SharivilleLife stories from Shari

Both Jerry and my daughter Angie make use of the Veterans Administration health benefits, and are grateful that they are available.  Esp. in light of all these up and coming  problems with the traditional medical system. As a retired RN, I am totally impressed with the available facilities and the specialities in place. I am certain that Karen Statt, Jerry’s PA at our local VA facility in Chico Calif.   is absolutely thorough, dedicated to the vets and a source of   the best medical care available.  Jerry has a private cardiologist and family MD, but I can tell you that our local VA is absolutely the best.  The VA also has a low co-payment on some very expensive meds that Jerry takes, makes our life easier.

So, while here in Dallas I have had a couple of occasions to accompany Angie on her routine visits to the VA here. Now I am really impressed.  Dallas has the largest VA facility in the USA, next only to Long Beach Ca. Here it covers 86 acres, and believe me they have not wasted any space.  It’s an incredible, beautiful facility. It’s like a small city. They have every speciality and test facility available here. The inside is also to be proud of.  There is an abundance of seating, comfortable seating, and snack areas and vending machines and even a canteen  food court in the basement, a Bistro, Cafe VA, Starbucks and even a PX.  The busiest place tho is at the pop corn machine, my favorite snack ever, well ice cream too.  Anyway its here where  all the  social action takes place.  They sell the pop corn and have a condiment table so you can flavor the pop corn with many flavors, from cheddar cheese to parmesan to Chile powder , Cajun flavorings,my favorite, plus garlic powder.  Sounds trivial but sit there for awhile and watch the activity.  It’s run by volunteers and these guys know everyone  of the employees and some of the regular patients, and as they  pass by  never fail to call out greetings of some kind. A very social area.  Angie bought me a 10$ bag of pop corn, it didn’t cost that much of course, but Angie told the guy to add  the change to the money bucket, it’s for a good cause.

While sitting by the pop corn machine I felt certain that I would encounter some vets who would feel free to let me interview them.  I was interested in their feelings on this magnificant facility. In no time I had several Vets sitting aroung in wheel chairs or leaning on walkers or sitting beside me and we were deep into conversation by the time Angie had finished with her appt.   She came out and saw all the activity and wondered if I was being mobed.  You know me, I’m naturally friendly and people seem to like to talk to me.  I was lucky enough to be there on the day of the week that lots of vets meet there in a support group for each other.  They talked to me about various degrees of disability and both medical and psychological problems related to seeing active duty. All of the vets  that I talked to seemed to appreciate the benefits and care they were recieving.  The main complaint is that there are so many of them that need some kind of attention, therefore the waits can be long.  Also as with everything else everywhere in the civilian medical community the red tape and paperwork is tremendous. For some of the vets this is difficult to get it done and keep up with it.

This facility also has a domiciliary, social workers,  mental health inpatient units, psychology service , hospitalized patient units, med surg units, respiratory therapy , orthopedic surgical nursing unit, diabetes clinic, woman’s clinic and clinical research units. All medical specialities are in house.  These are among the many available options for these wonderful Americans who have given so much.   I love the saying,” If you can read, thank a teacher, if you can speak English thank a Veteran.”  It’s the least we can do for these dedicated men and women who have given us our way of life. God Bless one and all. I feel so privileged to have been able to see this place in action because it truly is unbelievable.