Not being heard or believed.

I hate not being believed.

That's happened a lot recently. But the pain of this one has been offset by a pain that came before. 

I want to take us back to COVID times. One of the darkest times in my life. 

When COVID was tearing through this country. Early on in the process I was pulled up from working in long term care and hospice to help run an emergency unit for COVID patients. These patients were residents of the Washington State Veterans Home. The unit was dealing with an outbreak. We had to stand up and isolate a unit and pull staff from all over the hospital to help provide care for these veterans and spouses. 

I was working in the Community Living Center as a nurse's aid. That portion of the VA was a two wing unit that was a rehab and hospice center. We had to clear all of those patients out and move them into other portions of the hospital to make our COVID unit. 

During my time on that unit I helped nurses from primary care navigate the EHR they'd never used before. I helped determine drip rates and start IVs. I helped structure our infection control measures. I spent my full work week plus one extra shift a week helping manage sterilization. And I zipped a lot of bodybags. I took them to the morgue. As someone from hospice that was often my job. 

And the whole time I had family members, people at church, and even some people who I called friends questioning if I was treating COVID victims. Some were blatantly antagonistic about it. And it got worse from there. 

After that I surge unit ended I rotated to the float pool. I worked mostly in the ICU and Urgent Care. During those two years infection control measures were a big deal and visits to the morgue continued. I zipped up more body bags during those years that I did in my time in hospice. I witnessed people who used hydrogen peroxide in nebulizer treatments or took pet doses of ivermectin in desperation. It wasn't an easy time. And it was draining. 

All that time even beyond the debates of masking, quarantine, and vaccination there was this question of whether or not COVID was even real. 

I couldn't talk in certain family or church circles about my day to day life. Anything I said would be questioned. Anything I tried to offer in discussions would be called political. It was disheartening and isolating. 

It drove me from medicine for a time. It caused levels of stress and anxiety I had rarely experienced before. It exasperated past concerns and challenges. 

Relationships were permanently altered. How well I could trust some people changed in ways that may never be repaired. 

There is something about being told the very thing you did most nights wasn't happening. That some of your worst moments were part of conspiracy they believed over you.

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I'm in a different place now. But I feel like something similar is happening when it comes to veteran care and what's being cut. 

I can't speak to federal workers in other departments. But I can assume similar things are happening. 

The firings, the cuts, the upheaval. It's not effecting a bunch of backroom bureaucrats. No it's effecting workers that do specific needed tasks and jobs. It's disproportionately effecting veterans. And the cuts aren't done yet. 

I was called hysterical at one point last year when I said this was the plan. I've been told I was lying when I related the changes that have happened this year. 

It's happening all over again. 

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I've often spoke that we need to look at data over anecdotes from trends. But I worry we're ignoring both at times in what's going here. There is a level of chaos and cruelty that is occurring that's hard to express. 

I worry where that leads us. 

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I don't know how to express what it's like to be disbelieved, but I hate it.  

This isn't about a movie. This isn't about an abstract idea. This is about jobs. This is about providing care that saves lives. 

Vets are asking about whether we are keeping our jobs. If services are being cut. If benefits are being cut.

That's just the VA. 

Imagine what this is like across the country. Real people are being effected. Listen to them. 

I'm more disappointed than before as I watch this play out. I am more numb. 

I want to do my job. But I don't know if people think it's important enough anymore. 

If not. Shit.