No surgeries can take place without a clearance from the vet's primary care physician. I can understand that since it's always a good deal to have YOUR doctor look at what a specialist surgeon wants to do.

I understand what happened in the spring back in March with Covid-19 when I was first scheduled to have part of my left lung removed to beat cancer. I was laid into private care for the surgery and my primary care MD would't clear me without a visit but she wasn't seeing anybody due to the virus. Like Marine radio men used to say, "What the f&%k, over". I had a 180-day window for this surgery and the calendar kept moving.

In early June a VA internist called me. We spent 20 minutes on the phone with a lot of medical questions and he cleared me for lung surgery. I didn't know the doctor but it was an "end around" to get me into proper care since my primary care physician was still not seeing patients with my "clock" running as a freebie with NYU/Langone/Winthrop.

I'm told my June surgery has cured me of lung cancer. Now it's on to my cataract surgeries to cure the blurry vision and enable me to look at my dick again. Just keep laughing - I am.

On August 26th the great VA eye surgeons Drs. Francis and Regina repaired my right eye and implanted a new prescription lens. These two women were a gift to me and my right eye is seeing near 20/20 today. My left eye is scheduled to be repaired on September 23rd.

But wait, there's more! New VA rules stipulate that I MUST be seen by my primary care MD before my second eye surgery and she's still not seeing anybody. What to do?

Your money-burning U.S. government has a solution. The VA has sent me a brand-new tablet (at no cost to me) with instructions so that I can videoconference with Dr. Shirley next Friday. She didn't give a squeaky fart about my lung surgery or first cataract surgery but now she's in the mix for my last 2020 surgery just when things were going well for me medically. It's like being a 17-year-old Marine private again - somebody always has to f&$k with you.

My home is hi-tech with broadband and Wi-Fi up the ass but the U.S. of A is sending me an expensive tablet so that I can play video games with a doctor I haven't seen since February.

Go figure. I think I might flash her if I can catch OK HD video.

That is where we have been headed for 40 yrs.

Well, prior to my second cataract surgery I received a brand-new Verizon tablet that retails for about a grand. The government instructions for getting into a videoconference with my primary care physician were useless but I was tech-savvy enough to get it working.

I vidoconferenced on 9/22 the day before my surgery. My blood and urine labs were fine so I was OK'ed for surgery. My eye surgeon and anesthesiologist are both MDs and could have done the same thing without all the bells, whistles and expense.

I have a great new tablet now that gets me on the internet for FB, horse racing and porn from every corner of the planet. It's got a label on it that says it's the property of the VA and U.S. Government but there are untold billions of dollars worth of government stuff floating around that never gets back to where it belongs. I'm betting this thing gets "lost" too. I told the VA I could get a video deal working with equipment I already have but Uncle Sam was worried about "software incompatibility". In other words, no government hack at the other end knew anything about nothing.

Another example of "Your Tax Dollars at Work".