Smorgass Bored said:
The V.A. Hospital:
Two months ago I rushed to the VA hospital ER with congestive heart failure and filled out all the paperwork and was treated and eventually released.
I was later notified that I wasn't eligible for VA assistance because my wife's income was above the regional and local "financial means threshold" and as a Priority 8, I wouldn't be allowed health care (as the VA had stopped taking Priority 8s in 2003).
I was in much pain and difficulty for the past couple of weeks and had nowhere to turn, so I called a Patient Advocate (who's name & number I'd read in a newspaper article) and she said that if we had deducted our medical expenses and health care COBRA premiums for 2007, that there was a 'chance' that I might squeak below the threshold.
The ER doctors said that they weren't concerned with the paperwork aspect of saving my live. After treatment in the ER. I was sent for a CAT Scan with some dye injected in my arm. After that test, I was sent to ECHO test lab and it was inconclusive due to my weight.
The next day, I was sent to T.E.E. (I can't remember what that stands for right now) and told that I would be required to gargle and swallow some throat numbing liquid and then I would be anethisized to sleep, while they pushed a tube down my throat to check out my heart and lungs.
Well, because of my weight, they decided that it was too dangerous to put me under for the procedure, so they had me gargle with 2 doses of numbing mouthwash and then they shoved this garden hose (with the nozzle still attached and the sprinkler system on) down my throat.
They moved it up, down, around, in & out and so deep that I thought they'd decided to examine my rectum from the inside. The whole while they were doing this, they told me that I couldn't move, cough, gag or try to talk. They moved the tube around for 46 minutes and when they'd finished, they said that I was the most well behaved patient they'd ever had (I told them to give me REP)
It turns out that the aortic heart valve that I had replaced in 2004 had a leak and they discoved a 2nd leak in my heart, causing the fluid in my lungs. They determined that another open heart surgery was too dangerous for me and are attemting to treat my leaky heart with medicine. They also discovered that my heart was weak and not beating strongly. That too is being treated with medicine.
My wife spent much time with the Patient Advocate and with her tireless help filling out the forms, re-submitting them to the Eligibilty Dept. and walking with my wife from office to office, they looked at the new figures and determied that I would be allowed coverage and placed in group Priority5.
I've been sent home and scheduled for upcoming appointments with the Cardiologist and a Primary Care physician.
I'm tired, but I want to try to address Big Truck's thread as soon as I'm able.
Thanks to all of you,
Doug
.
Smorg: I am so very happy that you're under proper treatment and medication and that the VA thing is turning your way.
Somewhere along the line I think I read in one of these Smorg related threads that some of you just know Smorg as the Green Rep God of AZ, who gets off a good one now and then. But he's been kicking around the internet pool halls for a long time and has friends all over the country, to whom he has played the kind and gracious host when folks have traveled to his stomping grounds down in Tampa. On one of my trips there he not only got the local pool room to open up early to accommodate my schedule, but there were fresh donuts and coffee akimbo. Then he proceeded to give me a lesson in the finer points of 1pocket
In fact, Smorg has been around so long that he was an RSB member in high standing, back when that was cool. And whenever I think of Smorg, I think of the infamous evening, told in a post of his some half a dozen years ago on RSB, entitled "How High the Bet." It's a classic...
(*<~ It was on my way home from New Orleans two weeks ago ......
<insert flashback music here>
I stopped at my brother's workplace and was talked into spending two
days at Spring Break assisting the young girls in their wet T-shirt
competitions and bikini contests. Man, I've still got it and so do they.
Anyway, it seems that brother lives ON THE BEACH (about 100' to the
surf) of the Gulf of Mexico in a beautiful 3 bedroom home will ALL the
amenities (I'd like to swap places with him- including significant
other). He lives just east of Panama City in a little beach community
called St. Joe Beach. There is a place there (within crawling distance
of the house) called "Regan's Pub & Oyster Bar" Est. Nov.14th 2000
157,920 Oyster's Shucked (when the t-shirt was printed).
After a hard day of rubbing up against nubile young things in Panama
City we ended up at Regan's depleting their oyster stock and keeping the
'shucker' employed.
The bar area had a 4x8 pooltable and the proximity to the beach and the
breeze had it in the lower 50?. I had on my Planet 9-Ball jacket with
the BIG logo of a planet that looks like a 9-ball (duh). All the locals
wanted to challenge my brother and I to some partners 8-ball and we
obliged. We won every game for hours, no matter what rules they made up
along the way. We stopped to take a break and eat MORE oysters and one
of the players asked me what I 'did' in Tampa. I told him that I was a
professional pool player (my brother almost blew an oyster out of his
nose). This fellow named Jim-Bob wanted to play me heads up. I told him
that I'd play, but I wouldn't play cheap. He told me that he didn't care
WHAT we played for as he racked the balls and I prepared to break.
I'd told him that I was called Tampa Tubby and as I smashed the balls
I exclaimed that I was playing him for his 'Bob'. At first, he thought
that I was kidding, but as it dawned on him that I was serious he became
VERY nervous. All activity stopped in the building as EVERYONE came to
sweat this game. The most serious game to ever take place in St. Joe
Beach,Fl. I got down to the eightball and Jim-Bob said that I had to
'bank it' AND we were also playing last pocket 8-ball. I'd made my last
ball in the side pocket and was in trouble with the way his balls were
laying on the table. When I asked if I could play the eight off of one
of his balls and he said yes, I kicked the eight from near the end rail
and off his ball into 'my' side pocket. GAME OVER. I'd won 'the Bob'.
Everyone laughed and cheered while now calling me "Tampa Tubby-Bob".
At the same time,everyone now called Jim-Bob simply JIM. Jim was
devasted. It was sinking in that he had lost his 'Bob' and he didn't
like it one little bit. People were now calling him 'Bobless' and his
boss (who was present) threatened to fire him and make him 'Jobless
Bobless'. He's been 'Bobbited'. He wanted a re-match. I said NO. I told
him that I would return in exactly one year and play him ONE GAME and an
opportunity to win his 'Bob' back.
I've spoken to my brother a few times since I've left St. Joe Beach
and he assures me NOONE has called him Jim-Bob since he lost and that
the word has spread up & down the beach.
They're planning a big 'special day' for next year and my return. I'm
thinking about breaking out my sling,walker, eye-patch, etc. to make it
REALLY exciting.
I know that I dance to beat of a different drum (at least I didn't
insist that he throw in a moon pie), but everyone seems to like it (so
far). I didn't get a BOP on the nose. Life is good. Does it get any
better than this ?
Tampa Tubby-Bob
Keep dancin' to that drum, Smorg.
Lou Figueroa
Your, your own worst enemy seeing that when you give rep it counts for so much... Hang around Doug I have not been here long enough to spend Christmas with you and look forward to it this year. 
