#manchester va

[fiveyearsnotice]

‘Providing LGBT Informed care for Veterans’ training conference, Manchester VA,  03.26.2016:

“I’m getting really nervous...”  my companion on the right told me, quietly. “We’ll be all right, if they were gonna take us out they'd have done it already,”  I reassured her in the same tone, only half-joking.   My words, amplified distinctly by the mic I was wearing, drifted over the heads of the 45+ VA hospital employees seated in front of us. “Woah-” I said, sitting up straighter in my chair with a self-conscious grin, “-is this thing on?” 

-And that’s how the veteran panel part of the conference began. There are simply no words for what I had already watched happen in that room.  Granted, a collection of doctors, nurses and social workers from VA facilities all around New Hampshire were probably a more sympathetic crowd than most, but when it came to the parts of the conference that focused on transgender vets I could see it hitting them in real time.  Toni Maviki, (transwoman, educator, veteran, former police officer) gave a presentation on what it meant to be trans that had people tearing up.  Someone from the VA staff gave a mind-knumbingly boring powerpoint after that on their internal policy changes concerning LGBT vets, but it turned out to contain a wonderful surprise for US- 

It is now official VA policy to allow veterans to designate who should be considered family for medical purposes, regardless of blood or adoptive relation.  As in, your conservative brother can not fly in from Wyoming and tell your best friend of fifteen years to get out of your room.  This is huge.  Hands-down, this policy is going to save lives.

The panel I was part of was at the end of the conference, the wrap-up to tie it all together.  We answered their questions, we told our stories, we tried to put into words what they as medical staff could to to help keep us and others like us alive.  For my part, I stressed the importance of patient/staff trust, and that without it, everything else they did would break down.  They listened.  We made them hurt, and we made them laugh, and we made them think.

As they walked out of the conference at the end, back to their cars, and their home clinics and offices, I couldn’t help but think of ripples spreading out across a pond. I hope I’m right.

(note: I have a life outside the VA, but it mostly consists of work, errands, going online, and private stuff, so...)  

[markerhunter]

May 8, 1865: "I... march with my troops, and prefer we should not meet" No love lost between Sherman and Halleck

As the Armies of the Military Division of the Mississippi (the Armies of the Tennessee and Georgia) neared Richmond in May 1865, they were ordered into camps at Manchester, south of the James River.  The ultimate destination for these troops was Alexandria, Virginia.  And to reach that point, the troops would need to cross the James River at some point.  Richmond was the best place to accomplish…

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