The Insanity

Today I am at my wits' end. My friend is very sick. She has numerous nasty symptoms and doesn't know what is wrong with her. Well, that's not exactly true. She knows that she lived for months next to a burn pit while deployed. She knows that before she left that location she started exhibiting just a small number of symptoms. She knows that over the last two years since she's been back the symptoms have multiplied and intensified to the point that she can't work at all. She knows the burn pit was the culprit, she just doesn't know what to do to get well. And the damn people who are supposed to be helping her find a cure are doing their best to throw up every roadblock imaginable. At one point a doctor tried to prescribe anti-depressants because he thought she was imagining all her symptoms.

Now, I'm not so naive that I think these people are evil. I know they are being directed, through miles of red tape and volumes of rules and regulations, to keep anyone from acknowledging that the burn pit causes severe health problems for our military members. But it seems no one has informed these medical so-called professionals that the Department of Defense has finally admitted this is the issue. They are a long way from finding the answers for these enlisted people who are suffering, but at least they're now willing to study the issue.

If this poor young woman doesn't get sent to the States soon so that she can get the tests run that she so desperately needs, I may start some sort of a campaign against the medical group that is causing all this unnecessary pain and suffering. They can't possibly be able to live with themselves knowing what they're doing to her and others like her. But maybe they don't know. Maybe that's my job -- to inform them.

I know this is not the most eloquently written blog, but I'm just so mad right now and I have to get it out. Maybe I'll go back and edit/rewrite later. For now, this is what I've got.