VA hospital question

Well, not sure if this is the right forum to put this, or even if this is what this is supposed to be for, but my Drill Sgt told me to be bold and daring, so here we go. Tho now that I think about my DS was an asshole too, so. Anyway...kinda of a rant/question. Does anyone know what the process is to see a civilian urgent care clinic if you use VA health care? I'm 100% P&T and I get all my medical care, prescriptions, therapy etc. via the VA, except for dental. I'm getting frustrated because I've had a few somewhat minor, yet somewhat urgent, medical things I wanted to get checked out. I have PACT appts every 6 months and have one coming up in mid-Feburary; however, recently I had a blood pressure issue where the VA took me off my BP meds when i was impatient for MH reasons and discontinued them saying I didn't need them. 5 months later I spike a 155/114 BP reading, call the advice nurse who of course tells me to go to the ER. ER says they can't prescribe BP meds tells me go see you PACT. Contact PACT via secure message and they reluctantly have a nurse see me and re-prescribe BP meds reminding me that I have an appointment in February. Now, I've been having some "mouth pain" for about 2 months. I thought it was just dry mouth from MH meds or maybe thyroid meds, so i started to treat with OTC stuff, mouth wash, lozenges, drinking plenty of water, all to no avail. Tongue burns like fire all the time, hard to eat anything especially salty foods due to pain, gums hurt, hard to swallow, lips hurt. Keep treating with OTC stuff. My wife starts researching dry mouth treatments and comes across something on Web MD. Tells me to stick out my tongue. Warning kind of gross here!! It's got like a white coat on it, and i have a spot on the roof of my mouth too. Based on that and all my other symptoms she said It looks like i have oral thrush. So, i contact my PACT via secure message again. Message sits in unread status for 2 days. Check today, it's been read, but no response yet. I try to call my PACT, but there is no answer. So, do i just go up to the health care clinic and try and see a doc as a walk in, wait for a secure message response? Can i go to a local urgent care? I just want to get this checked out. It's very disheartening that the only method of seeing a doctor is at a 6-month appointment or going to the ER and sitting all day for non-emergency stuff and then being redirected back to you PACT that won't see you until your 6-month appt. Any advice or suggestions??