Who needs a bloody skeleton or eerie music? The Veteran’s Administration (VA) is ghoulish enough.

I received my Halloween scare a day early, and it was a doozy, my heart jumped and my hands got sweaty.
A letter from the VA saying that they had reviewed my grandmother’s files and were wanting back 88% of the money she received from them for paying caregivers since the fall of 2015. We received a threatening letter in August.

I got home on August 28th, from a delightful vacation my husband and I took to celebrate his retirement, visit with family and view the eclipse, to Grandma in the hospital and the threatening letter from the VA.

I hustled around, when I wasn’t in the hospital or nursing home, or talking to doctors, social workers and therapists on the phone, getting copies of every canceled check she wrote to caregivers from September of 2015 to August of 2017 (her September check hadn’t cleared when I mailed the package to the outfit that is, supposedly, representing Grandma to the VA). Accompanying the package I sent a detailed narrative timeline carefully set up so that it was clear what the payments were for.

This is in addition to what must be at least a ream of other documentation sent over the two years.

After getting home from a trip to China to visit my son this month, I checked in with the outfit that is supposed to be dealing with VA paperwork for us and she said she had filed an extension and she needed two more things.

She did not notify me before I left on September 26th that more information was needed, and did not reply when my husband contacted her and asked if she needed more information. The deadline was October 16th. She received that package before September 15th.

So, when I got home and opened my mail last night I was…scared speechless.