MEB Trip 2015

Hello friends

Happy Thursday!

I hope this post finds you well. This seems like it has been a long week already, and it's not technically over. 

So we landed in Norfolk, VA around 7:30pm and had to wait over an hour because they lost our second van... how do you lose a van? I really don't know. It wasn't until around 10pm that we made it to our hotel in Newport News. I was very glad to get off the airplane and be done traveling because oh my lord I was in so much pain it was retarded. 

This is like the nicest hotel that I have ever stay in, in case anyone wants to know! I'm the only female who has their own room other then one of our escorts because we have an uneven number of females in our group. It's kind of nice because I really need my own personal space and since I am an insomniac, I leave the television on and that bothers people.

Monday was okay, we had to get up early and spent the day at briefings an getting our vision and hearing checked. Yep... my eyes are still getting worse and my hearing is the same. How I have good hearing when I have tinnitus blows my mind, but hey... that's cool.

Tuesday was our MEB Behavioral Health and Doctor visit, which was pretty much a waste of my time. The BH guy said my anxiety wasn't that bad, but I disagree with him. The good news is that whatever the MEB guy says doesn't hold much water in this process, it's all up to the VA to determine our ratings. My MEB doctor here is Asian and has a VERY THICK accent. He even acknowledges that some people might not be able to understand him because his English isn't that good. I didn't have any issues, thanks to some coworkers with Puerto Rican accents, but that is just me. This appointment was also a waste of my time because he just talked to me about the process (which I've already heard 3 times) and he verified what I was being MEB'd for.

Afterwards me and a group of 3 other people walked to the mall (it's across the street from our hotel). One of them, Ski, found these toys that children were riding and he paid to ride it for 20 minutes. Then another girl and I walked through Hot Topic and Old Navy before we walked back to the hotel.

Wednesday was my first day without any appointments. I spent most of the day hanging out in my room watching Rizzoli & Isles, Bones, and Castle! I also walked to Tuesday Mornings and then another 40 minutes (all together) to Michael's and back. I got some awesome new markers that I can't wait to play with!

Today was also a complete waste of my time... but kind of cool at the same time. We had to go to the Hampton VA for several appointments, and we left at 0730 and my appointment wasn't until 1100. I sat around for 2.5 hours for a 5 minute appointment. The doctor wanted to talked about my Tinnitus, which they can't test for. She asked me about how often it occurs, what it's life, and if it hurts. My tinnitus is almost constant, a high pitched noise in my right ear, which sometimes causes a loss of hearing for a few minutes, and it occasionally causes pain in my ear.

The cool part of today was I met a female Vietnam Veteran! I've never met a female Vietnam vet before, so I thought it was awesome. She worked with computers at D.C. before computers were what we know them as today! She was super sweet and we talked about why we were at the VA hospital and our outlooks on life. She let her granddaughter name her cane Charlie and she was impressed with my attitude towards life. She was fun to talk to!

Tomorrow is my general medical appointment at the VA where they determine my range of mobility and my disability rating. Apparently I am supposed to be twisted into a pretzel to determine these things, which I am not looking forward too. After that, my only other appointment is the VA Behavioral Health appointment which is next week! I have all the other days off, so I get to just hang out but maybe go hang out someplace cool.

Now I am going to go back to watching Bones on TNT!

How is your week so far?!?