UGH!

So here is a little rant about the broken system we call military health care. As some of you know I have been dealing with back and leg pain on and off for about 10 years now. Every time it gets a little worse I go to the doctor, he asks a bunch of questions in the office, then prescribes more ibuprofen and suggests anti depressants and sends me on my way, case closed. Finally, through a friend not through my doctor, I was able to get a MRI that actually gave an explanation of why this pain has been going on and on, a part of my lower back has slid over slightly out of place. Taking the results in hand back to my primary care doctor, a referral was put in place to go to the pain clinic and for physical therapy. This was on Dec 18th, and after making multiple phones calls to the numbers provided to me by my PCP office, then getting told that I needed to call a different number because dependents are not being seen now, then being told that is incorrect and you should be able to get an appt, then more calls with more confusion . . . you can see why it has taken over a month to get somewhere. OH, and mind you these referrals that you have expire in 30 days! So I show up to my physical therapy appt which wasn't even an appt, they only see initial referrals during WALK IN hours. Which is ridiculous because I have a referral that warrants an appt! My wait could be over 2 hours and the receptionist questions me as to why it has taken SO long to finally get here since my referral is dated a month ago. I explain the phone call circus that that has been my life for the past month only for her to return a look that says, "I don't believe you, your a slacker". I really could just go out on my balcony and scream for a couple of hours. I will tell you that by spending 20 minutes, that is right. . . TWENTY MINUTES with a physical therapist I not only get the news that 80% of the people he sees has this problem and with a little manipulation and some back strengthening exercises that can be done at home, we should be able to remedy this TEN YEAR OLD PROBLEM in no time! Oh and did I mention that he didn't suggest more drugs to take?!
Now mind you, the military heath care providers from the doctors to the extended medical staff are educated, competent people. They are just incredibly understaffed and under paid, with little to no resources and are tasked to take care of a major amount of souls, especially since the war has delivered broken soldiers to their door in bus loads. They want to do a good job and help people but the system doesn't allow it! Really it just comes down to that. How lucky am I that my medical problems pale in comparison to the many victims of this war. I can't imagine navigating this broken system with a major debilitating injury or illness. It is only going to get worse as the system continues to falter and the broken bodies pile up. So the question that I ask is this, "why aren't the men and women fighting for our freedom and loosing their way of life in the process, being treated better?" No one has an answer for this, which makes me incredibly sad as tears run down my face driving home from my huge, frustrating and time consuming accomplishment of finally getting treatment that helps.