Sometimes I write an entry and don't finish it right away. What with the Christmas season and all that other stuff, I forgot to finish this one up and publish until today.
View the old post that was finally published tonight:
Rage Rage Against the Failing VA System
By the way, while researching for this blog post (yes, I do some researching for blog posts!) I also found this blog:
PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within
That's a really interesting article about PTSD. I know that when my husband came back from Iraq after his first tour, he was diagnosed with PTSD and his military-assigned counselor thought he should not be redeployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Guess where he got redeployed to less than 6 months later? I have to say, the care my husband is getting at the VA in Boston is better than that he received in Rochester, NY. The VA in Boston really took the time to match him with an appropriate counselor (he went through 3-5). He isn't happy about his counseling sessions, but his nightmares are down to one or two a month- a huge improvement! However- it took nearly 2 years for him to have a regular counselor assigned to him and a regular treatment schedule set up. I shudder to think what a vet without his support system would go through in those first 2 years. I also have to say that the VA doesn't have a real great support system for the families of soldiers diagnosed with PTSD. I only attended 3 of the coping with PTSD (group) sessions before I flat out refused to go because if I continued, I was going to get myself sent to anger management. The group I was assigned to was not a good fit....
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