The Story of My Dad 6

My Diary of My Dad
By

My Father

My father wasn’t a great man. He never picked up a car off of a child that was trapped beneath it. He never chased down a mugger that stole an old ladies purse and made it all a happy ending. He wasn’t even that great of a dad.

Dad had a pretty normal childhood growing up. A loving mother. A father that hit the bars after work with all the boys from work and took his sons out hunting and fishing on the weekends. He was the youngest of four and much of his childhood was spent in the shadow of his oldest brother who was severely mentally disabled due to an accident during childbirth.

I’ve seen pictures of my dad when he was a kid. Always smiling and happy and having a good time. He met my mom and she got pregnant and they got married. Like most people did back then. Single motherhood and bastard children were frowned upon. Unfortunately she lost the baby early on and then dad got called up for the “Police Action”.

He came back and was all fucked up. He didn’t talk. He drank to sleep at night, which turned to drinking in the morning for the Hair of the Dog, which turned into hardly ever seeing him without a beer in his hand. He functioned pretty well as an alcoholic for a long time. But he was moody as hell as I got older. He drank more and it was nothing to see a case of beer disappear in a day and him look for more. At the height of his dependence he was drinking about two cases a day and that wasn’t cutting it for him. He tried to kill himself shortly before I was born and had to be escorted from VA to the hospital to see me. He tried again a few years later without success. He’d dry out and then come home and drink again.

Mom left him when I was going into sixth grade and life with her wasn’t much better. She’d turned into an alcoholic at some point. One that would have a drink or two at night. There was never a time without beer in my fridge. She then started hitting bars after work and I became primary care giver for my little sister. Which turned into primary care giver for little sisters when I was in High School.

During his low points, and there were many, he would bunk out with friends and work odd jobs to earn enough money to get beer to drink to keep him from getting DT’s.

He wasn’t a great dad. He wasn’t even close to being an ok dad. But at 16 I decided it was better to live with him and my step mom than live with my mother and continue to mother my sisters. I wanted a life and I didn’t care if I moved out from one drunk and into another drunks house. I had two years left before I could be on my own and mom was moving out to east fuckin jesus with my sisters on top of some godforesaken hill they called a mountain to live in a cabin. Fuckin fruit.

At some point, I don’t even know when, maybe it was when my step mom had enough and told him it was either her or drinking, he decided he was done drinking. He checked himself into VA and they dried him out but never offered much of anything else other than a list of local AA places for him to go for meetings. He tried for a few years and went to meetings and stayed sober. He was moody. He’d get depressed. He wouldn’t leave the house. He would go days without showering and would be fine for another couple of months and then just spiral down.

There was a suicide attempt tossed in at some point that lead to a crazy night of us trying to track him down in whatever hotel he had checked into. Some threatening to the manager by someone that I can’t even remember who it was now. Pots of coffee being drank at Perkins. Dad being checked in for Detox after getting manhandled, he deserved a boot up in the ass, to VA for a stomach pumping.

Six months later I was driving Dad to his PTSD meeting. I drove him on Tuesday and Wednesday every week. I was visibly pregnant and since I carried my oldest so low I looked like I was much more pregnant than I was. It was like a trip down memory lane. Dad’s PTSD meeting was being held that month on the floor above the lockdown ward. So, we’d catch a glimpse if someone happened to be getting off on that floor.

Dad> Listen, I need you to do me a favor?
Me> You mean other than give up two days a week, only to have to play vulture in the parking lot to get a space, then having the great joy of dodging old men in motorized carts as they whiz around corners, only to be stuck reading two year old magazines for an hour. Sure!

A few snickers around us.

Dad> Could you not wear t-shirts that say “Whore” in giant letters when you look like you are pregnant?
Me>….. ::stepping through the doors for our floor:: Sure thing, Dad.

He’s been sober and a dad since. I had a hard time at first forgiving his emotional and mental absence. I had a hard time figuring out what was really dad, what was the booze and how much I had let my mom color the memories of the events in my head. It took a bit to get used to this new person in my life.

He’s conquered a lot of things. A demon older than I am. His fear of people being behind him tight spaces all at once to visit his first grandson while he was in the NICU at least once a week. When he couldn’t he stationed himself at whatever window he could get the best view from and watched me with him. Cancer three other times.

This time has me scared. This time doesn’t feel right. Deep down it doesn’t feel right. I’m not comfortable with any aspect of it in such a way that I am going to be at the hospital constantly the entire time he is there. It’s too close to a lot of very important things. He’s taking it way too good. He’s got that cheery receptionist voice going on. That same voice that calls and cheerily tells you that you have dental appointment at noon the next day.

That’s what this long ramble was supposed to be. Just that last paragraph. But as I sat down to write everything else just came out.

22 May 2006 21:00

My dads surgery is tomorrow. He goes in at 6 am and goes in for surgery at 7:30. The surgery is anywhere from eight to ten hours long. It could take a little longer if they run into any problems. I’m going to get the boys off to school in the morning then drive down there and keep my step-mom company while we wait for news. He’ll be in ICU for three to four days after the surgery before he gets to come home. After that it’ll be recovery and getting back to where he was before. When he’s just about healed they’ll start the chemo and radiation. They decided to wait so there wouldn’t be the concern of bleeding during surgery and so his recovery would be smoother.

23 May 2006 23:44

I spent six hours at VA today. I decided to not go first thing because he was being all morbid this past week and doing the good-bye deal. Telling my step mom that my oldest gets his golf clubs. I figured, fuck him, he wants to tell me bye he’ll have to track me down. So, I laid low. Now, this could have been bad if something would have happened. I decide since the surgery is supposed to be between eight to ten hours to show up at around eleven and bring my step mom some lunch. Hubby came home and we stopped by Bob Evans and I got her a salad and a fruit cup. Something light and the fruit would at least give her a sugar boost so she didn’t feel like total shit. They had just updated right before I walked into the waiting room and had just sent the tumor down to pathology to see if they had clear margins. My step mom had made the first round of update calls so I offered to make the calls for her for this update. She gave me the two cells with the various peoples numbers in them so I could just go through the dialed calls for that morning and redial them.

I trudged back downstairs, because they have some sort of cell blocker there, in a tiny fucking elevator. I dodge legless men in those motorized carts. I scoot around a gaggle of men dragging their oxygen tanks behind them. I squeeze through the throng of people waiting for their pharmacy prescriptions to get outside. I glance up at the now serving number on the wall right before I go through the revolving doors and see they are now serving number 244. I dodge the cars and make it far enough out in the parking lot to make the calls. The whole time I am standing there people are slowing down beside me to see if I am heading towards a car or away from a car. I get back upstairs and we settle in for the two hour wait for the next update or the finish.

One hour and forty five minutes later they came in and said the margins were good and he was in recovery and they would call and let us know when we could come back. My oldest step sister had shown up so I decided to go ahead and make this next round of calls again.

I trudged back downstairs, down the tiny elevator, skipped around a guy on crutches. I dodged a doctor who wasn’t paying attention to where he was going and almost ran me down. I squeezed through the pharmacy crowd and glanced up at the now serving sign and it said that it was now serving 285. Almost two hours and they had gone from 244 to 285. I was rather glad I was not stuck waiting. They called us in the waiting room and we were allowed two people back to see him. I went and my step mom went.

I walked in and I was confronted with my father laying in a bed. He was slit from just behind his right ear all the way across to the other side of his adams apple. It was closed with a tidy line of staples. He had a tracheotomy tube placed in with an oxygen mask up to it for extra help. He had a tube down his nose, down his throat and into his stomach for feeding. There was tube out of the side of his neck for drainage. He had an IV in his right arm that was feeding him pain meds and saline. He had another IV into another vein that was monitoring blood pressure internally. There was blood seeping from around the trach tube where they stitched it to the skin. There was what looked like blood coming through the tube that was coming out of his nose. There was blood draining down the drain tube to some hidden bag. Every so often you’d hear a hiss and the bed would tremble slightly as the things around his legs inflated and deflated once or twice.

I put my hand on his and he mouthed “I love you.” I looked down for a moment and tried to compose myself. He was pale and sweaty and in obvious pain. I had known about the tubes but it was different seeing them in place. I had also had the slight misconception that his surgical site would be covered and was not ready to be greeted by the twinkling of staples under the florescent lights.

Something inside of me broke in that one moment when he mouthed those words. I felt, feel, drained. Just drained. My phone is by my side and all I have to do is call to check on him now. I left him so he’d quit trying to talk and get some sleep. He will be in the hospital for a week while the trach tube heals. The feeding tube will be in place for two weeks. The trach tube unknown. All depends on the healing process. The margins are clear and they got all the cancer. Now, he just has to heal.

27 May 2006 20:09

I spent six hours beside my dads bed today. I honestly don’t know how much more I can do. I feel guilty as hell but every time I leave I am so fuckin depressed. It’s like that place sucks every ounce of joy from your life.

They have him on opiate painkillers. Which means he is drifting off and sleeping out of nowhere. Normally not a problem for normal people. Only dad has PTSD pretty bad. So, he is dreaming in those moments that he drifts off and then waking up totally disorientated minutes later to only drift right back into the dream. He is only sleeping peacefully when one of us is there with a hand resting on his. Then he’ll startle awake, see the hand, follow it to our face, mouth that he loves us, drift back to sleep.

My step mom and I are the only ones doing Dad duty. His other natural daughter, my sister, has not visited. My one stepsister has not visited. His brothers haven’t visited. It’s just me and my step mom pulling the duties during visiting hours. I’m thankful that they kick us out or we’d be on twelve hour shifts.

30 May 2006 17:30

They took dad back into surgery about an hour ago. It can take anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours. He has uncontrolled bleeding somewhere. They need to find it and stop it. It is so bad that he has a bruise that runs from his neck down almost to his belly. Only it isn’t a bruise in the true sense of the word. It’s just blood that has overflowed and collected under the skin there.

I’m waiting for the hubby to get home and take me down. Because I’m a dumbass and I stepped in a depression in my backyard (That was covered in leaves and strewn mulch) my ankle gave and now I am swollen halfway up my calf (On the shin side). I tried to get down this morning, before they decided on surgery, made it about a quarter of the way and had to pull over because I physically could not push the clutch in one more time.

30 May 2006 22:03

I just got home.

I honestly don’t know how much I have left in me to do this. I just don’t.

I walked in and they were tying him down because he was trying to get up and leave after he came out of surgery. He was flailing his arms around. Now, dad has PTSD and tying his hands down only makes it worse. So, he would wake up a bit and start jerking at his hands and would get really agitated. Sunday he started very deliberate hand motions like he was doing something. He would do something with both hands and then pass it off to someone and then go back to what he was doing before, ect, ect, rinse and repeat.

Today he was tied down with soft restraints. His hands were still moving and he looked like he was about to cry while he was asleep then he’d startle awake and look around.

My hardest moments of my life can now be added to.

The nurse tried to kick us out then she was going to sedate him. I just acted like I didn’t hear her and kept a hold of his hand and rubbed his head. She went about her business and repeated that she needed us to leave and I again ignored her. So, she sedated him while I held his hand and rubbed his head and told him everything was going to be ok.

Now, I have to go, I’m crying again.

31 May 2006 15:09

Remember how I said I just didn’t know if I could do this anymore? Yeah.

Dad is on a ventilator. They can find no reason for why he isn’t recovering. He is still in restraints because when he starts to come out of sedation he gets agitated. He has a DNR. So, I’m not even sure why they hooked him up to a vent.

I believe that he has given up. I don’t think he wants to make it. And I can’t remember him anyway other than he is right now. I’ve tried all day and I can only see him in my head laying in that bed, in the shitty fuckin VA hospital, tied to a bed, with shitty ass nurses that are just waiting for their shift to end.

01 Jun 2006 22:22

They are trying to wean dad off the vent but he spiked a fever today. They are still keeping him sedated. There is still not a bed in the Medical Intensive Care available. So, he is stuck in the Surgical Intensive Care. There are no windows. The lights are on all the time. They have curtains for the bed but unless they are doing something with the patient they stay open. There is a wall that separates the patients but each wall has a window with blinds. So, you pull the blinds and still have the light from each of the peoples windows on either side of you spilling over. The nurses always seem to be on the fuckin computer screwing around. I saw one shopping online. Fuckin shopping. I’m hoping a bed becomes available in the MICU soon and that it is a better environment for him.

02 Jun 2006 14:44

They are taking Dad back in at 1:30 for surgery with the Pulmonary specialist. They are now looking for cancer in the lung. When the hubby gets home in a few we are getting the kids from school and dropping them off at his moms.

What little hope I had and what little sanity I had are just about gone.

02 Jun 2006 19:32

There were small bumps in the lower part of his lung that they did a brush scraping of. Because it was in the collapsed part the specialist sounded pretty optimistic that it was just irritation due to all the suctioning of the lung. I voiced my concerns over the shitty nurses and let her know it was rather disheartening to have to go search out a nurse when Dad’s alarm is going off because they are too busy shopping on Amazon.com. She spoke in terms of the future and not just the day.

04 Jun 2006 02:20

I have had a few e-mails saying that I should bake something and take it into the nurses so they treat my dad better. I refuse to bribe them to do something they should be doing anyway. I’d much rather hit the administration levels and let them know their IT department needs to check out the surfing habits of the SICU staff and how much time they actually spend on the computer shopping. There is a shortage of nurses and there are ads in the paper constantly looking for qualified nurses. If you don’t like the job and VA has burned you out, don’t’ take it out on those that fought to give you the freedoms that you enjoy when you get to walk out. Find another job.

Dad took no steps forward today but he also didn’t take any back. So, we are in a holding pattern. We won’t get test results until Monday from all the swabs. They are x-raying his lungs daily to watch for further collapse.

Friday, I held his hand and talked to him after they got him settled back in from the Broncoscopy . I told him to calm down and that he was safe. I told him that all he had to do was get better and if he did that I would go and get my tubes tied so he didn’t have to worry about me getting pregnant ever again. He shifted around in his bed a bit at that. I told him that when he got better I was going to make the hubby watch the minions for an entire weekend and he and I would take his Harley out and ride down 52 until dark and find a place to stay for the night and head back the next morning. We’d take a father daughter weekend together, just the two of us, he squeezed/flexed his hand lightly in mine. I leaned down and put a kiss on his cheek and said, “Daddy, I love you. I need you to sleep now and have good dreams” and I left.

I took a mental health/birthday day today. My youngest turned nine so I didn’t go in. My step mom went today and I’ll go in tomorrow.

05 Jun 2006 22:31

You know, you read books and they always talk about that mental snap in a person. I never really got it until now.

Dad got moved to the MICU, which is medical intensive care unit, today. He’s on lighter sedation, still agitated and still tied down.

I held his hand(s) for what started to be a short visit. I got there at five and left at 7:30. I spent forty minutes leaning over dad, with one knee on the bed, balancing on my bad ankle, holding both of his hands. Sometime around the third or fourth time that he opened his eyes and mouthed “help me” I heard this pop in my head. I kept telling him, “Daddy, I can’t untie you or they won’t let me back in to see you. Here hold my hand.” That’s how I ended up leaning on his bed for forty minutes holding both of his hands and telling him stories. Every time he’d get agitated he’d squeeze my hands harder and harder until I told him to stop before he broke my hand and he would loosen his grip just a bit.

He somehow got himself edged to the very side of the bed, while there is no danger of him falling out, he was at the very end of the reach for his vent tube. I pried my hand from his and went and got his nurse who came with two others to get him moved back into a more appropriate position. To this involves having to undo the restraints. Once one arm was done he started wildly swinging around until I snagged his hand and told him I had him. They then undid the other side and I took that hand again as well. I was the only one he wouldn’t swing at or thrash around at. So, I stood there leaning as far over him as I could, my feet planted on the straggling straps of the restraints of his left hand just in case he forgot who I was and decided to swing.

I have finger shapes that will probably be bruises tomorrow on both of my hands. I turned on the TV for him when I left and put it on sports, because at home, even if he falls asleep in his chair, the TV is on.

I kinda feel like something is missing from me now. I don’t know what it is but it’s not there.

06 Jun 2006 16:19

I decided something today. Everyone else is pussyfooting around Dad, including me. I’m the only one that has ever been able to get away with telling him like it is and telling him he’s being a dick. So, that’s what I’m going to do.

He’s coming around and fighting everything and being an ass. Well, his nurses words were, “He’s a stinker” I said, “Yeah, he’s a pain in the ass but we love him anyway” She said, “Yeah, he’s that too.”

So, I’m going to go in tonight and tell him like it is. I’m not going to baby him anymore. I’m not going to tell him please get better. I’m just going to tell him like it is. Maybe that will get through to his stubborn ass and he’ll quit fighting everything and conserve his strength to get better.

06 Jun 2006 22:55

Now, Apparently my step mom and I are on the same page. She went earlier in the day and I went this evening and spent two hours. I told her I told dad to quit being an ass and to let people help him. That I had decided to quit babying him and she said she had decided the same thing today as well.

So, the nurse was trying to clean out his mouth and he wouldn’t let her and I squeezed his hand and said, “Quit being such an asshole and stick out your tongue so she can clean your mouth out.” So, he did long enough for her to clean it off just a little then clamped his mouth shut on the sponge thing and she took it out and then he said, “No”. Told him it was a bit late to be saying no since it was already done and to think a bit quicker on his feet next time.

I don’t feel great but I don’t feel like I can expect a call in the middle of the night with bad news right now. This is much like when the kids were in NICU and as long as there are no steps back he can move forward as slowly as he needs to get better.

07 Jun 2006 22:37

Dad is going to be in a sleep for the next two days to help him get to healing. He helped move himself up in bed today by pushing his heels against the mattress and pushing himself up.

He has some slight swelling around the brain but they said it is nothing to worry about. That it can be caused by extended time on the vent and how much extra water his body is holding from not moving at this time. It’s not a stroke, it’s not a brain bleed, it’s just a slight swelling. They are going to do daily cat scans. The swelling in his hands and ankles is starting to go down. He is saying he wants to go home and he is getting prissier about being tied down.

I decided to just let my step mom go today and took a day for myself. I read Queen of the Damned since the movie was just on the other night and I wanted to purge that piece of shit from my brain. Soaked in a bubble bath and am now on the computer for a few.

14 Jun 2006 02:39

Dad got what they like to call a “unique” blood infection. What this means is they call the Infectious Disease Guys down and everybody freaks out if they don’t’ see you washing your hands after you touch him. Good news is that he lucked out in that it’s a strain that is treatable, still, with a certain type of antibiotic.

Now, dad has PTSD pretty bad. This doesn’t make him a bad person. It just makes him not a completely sane person all of the time. About once a year he has a bad period. They made him go cold turkey off of all his antidepressants before the surgery and he’s now having a PTSD episode of grand proportions. This includes him looking over your shoulder at someone who isn’t there. Startling awake and kicking his feet mouthing that he has to get away. Startling awake and being afraid of you for the first few seconds he’s awake and trying to crawl into the bed to get away from you.

So, from a respiratory standpoint he is doing well. I lucked out and they did rounds sometime during the three hours I spent there today. They had to reopen his neck and keep it open and are dry and wet packing it. That’s not enough to keep him in the hospital on it’s own. His lung still hasn’t inflated the rest of the way and they aren’t sure why but he’s now sating at 90%+ on room air. Today was his first day off the vent, he’ll go back on when he goes to sleep so he doesn’t tire himself out.

Words that I have figured out from his lip reading are, “Fuck you”. “Help me” “What time is it” “I want to go home”. My replies in the same order I put his words are, “Well, fuck you too.” “I am” “whatever time it is” “Yeah, so do I”.

Today he was extra agitated so there was no letting his hands be untied while I was there. Which pissed him off. So, he turned his head away and ignored me. I said, “Listen, I drove all the way here, into the riot part of town to see your sorry ass. Quit ignoring me.” He rolled his eyes at me. He wouldn’t unclench his hands for the nurse to check his blood sugar so I told him to quit being such an ass about it and just let her do it. He flipped me off and she got her blood. Then there were moments where he just didn’t seem to really know who I was and I’m hoping those go away.

He did eye my t-shirt today and when I told him “Sorry, all my raunchy ones are dirty” he did a kind of sigh. I’ve been wearing my raunchiest shirts in for his amusement. And on the days he wasn’t awake on the off chance that he would wake up long enough to be amused. I got my first real smile out of him when I wore the Pink shirt from Ernie’s with the fuckin stick figures on it about two weeks ago. After that I went through every drawer and every box to pull out every other one I could find.

He seems to have turned some corner medically. Now, he has to get through whatever it going on in his head before we can move forward with anything else. Speech therapy can’t happen until he quits fighting everyone. They can’t untie him and let him sit in a chair until he quits fighting everyone.

And I wonder where I get it from.

15 Jun 2006 20:18

I almost got arrested today in VA. I probably would have if I wouldn’t have found someone to help me and would have had to just storm the MICU doors to find out if my dad was alive or dead. I went from floor to floor until I found someone that would give me some type of answer. I was just looking for someone, anyone, with a badge. I just happened to stumble across the Patient Advocate.

There will be some nurses that get their asses reamed.

I went to see Dad. I called back because there is a giant sign that says, “Call before coming back” Since I haven’t been trying to make waves, I always call. I said, “This is B***, can I come back and see my dad” She put me on hold for a second and said, “He’s having a procedure.” “He’s what?” “Let me see if one of the doctors or nurses can talk to you?” Then she came back and said, “You’ll have to call your mom.” “Can you at least tell me if he’s ok?” “You’ll have to call your mom everyone is too busy to talk to you right now.” Then she hung up on me. She fuckin hung up on me!

Final Post. Posted to the web.
15 Jun 2006 20:12

This isn’t about me. I don’t care if you like me or if you don’t like me. I don’t care if you cringe each time I post. I don’t care if your fondest dream is for me to get run over by a truck so you don’t have to deal with me anymore. I do care about the deplorable state of the VA Medical situation.

Since May 23rd I have been waiting each evening for that phone call telling me that my father is dead. Since that date I have been to VA everyday to sit by my fathers bedside. Awake or asleep. Doesn’t matter. I’ve been there.

I sat in the Surgical Intensive Care holding his hand while he slept in a room that was so small that there wasn’t enough room for a chair for me to sit in and the nurses still be able to work around me in bed. I stood on a floor that was so stained and dirty that I didn’t even want to squat down or sit down to give my legs a break from the hours of standing. I watched his oxygen saturation levels drop and his monitors go off only to have them ignored by nurses that are burned out and don’t give a shit. I had to actively go in search of a nurse to help him out.

I walk down hallways with paint peeling off the doors and walls. Pharmacy’s that are up in the 200’s for numbers when it’s only early afternoon. I have listened to the complaints of those waiting, who wait for hours and hours, for their scripts to be filled.

I sat with my dad for fifteen days in the Surgical Intensive Care unit. A unit with no windows. Where lights were always on. Where the nurses spent more time surfing the web and looking at amazon than they did patient care. I put up with rude nurse and rude nurse and rude nurse in the hopes that as long as I kept my mouth shut and played nice that my dad would get the care that he deserved and needed. He sat in SICU, which is supposed to be a temporary place after surgery, for that long because there were no beds available in the Medical Intensive Care Unit.

Then he moved down a floor to the Medical Intensive Care. At first glance it seems to be such an improvement. Only instead of getting better he got worse. What turned into what was to be in on Tuesday and home by Friday is him still in and them sending him to a nursing home. He has had one infection after another infection after another infection. He is tied to his bed 24/7 and they have listed him as a combative patient. Is he combative. Yes. What they fail to also list is the fact they took him, cold turkey, off of every medicine he takes right before his surgery and just now put him back onto them.

He has laid in a bed that doesn’t work. What that means is that mattress in this bed does not inflate and does not pulse as it should. Why? Because there were no other working beds to be had. What does this mean? It means that since the 23rd of May he has been laying on his back in a bed that doesn’t work which has now led to bed sores developing.

The thing that goes around his neck to keep that trach in place has never been cleaned or changed. Even after repeatedly asking the nurses. He now has a rash that runs from below it to above it with the underneath an angry red. The site of his surgery has become infected not once but twice. Now, it has been left open and they are just packing it to let it heal.

The moment he starts to come around they sedate him again. For his own good? No. Because a nurse can’t be there and can’t get to him immediately if something goes wrong. He has spent since May 23 in some sort of drugged state and they wonder at his confusion.

He has contracted, in their care, a ‘unique’ blood infection. A ‘unique’ form of pneumonia. A fungal infection at the site of the trach and a yeast infection in his mouth that extends down into his throat. I cannot count the number of times that I have walked in to find him on dirty sheets, because remember he is restrained, has no way to call a nurse, so if he has to go he goes. I cannot count the number of times that I have walked in to find him in a dirty gown. The same gown he was in the day before that had blood down the front of it from what he was coughing up out of his trach. How do I know it’s the same gown. Well, I was curious and I took a pen and put my initials on the edge of his gown and on his sheets. I found all those there the next day.

This is the standard of care that we are giving those that fight for our freedoms. I don’t care if you are a Republican, Democrat, Independent. Write whoever it is you voted for and find out where the money is going that is supposed to take care of our soldiers. Where is it being spent. Because I personally have spent hours looking over the budget posted on the site and I am seeing none of it getting spent where they say it is getting spent.

There is a large score card that is posted in VA. It rates them from a patients point of view. That score is 68%.

Write whomever you need to. Demand answers. Demand better care. It may be too late for my dad. They need his bed in the MICU so they are sending him off to a nursing home next week. A VA nursing home. I wonder what the standard of care will be there?

(This was written as it happened, pieces with dates and times were taken directly from the board I was posting the updates on.)