Surgery now Pre-Approved

We have progress!

When a social problem is inherently negative, people involved tend to clear back and give it space. They watch what they say and proceed with caution. But when that same negative issue starts to go forward and turn positive, people tend to want to be a part of it. It happens with anything just like it started to happen here. We started to get misinformation. There was miscommunication and information dissemination out of order. Just more hands in the cookie jar when things are looking good.

Like Michael Scott from “The Office” telling Pam that the branch is closing when it wasn’t confirmed yet. Spoiler alert, they never closed.

I unwound the mess and it ended with me speaking with the Director, directly.

Today, I got confirmation from the Director of Community Care that the Regional VA has now Pre-Approved the Consultation AND the Surgery. I am officially getting this surgery!

Before, it was just the consult and NOT the surgery. Requiring flying back home and waiting for yet another determination on whether or not I’d get the surgery. The Interim Director of the Roseburg VA made it clear at that time that the consult did not guarantee approval for surgery. Now, it is.

There are still a whole lot of unknowns. We do not have a date yet, or even a general idea of when. We don’t know what we will be financially responsible for, but at least it’s not 80 grand! There is still a lot we don’t know. This was not approved through conventional means. It is not going through TriCare as it would be through the normal channels, hence all the unknowns. The recovery will be slow, and we don’t know if there will be health repercussions from having this condition untreated for so many years. We still don’t have answers on why this ever happened in the first place and why I had to go to such great lengths to get care. I won’t be letting that go, that was my youth that was taken.

Unfortunately, this news doesn’t excite me, while it doesn’t discourage me either. To me, it’s long overdue and should have happened a long time ago. It is another step to getting things right again. I may be excited when I finally have no pain when I eat. But that has yet come to pass. I will continue to remain grounded, as other veterans are facing the same issues and not being heard.

That doesn’t mean you can’t be excited in my stead. Without all of you supporting and loving people, I wouldn’t be getting the care I need. I did the hard part, stripping my ego and dignity for all the world to see. But you made it heard and not go in vain.

Lately, it seems like so much of what you see online is meant to stoke outrage at some group of people versus ourselves because that’s what gets shared and that begins to warp our perspectives that the only good people out there are these within our own group. But this shows that across any age or gender or socio-economic background, across the whole religious spectrum through middle America and along the coast, there are a lot of good people everywhere and not only that, but they constitute a majority. Sure, there were some people that tried to incite negativity back on us, arrogantly or deliberately,  but it wasn’t the majority. People shared, people donated their time in helpful ways, people donated their money and sent us encouraging letters. They didn’t do this for Facebook likes or because they knew someone was watching. They did it because it was simply the right thing to do and I think that’s amazing and something worth remembering. That stuff keeps me happily grounded.

Thank you. It’s not over so stick around.