+ years ago that I could not remember. I mean, who remembers whether they were suffering from night sweats or rashes when Ronald Reagan was president. After she was done grilling and poking and listening, she brought in her attending as she was only a resident, and he proceeded to inform me of all of the things that could be wrong with me that further testing could either eliminate or confirm.

After filling out the requests for perscriptions, sleep tests, and pulmonary function tests, they were finally done and sent me on my way with instructions to:

1) Set a follow up appointment
2) Set an appointment with a Primary Care Physician
3) Get a chest x-ray
4) Pick up medication

So in that order, I set off for my tasks. The follow up appointment was easy as I just stopped by the desk on the way out. The PCP appointment was a little more difficult as I had to phone in the request and the scheduler hung up on me before I could get the appointment, but I called again and the next lady helped me just fine. The chest x-ray, again wasn't difficult, but took about 20 minutes of waiting. Then the house fell in.

The medications are a completely different world. Once the physician inputs the prescriptions, a pharmacist has to approve them before they can be distributed at the pharmacy. You have to take a number and when I took mine, twenty people were in front of me. Please remember that this is a VA hospital and I love the men and women of the military, but old veterans take a lot of medicine and it took almost 45 minutes before I got my turn with the pharmacist. As he was reviewing the scripts, he discovered a problem with two of the three. I had to hunt down my doctor and ask her to contact the pharmacist so that he could discuss the problems. I returned as they were conversing on the phone. She agreed to make the changes but it took another 10 minutes for that to happen. After the pharmacist approved the changes, it took almost another 30 minutes for the pharmacy to get the scripts ready and me to pick them up.

All of the time I am waiting and being poked and prodded, my boss is texting me about my return to work. I can only move as fast as the government does.

Movies

Over the weekend I had two different experiences with movies.

On Friday, Melissa and I went to see Watchmen...I was so disappointed. The story was garbage, the acting was horrible (except Jackie Earle Haley) and Dr. Manhattan's large penis was not what I wanted to see on the screen. Everytime the good doctor was on the screen, there was the "Please don't pan below his waist" feeling and then of course they did. That was $17 and two and a half hours that we can never reclaim. It was so bad that a fellow patron behind us while exiting the theater said, "We would have been better off seeing a chick flick," and I am in total agreement.

On Saturday, Melissa's mother and sisters planned a viewing of Twilight. Jaxon and Logan wanted to see Grandma and Bradan so I and they accompanied Melissa to Orem. Bradan was with his dad, so I took the boys to see a movie. They of course wanted to see different movies. Logan wanted Mall Cop and Jaxon wanted Race to Witch Mountain. I told them that we would see the next movie playing when we got to the theater. We missed Mall Cop by 20 minutes, poor Logan. We got the tickets and went to see Witch Mountain and guess what...It was good. The boys loved it, and I enjoyed watching them enjoy it. When it was over we had mall food for dinner and then picked up Melissa (they were just finishing) and headed home. Logan was wasted and soon fell asleep, but Jaxon spent the next hour expounding on the explosions, car chases, slot machines and trains in the movie. His one request is that when the movie comes out on DVD we get it, but "it has to be on Blue Ray."

I am glad that we have the opportunity for good and bad choices. Choosing the bad sometimes always makes choosing the good that much better. I love to watch the world through the eyes of my children. They spend so little time in that stage that I am glad that I can live it sometimes.

Cub Scout Extracurricular Activities

Everybody knows about the Pinewood Derby that Cub Scouts participate in. But how many know of the Space Derby? Last night our pack had their Space Derby. Because I have two boys of Cub Scout age, we had two rockets to build. Thank goodness for a grandpa who doesn't mind helping out a little bit with this kind of thing, and who happens to have tools. We were able to get the rockets shaved and sanded, but then we had quite a few cold days and snowstorms that didn't permit the spray painting of the rockets. This didn't get accomplished until Monday this week. Tuesday, Daddy had to bring the rockets to work with him so that all of the knife work could get done (you know...the fins and the holder). Daddy actually got a co-worker to draw some flames on the ships so that the boys could have something other than just plain gold or black rockets. By the time Daddy left work, the knife stuff was completed and Grandpa had the Super Glue waiting to glue all the fins in place. When we got to the Pack Meeting, we still had to assemble the propellers with the rubber bands and all of thier accessories. WHEW! The races finally started and each of the rockets won at least one of their heats. The boys were happy with their rockets and I am glad I don't have to do that again for at least another year, then it is the Raingutter Regatta. Oooh boy!