Tag Archives: VA

economic news, national news

Musk, Trump testing our faith

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Elon Musk and his puppet, Donald Trump, are testing my faith in the U.S. Constitution’s ability to hold up to the full frontal assault these two nimrods are launching.

Yes, my faith is bending, but I believe — at least I hope — it is far from breaking.

Trump campaigned for the presidency vowing to leave veterans benefits and Social Security alone. He said he wouldn’t cut either program. Then he hauls Elon Musk aboard the clown car and Musk — the richest man on Earth — starts yammering about cuts in vets’ programs and calls Social Security a “ponzi scheme.”

OK, the disph** doesn’t know a ponzi scheme if it bit him in the ass. Social Security is a compact this government made in 1935 with elderly Americans to provide them with assistance to live in their retirement years.

We have paid into the system and as we seek to enjoy retirement from a lifetime of working hard, we are getting some of it back. What does Elon Musk know about any of that? Not a damn thing!

As for veterans benefits, for Donald J. Trump — the draft dodger in chief — to say a word about cutting benefits for those of us who did serve our country is merely adding unconscionable insult to unforgiveable injury.

Some of us are old enough to remember a time when Democratic leaders in Congress sought to monkey around with elderly benefits. In the 1980s, House Speaker Tip O’Neill and senior U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois got caught making untoward comments about Social Security. The outcry from the masses was so vigorous that they both backed down.

Musk and Trump should face an equal rage-filled response if they try to monkey around with old folks’ retirement and veterans’ pre-paid benefits.

local news, medical news

Placebo effect takes hold … maybe

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Three weeks into a nutrition and health management program run by the Veterans Administration and I am going to issue a preliminary progress report.

I signed up for this program a few weeks ago because I determined I need professional help with shedding the weight I gained after I lost my bride, Kathy Anne, to brain cancer. I devoured far too much comfort food and I paid the price with a lot of excess weight.

The program I joined is 16 weeks long. We just finished the third week of lessons delivered via online connection to my laptop here in North Texas.

Have I lost significant amounts of weight? Am I now able to look at myself in the mirror? No on both counts. However, there must be some sort of placebo impact taking hold of me.

Why? I feel better. It’s tough to define. I am proud of myself that I am able to exhibit some long-lost dietary discipline. I am keep strict daily logs of the calories I consume and the calories I expend through exercise and, well, just moving around and about.

I have heard about docs prescribing placebo medication — which, of course, is fake — as a sort of disguise to determine whether a patient is really sick. I will consider this positive effect on my outlook as a form of placebo I am receiving from the dietitian I am meeting each week.

I know that Billy Crystal’s SNL character “Fernando” would say it is “better to look good than to feel good.” Baloney. I feel great. I’ll settle for that gladly as I continue along this journey.

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Getting old is OK, however …

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Forgive me for reneging a little on a promise I made regarding this new nutrition and weight-management program I have just begun.

I said I wouldn’t bore you with nitty-gritty details I take at every step along the way. I want to share one item with you. So … bear with me.

The Veterans Administration has a program that teaches us how to control our meal intake and change our lifestyle. I have gotten far too heavy for my own liking. My dear bride’s passing from cancer nearly two years ago sent me into an eating frenzy I didn’t realize was occurring in the moment. But it was.

I am working my way out of that former life. I have just started that long journey. I have decided that my older age — I just turned 75 a little while ago — has robbed me of the discipline I was able to employ many years ago.

Once, in my mid-20s, I had gained a lot of weight. I decided to join my wife, who had just given birth to our first son, in a weight-loss program. It worked famously. I peeled off 52 pounds. If I may sound a bit conceited, I was proud of myself.

Those days are long gone. I have put even more weight on this aging body. I need professional help. I sought it out at the VA and the agency has responded by putting me on this program.

I am entering the program with an abundance of confidence, although I cannot yet declare whether it will bear the fruit I seek.

I can declare — therefore I will do so — that I need the help from the VA nutritionist with whom I am working. Just maybe she will keep me focused sufficiently to reach the finish line after completing my stated goal.

local news, medical news

New year, challenge await

Long ago, I vowed to cease making New Year’s resolutions for reasons you’ll understand … I don’t follow through on them.

So, what the hell is the point?

However, 2025 is going to mark the start of a new journey I intend fully to complete. I wrote on this blog a while ago that I have sought professional help to lose the weight I gained since February 2023. I buried myself in comfort food after losing my dear bride, Kathy Anne, to glioblastoma brain cancer.

I packed on way too many pounds.

I reached out to the Veterans Administration Medical Center where I get my medical care. They have a nutrition program at the Sam Rayburn Clinic in Bonham. On Friday I will engage with a nutritionist to begin a 16-week class on building a better, healthier lifestyle.

The VA calls the program MOVE. I don’t know what MOVE means, although the all-capital-letter identifier suggests it’s an acronym; I’ll ask when I sign in Friday morning.

I used to have sufficient self-discipline to accomplish weight-loss goals by myself. That discipline has vanished. I decided to admit to a lack of self-starting ability. The VA has been most helpful in preparing me for the start of this class.

My weight-loss goal is substantial. I hope to achieve it by the end of 2025. I figure that if I succeed in meeting the MOVE goals during my class period, I’ll reach my target weight according to plan.

I won’t chronicle my progress regularly on this blog. I am taking a moment today to tell my friends and family members — and others who read my messages — that this old man is about to try a new approach to achieving what we all want … to live a long and fruitful life.

I am not yet ready to check out of this Earthly world. Therefore … I’ll see y’all at the end of the road.

local news

New journey begins

High Plains Blogger came into being as a political platform for yours truly, but I decided a while ago to branch it out to include what I call “slice of life” matters.

I have chronicled my grief journey on this blog and it has given me great comfort in the time since I lost my dear wife, Kathy Anne, to brain cancer.

I am proud to announce that this blog is going to accompany me on another journey. It’s a weight-loss trek called MOVE!, and it is run by the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

Not long ago I rolled out from a fitful sleepless night feeling crabby, out of sorts, and I had pain in several parts of my overfed body. I hadn’t stepped on a scale in some time fearing what I might learn. That morning, I did … and I was bowled over by the number that flashed at my feet. That number told me I gained more than 40 pounds since the passing of my bride. I had smothered myself in comfort food.

I have tried dieting on my own. I have tried exercise routines on my own. They did nothing for me. What did I do next? I reached out to my VA doc and told of this struggle. What did she do? She arranged for me to visit a nutritionist at the Rayburn VA Medical Center in Bonham. where my doc works.

I visited with the nutritionist and told her the following: I am old fat man, I am grumpy a lot of the time, I don’t want to look at myself in the mirror, I am in constant pain, my vanity is taking a serious hit because of the way I look. I am reaching out for professional help!

The nutritionist delivered to me a detailed program titled MOVE! She told me veterans have enjoyed considerable success in peeling off the pounds. There appears to be a serious caveat: You gotta follow it to the letter! No cheating allowed! I must set goals, establish a firm eating pattern, exercise regularly, the whole nine yards, man!

OK. Deal. I’m all in.

I will not bore you to sleep with all the nitty gritty of what awaits this tired old man. I just want to share with you a life-changing decision I have made … and one that I intend to follow to its successful conclusion.

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Go get ’em, VA

It’s been a while since I last sang the praies of the Veterans Administration, on which I depend for my primary medical care.

So, I’ll offer a word of praise.

An unusual event occurred today. I returned from a vacation in Greece. Then I developed a pain in my right foot. It continued to worsen. I called my physician at the Rayburn VA Medical Clinic in Bonham. I got a physician’s assistant on the phone and told her of my concern. She recommended I check into an ER today to have someone look it over.

I did. I went to Medical City/McKinney, not far from my house. The PA had given the number of the VA’s hotline, which I called to let them know I had checked into the ER.

With that phone call, the VA became hooked up with a private medical provider.

The ER did an ultrasound, looking for evidence of a blood clot. They found nothing. The doc came out, counseled me on what to do, prescribed some high-powered pain meds he said would attack the inflammation in my foot. “We are going to treat this as gout,” he said.

Fine. I was out of the ER and back home in three hours.

Not bad at all.

I am a major fan of this pre-paid medical care I earned from my two years in the. Army.

military news

This ‘sucker’ fires back

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As I look back over the past four days of the Democratic National Convention and its myriad examples of Donald Trump’s unfitness for public office, I am drawn to the one area that hits me right where I live.

It is Trump’s disrespect for those of us who have donned our nation’s military uniform. I am one of those “suckers” and “losers” who answered the call to duty when it arrived at my parents’ mailbox one hot summer day in July 1968. Uncle Sam summoned me to duty … and so I went to do as I was ordered to do.

Trump didn’t do that very thing. He avoided service through those infamous bone spurs.

The DNC highlighted — or “lowlighted,” if you prefer — Trump’s utter disdain for those of us who did serve. Former GOP U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois stood before the convention and decried Trump’s disrespect for him. So did U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, a candidate for the Senate in Arizona — who brought along a number of veterans to embrace his condemnation of Trump. So did Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former Navy pilot and former astronaut.

Then we had former Defense Secretary, former CIA director, former congressman Leon Panetta echo all of that as well.

Trump never should have donned the commander in chief’s mantle in the first place and he damn sure should never assume that role ever again.

The men and women who serve in our military deserve to have complete trust in their commander in chief. Vice President Kamala Harris, nominated last night to confront Mr. Bone Spurs in this year’s campaign for the White House, pledged to maintain and support the world’s most “lethal” fighting force if she is elected president.

She also has pledged to protect all the “pre-paid” benefits our veterans have earned through their service to the nation we love beyond all measure.

I believe in Kamala Harris’s commitment to those who continue to serve with honor, distinction and valor.

medical news, military news

VA deserves shout out

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough has earned a shout out from one of his constituents.

That would be yours truly. Me. Myself.

He said today in the White House press briefing room that more than 1.4 million veterans have received vaccinations to protect them against the COVID-19 coronavirus. Of that total, he said, more than half of us have received both doses of the vaccine, meaning that we’re totally inoculated (or we ought to hope for the best) against a virus that has killed more than 500,000 fellow Americans.

I was able to get vaccinated through the North Texas Veterans Medical Center. The first vaccine required a bit of a wait, but I could spare an hour of my time. The second one was slick and smooth; in and out in 20 minutes.

As a proud Army veteran who signed up with the VA some years ago, I want to thank the Department of Veterans Affairs for the great care it has given me during my enrollment.

I get that Secretary McDonough has been on the job only a short time. He’s the man standing watch now, so he gets the shout out, as do his predecessors.

Thank you.

national news

Boorishness goes bipartisan

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well now, what are we to make of this item?

Just as the political world is all agog over the troubles descending on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who stands accused of sexual harassment by three women, we hear about a Republican member of Congress who’s been accused of the same thing … plus of drinking and taking sleeping pills on the job.

I happen to believe Andrew Cuomo ought to resign and return to private life.

What about Rep. Ronny Jackson, the newly elected House member who represents the congressional district where I once lived?

It turns out that Jackson, a former Navy doctor who once served as White House physician for three presidents, has been accused of misbehaving badly while caring for commanders in chief George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Here is part of what CNN.com is reporting: The Department of Defense inspector general has issued a scathing review of Rep. Ronny Jackson during his time serving as the top White House physician, concluding that he made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinate, violated the policy for drinking alcohol while on a presidential trip and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that prompted concerns from his colleagues about his ability to provide proper care.

Well …

Rep. Ronny Jackson drank alcohol and took sleeping pills on job as top White House physician, watchdog finds – CNNPolitics

Jackson moved into the district in 2020 to run for the House seat that became vacant when GOP Rep. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon chose to retire from the House after serving for 25 years. His candidacy was fascinating from the get-go, given that he never lived in the 13th Congressional District. He was born in Levelland, Texas, but moved away to pursue a career in the Navy; he achieved the rank of rear admiral while also serving as physician to the three presidents.

None of this should surprise anyone, if you think about it. Donald Trump nominated Jackson to become secretary of veterans affairs, but then the fecal matter hit the fan when allegations surfaced of alcohol abuse on the job as well as his alleged habit of writing prescriptions for drugs that, um, weren’t necessarily for medicinal purposes.

Now the DOD inspector general is examining fresh allegations against this guy.

Nice …

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I love being a statistic

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK, I am just a number, but I welcome it.

I happen to be one of the 15 million or so Americans who’s been completely vaccinated against the COVID-19 pandemic. My bride will join me in that category of Americans in just one week.

What I want to report is that today’s second dose of the vaccine was done with a fraction of the anxiety of the first one. How is that? No lines, man!

We drove again from Princeton, Texas south along U.S. Highway 75, through Dallas and ended up once again at the North Texas VA Medical Center. We parked our truck and walked in.

I peered down the hall, looking for a line of veterans waiting to get vaccinated. There were none there! Huh? The nasty weather might have kept some folks from making the trip to the VA center. A VA staffer told me the morning crowd was much larger. Whatever. I guess I am the master of impeccable timing.

I checked in and then was ushered immediately into the large room with 20-something booths where vets were receiving their vaccines.

The nurse peppered with a few questions about my health at the moment. I answered them correctly, I got the shot in the arm, walked into a waiting room for the obligatory 15-minute post-vaccine observation period and then walked out. My wife and piled into our truck and returned home.

In and out in, oh, 22 minutes!

Wow! I will sing the praises once more for the service I receive from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA came through for me when I needed it. I expect the same kind of treatment for my bride when she reports for her second vaccine provided by Collin County’s Health Department.