So I am a veteran, a Post Coastie, who last served on the Oregon Coast when Nixon was becoming a role model for IL Douche. I left active duty to attend the University of Oregon, which the VA graciously paid me to do for four years & 2 degrees. After graduation I had little contact with the VA until a few years ago when they graciously guaranteed my mortgage. I had employer paid health insurance for most of my career, the last 19 of which was with a public college with very good health insurance. I retired 2 years ago and was eligible for Medicare in which I enrolled. It costs me $168/mo and is even better than what I had through the Oregon Educators Benefit Board (except for the Dental.)
Because I am <knock on wood> healthy as a horse and comfortable with both my physician (of 20 years) and the Medicare health plan I am in, I decided to keep my VA Health Benefits in reserve. . . . that was until the Covid Came-a-Courting.
I registered with my local VA clinic (about 4 minutes away and all downhill) and had a brief checkin with a physician last July. He had all my records from my Primary Care Physician and we agreed I was a good shape and the VA would be there if I needed them, but I should stay with my doctor because he has evidently taken very good care of me. He enrolled me in the clinic so that I could get help from them any moment if I needed it.
Covid got worse, even in Oregon, and the vaccines started appearing last month.
Then on December 18th. I got an email from the clinic saying the VA was getting ready to start offering vaccinations as soon as the vaccine became available. On January 10th. they sent another email they would be contacting veterans 75 and older by telephone to schedule shots. I wasn’t concerned because I am not in that group. Then we had the scandal last week where the states were being shortchanged because of missing governmental vaccine stockpiles (I’m sure Jared knows where they went.)
Early last week I thought I would get my first shot in late March, but then I got an email from the VA midweek sending me to a website to indicate whether or not I was interested in getting the shots and answering a few basic questions. By the end of the week, after the missing stockpiles became known, I realized I probably wouldn’t be getting my shots until the summer.
Then yesterday morning they sent me a link to set my own vaccination appointment over the WEB and I immediately responded and found every day and time was available starting this morning. Not being a morning person I set my appointment for 2:10 — 2:20 this afternoon.
I chose to go to the VA hospital site across the Columbia River from Greater Troutdale in Lesser Vancouver ( WA.) I arrived at 2:19 PM
- 2:19 Walked through the door to the Gym, nice lady with clipboard checked my name off a list and directed me to another lady 10 feet away.
- 2:20. Other lady, also nice, took my temperature and gave me a baby blue paper mask to wear over my beautiful WingLion mask purchased from KOS people here. She directed me to a seated gentleman at a computer screen.
- 2:20:30 This gentleman seated at his computer, also nice, asked about a minute’s worth of questions about my health, and then directed me to a second gentleman.
- 2:21 This gentleman, also nicely seated at a computer asked me when I wanted to get my second shot in 3 weeks. He wrote me an appointment card and directed me to another standing lady.
- 2:22 This nice standing lady with her nice clipboard then chatted nicely with me about what to expect from the next person that she was going to introduce me to.
- 2:23 This was the guy, also nice, also with a computer (also nice) who asked nicely for me to take my coat off. He asked me various questions about my health, if I bleed a lot or throw up on people giving me shots. He discretely asked my age and if I were preggers or lactating. I coyly told him I didn’t think so. He then complimented me on my biceps and asked if I worked out a lot. Before I could shift into my butch voice and answer he had whipped out the syringe and given me a painless shot. He then graciously complimented me on not bleeding onto his workspace. He double-checked that I had been scheduled for my second shot and then introduced me to yet another clipboard lady.
- 2:25 This clipboard lady who was gracious and nice gave me 6 pages of information about the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and what side effects I might see. She then gracefully thanked me for visiting them all and trusting them with my health care. She apologized because she would have to seat me for the next 15 minutes and observe me to see if I started to show any side effects. She then introduced me to a very large person.
- 2:25 This very large person was also nice and gracious and escorted me to my seat and kindly advised me to notify him or any of the other 5 very large persons in the ‘side-effects arena’ if I felt anything untoward occurring like difficulty breathing, dizziness, swelling, racing heartbeat, bad rash, hemorrhaging, or feeling the onset of death. He said he and the others would keep an eye on me and rush over quickly if I needed them.
- 2:40 I was told by a different very large person that my time-out was over and I was free to fly like a bird, and that they were all waiting for me to return in 3 weeks. He then graciously thanked me for my service.
Twenty-one minutes from door to door, 15 of which were for them to watch me if I were to keel over. That’s 6 minutes to interact with 9 people, 3 clipboards, and 3 computers.
After the VA takes care of vaccinating the 8% of the U.S. population that are veterans, their system could quickly and efficiently take care of the rest of the population that hadn’t yet been vaccinated by the states’ efforts.
I am really thankful for their service. Thank you, America, for the Veterans Administration.