Veterans Administration Medical Center

Veterans Administration Medical Center - Portland

I’m a healthy guy (sort of).  I’m fifty-three.  I had a heart attack when I was forty-five, two rounds of stints, I don’t know how many minor strokes – and less than three years ago, one major stroke that paralyzed my entire right side.

I thought I would be better in three or four days (ha ha!).  I am better.  It took a lot more than three or four days.

Once upon a time, I started a web site based on a previous career.  I found I liked the web.  The web site became the most-linked-to-site in its field.  I researched.  I wrote articles about what was happening in search.  I was ready for Google before Google was popular.  I brought in a partner, I did this, I did that, I wrote newsletters, I wrote the content for the site, and I did really well.  Eventually…

…I sold the site.

I made money.  My partner made money.  A couple of people that helped out with software made money.  I paid taxes.

Then I set out to do it all over again.

A stroke got in the way.  Trust me, if you never had one, you don’t want one.  I told my cardiologist that I’d rather have a heart attack than a stroke (brain attack) (I’ve had both, so I’m qualified to say).  She said, “most people say that.”

I have no money left.  I spent it staying alive.  Doctors, hospitals, tests, procedures, and more.  Medical expenses took every penny.  And yes, I had medical insurance.  I maxed out at twenty percent and still got wiped out.

For five years in the eighties, I served in the Army (just five years!), but the Veterans Administration took over my medical treatment (once I found them).  I go to the VA Medical Center in Portland.

I’ve asked why they treat me.  They say it is the country’s way of repaying me.  “I was just in the Army for five years,” I say.  “It doesn’t matter,” they say…

I get choked up.

I get really choked up.  I can’t afford to pay anymore.  If it weren’t for the VA…

In March of this year, I had internal bleeding and was hospitalized for two weeks.  The Veterans Administration treated me.  If it weren’t for the Veterans Administration, I’d be dead.  If I had to pay for medical attention nowadays, I couldn’t.

Thank goodness for the Veterans Administration.