Miracle of the VA

Miracle of the VA

I have been going to the VA for more than 20 years, doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist, medication after medication. This past week I was informed that I am cured, that I suffer no longer from many disorders, because I do not have them or they have been “resolved” (whatever that is supposed to mean). All those years, all the meds, all that pain, and I do not know why the VA put me through so much when all it seems I had to do was one simple thing – get to a C&P. Yes, one simple C&P and the examiner wrote up that I no longer suffer from many disorders, they have been cured, or never were.

            Now I would be the happiest person ever had my body known that I had been cured as the C&P examiner put in the results. Unfortunately, my body doesn’t agree, well if I’m being honest, neither does a dozen doctors agree with what was written, a dozen VA doctors, including VA specialists. It amazes me that someone can, in good standing, look through records that diagnose one issue after another, see the plethora of medications tried to help ease the symptoms note the medications that I currently take and still come to the conclusion that I not only do not have the listed disabilities, but actual put they have been resolved.

            One of the extremes on the exam was the examiner came to the conclusion that my cervical spondylosis is a new and separate condition due to aging changes, and not due to the in-service neck strain. I place the first C&P results that I had done back in 1991, right after I got out of the military, that on the x-rays is the evidence of cervical spondylosis and the x-ray technician’s opinion was that I have cervical spondylosis, next to the new C&P exam results. But what happened? I mean the examination that I had gone to in September of this year, she had decided that this was a new condition, so I have to question, what is the definition of new? As much as I try and stretch the definition, I cannot seem to get new and over twenty years to equal.

            Maybe I would not be so very sarcastic if I hadn’t fought for 20 years for the VA to agree that it was service-connected, yet it is now listed as a disability, not related to the military but due to age. So is that what I have to look forward to? That my disabilities one day will all be related to age? I am not a medical doctor, but I can read records and now understand it really doesn’t matter what’s in your records. It seems that all the VA does is read the C&P exam, and take that opinion. No matter how many VA doctors state you have something, it can be rebutted and given more weight by a C&P examiner, no matter what experience and education that examiner has, or better said hasn’t. I thought a VA specialist would outweigh the general medical understanding that a C&P examiner had.

            Yes, I will be putting in a Notice of Disagreement, and it annoys me that I have to. My records are not a fight against VA and non-VA doctors’ results, but VA specialist against C&P examiner and the conclusion is that the examiner’s opinion wins out. The VA also seems to know exactly when to send out their decision. Mine arrived on my birthday, Happy Birthday to me. The next day I was in bed most of the day, and the next, suffering in pain from the disability that I have been told I know longer suffer from, that I take medications for every day. Oh if it was true, if it only took one appointment to get over, 20 years of suffering gone in a few hours, the miracle of the VA.