Sorry for the Absence...

…but it’s hard to blog from the emergency room of the James A Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa FL.

Saturday afternoon I felt a little dizzy and went to take a nap. I woke an hour later throwing up and so dizzy I could barely sit up. I called few friends to see if they could take me to the hospital (I live alone), but no one was answering their phone but 911.

I am blessed by being a vet and living 2 miles from the finest VA hospital in the country. I was taken to their ER, all the while having the kind of dry heaves that in the past were only brought on by massive doses of Wild Turkey. I puked on everything and everybody.

By 3am Sunday, after chest and stomach x-rays I was admitted to the hospital and moved up to a ward. Thank God the nurse’s assistant was male because I needed some cleaning up.

The diagnosis was that I had caught a bad stomach bug. I was on an IV to rehydrate from Saturday till Monday morning. I didn’t get out of the place till noon Tuesday.

I was surprised by the extent to which the VA goes to make sure that vets don’t fall through the cracks. I was visited by a rep from the benefits office, from the finance office, from a dietician (my A1C number was kind of high my last blood work so everyone yells at me about it. I want to keep my blood sugar okay just to get these people off my back.).

Where was I? Oh, the patients’ advocate visited me to make sure I wasn’t in need of anything. The chaplain visited and was able to get me a Bible (so I can catch up on my reading program).

I was also visited by some folks from church because, after all, this was all on Easter Sunday. The day our Lord walked out of a grave I was down for the count. This helped with my attitude, because I had watched Mel's movie recently and it's hard to complain about my situation when you've seen what the Savior went through to save my sorry posterior.

On Monday I had my kidneys sonogrammed. By then I was unhooked from the IV and on Monday night I was given real food to eat.

After a few more doctors came over to yell at me about my A1C number, I was free to go by noon Tuesday.

The nurses are wonderful and beautiful, and they do the heavy lifting. I know that there have been some problems with the VA health system, but this place in Tampa has their act together.

I am fine now, eating twigs and berries like I’m supposed to. As soon as I get caught up at work I will be back to normal posting.