Red Tape

It has been a while since my last post, and since I refuse to admit that the conception of this blog was a little to early, I will provide an update:

The dental screening:

This was actually pretty easy. I googled a list of dentists who do free exams for PC volunteers, found one in Long Beach, gave them a call and it was easy as pie, besides the fact that he recommended a teeth cleaning. Although, actually making it to the appointment on time was somewhat of a miracle. That is another story in itself. The dentist was very nice about it, and as we made small talk while he looked at my Xrays, he mentioned that he had always wanted to be a PC volunteer, and since he can't actually go, he does free exams for people who can. I thought that was pretty uplifting. Amongst the tides of doubt and skepticism I ponder about enrolling in the PC, it's always a breath of fresh air to find that the general public stands behind me.

The teeth cleaning will be happening in two days, at the dentist I used to go to back when I was still covered by my mom's insurance. My dad elected to pay for it, and set up the appointment for me.

The Medical Screening:

Thus far I have made very little strides in the medical evaluation. My PC recruiter told me that Veteran's Hospitals will commonly do the evals for free, although the two closest VAs (Santa Monica and Long Beach) refuse to do them for PC volunteers. The closest to LA that is rumored to do it for free is the Las Vegas VA. My attemps to effectively communicate with the personelle and phone operators at that facility have resulted in bupkis. The one lady I was able to verbalize an entire sentince to before getting transfered to a different department insisted that I need to come to the front desk to fill out an application. I informed her that it was a 4.5 hour drive to get to the front desk, and asked if there is some way I could at least know if that hospital offers free medical evals for me before making the drive. After several minutes of her confusion, and me rephrasing the previous sentence for her so that she could understand, she transfered me to someones voicemail who hasn't called back. I have since moved on with my life.

As I am in Sacramento for the holidays, with 2 weeks off of work, I will see if I can make significant strides in completing the medical evaluation. If the VAs up here don't work, I'll try the free clinics, and then if all that fails......I'll try, Kaiser my health insurance provider.