Yes Gunny:
I will keep you and this site posted on my progress as I move through this process.
I have just been referred to an MEB - even though I HAVE NOT reached "optimal medical care". I haven't even completed the original treatment care plan as established and set forth by my Nurse Case Manager and CB-WTU Colonel Doctor in my command.
I'm being told that I will have to relocate back to Fort Lewis, WA for the duration of my medical treatments. Why the Army insists on continueing to disrupt my medical treatment care plans is beyond me. I've had 7 (yes, that's right) SEVEN case managers, and multiple MTF Primary Care Doctors. I have finally JUST started to recieve some basic level of continuity of care. And now, they want to disrupt this process once again, transfer me back to Fort Lewis before I even complete the treatment care plan THEY developed for me, and assign me YET ANOTHER Nurse Case Manager and MTF Doctor.
I am so disgusted with this system I could spit nails. And then they wonder WHY it takes so long to get through the medical treatment phase and somehow THEY think it's the Soldier's fault?
Oh please. Give me a break!
According to the Wounded Warrior Regs, I am to be referred to an MEB WHEN I have met "optimal medical care". The CB-WTU doctor has made the determination that I have, and has referred me to the MEB for processing. But if these people would read my treatment care plan that THEY developed for me, they will clearly see that I have NOT completed this plan, and am almost completed with this plan.
I am sick of bean-counters playing havoc with my medical and psychiatric treatment care. Don't they realize how counter-productive this is to my receiving adequate and timely medical and psychiatric care? It's just penny-wise and pound-foolishness and the only outcome is more expensive in the end.
As a Citizen-Soldier who was mobilized for this war, I'm afraid I've grown much more cynical of this medical treatment aspect of military service. I no longer trust that decisions made by the military regarding my medical/psychiatric are being made in MY best interests anymore. I'm beginning to wonder if they ever were.
Sorry I'm so down in the mouth about this. It's just that I left home for mobilization back in June of 2006, and since then, I've gone to war, got injured myself, came back from the theater prematurely to say goodby and bury a husband, saw my only child return from his Navy service a 40% disabled vet, and finally returned to my home to find it an empty one.
Life can throw you some serious curve balls and this goat-rope of the Army Medical and PDES process is just more stress on my plate that doesn't need to happen that way. I've only been home 18 months during this past 46 months. I may as well have been stationed in Korea, or on "the rock", or sent to Leavenworth for all the Army cares. I sure have my days of being in the dumps about this - no suprise there, huh.
I'm doing my best to keep my head up from all the family changes, financial changes, dual-debt load and only one paycheck now. Injured only child (Adult) now living with me, his preparing to enter college this fall. I just wish the bean-counters would get off my Commands a$$ and let me stay at home to finish my treatment care plan before they send my paperwork forward to the MEB. Then they can transfer me up to Fort Lewis when I complete my treatment care plan. At that point, I will be legitimately in the "optimal care" zone for transfer to Fort Lewis.
But it's not happening this way and I'm being referred to the MEB BEFORE I complete my treatment care plan. I've been told that I can complete my treatment care plan up at Fort Lewis while I am waiting for the MEB. And when I asked how long that would take, I was told 1-2 years! Good God have mercy!
None of this makes sense to me anymore. Why don't they just leave this Citizen-Soldier in place at home, and let me continue to drive on and finish down here? It would actually take less time AND cost them LESS money.
What a goat-rope! I'm beginning to think this Command is treating me like a numerical "hot potato" - passing me back and forth between Fort Lewis and CB-WTU. Scrubbing their bean-counter books at my expense, instead of treating me like the Wounded warrior that I am.
I mean, I hate to think this way about the Army. But no one has come up with ANY rational answers as to WHY this transfer NOW is in my best interests when I have yet to complete my medical treatment plan and reach "optimal medical care". I am so close - yet so far, and this is SOOOO disruptive to my getting adequate and consistant care and getting continuity of care. The only thing my command has said is, "Don't worry. The VA will take care of you."
Pretty sad to think the Army simply wants to pass the buck. And at my physical an mental health expense.
v/r,
nwlivewire