{"id":23861,"date":"2017-08-14T20:50:18","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T20:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=23861"},"modified":"2017-08-14T20:50:18","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T20:50:18","slug":"va-passes-first-semi-serious-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=23861","title":{"rendered":"VA passes first semi-serious test"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20120614a3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-23746\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20120614a3-300x210.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I am happy to report that the Thomas E. Creek Veterans Medical Center has passed its first semi-serious test regarding yours truly&#8217;s health care.<\/p>\n<p>Today was a significant step for me that resulted in some continuing physical therapy on a nagging pain that&#8217;s developed along my left leg.<\/p>\n<p>Its source is in the lower back, between a couple of vertebrae. That&#8217;s what my nurse practitioner diagnosed immediately about a week ago. The physical therapist I saw today verified that diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p>The PT&#8217;s name is Debbie. She ran me through some stretching exercises this morning. She looked at my spine, stretched my legs to make sure they&#8217;re the same length (they are), asked me quite a few questions about the pain, when it hurts, when it subsides, when and where am I most comfortable, least comfortable.<\/p>\n<p>Then she set up a twice-weekly schedule for additional physical therapy. I&#8217;ll be returning to the Creek center to meet with another therapist until the middle of September.<\/p>\n<p>Debbie has high hopes that the regimen will lessen the pain. I informed her it isn&#8217;t debilitating. I am able to function more or less normally, even with the hitch in my git-along.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and I was in and out of the physical therapy office this morning in 45 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>My sense on the care I am getting &#8212; and <em>expect<\/em> to get &#8212; at the VA medical center is that I continue to have faith that it&#8217;ll measure up to what the politicians promise for us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p><strong>A final note &#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As I was leaving today, Debbie asked me, &#8220;What branch of the service were you in?&#8221; I told her the Army.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Oh, that&#8217;s too bad. Your other physical therapist was in the Navy,&#8221; Debbie said with a huge smile. &#8220;After 9\/11, she just got mad and signed up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hey, no sweat,&#8221; I said, &#8220;my dad served in the Navy during World War II.&#8221;\u00a0I&#8217;ll also be sure to tell the sailor-turned-therapist that we all served on the same team.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am happy to report that the Thomas E. Creek Veterans Medical Center has passed its first semi-serious test regarding yours truly&#8217;s health care. Today was a significant step for me that resulted in some continuing physical therapy on a nagging pain that&#8217;s developed along my left leg. Its source is in the lower back, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=23861\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">VA passes first semi-serious test<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-medical-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23862,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23861\/revisions\/23862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}