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| Again, sorry for the little guy buy if she doesn't care about my family, I don't care about hers |
I started complaining about my legs in 07 (I enlisted in '89) but one can't blame everything on the Army, I love the Army. I always have, I always will. Now, between '92 and '05 I have had a couple of breaks in service and in '07 I had or thought that I had (not so sure now) some really bad prostate problems at the time. I mean the hole time my legs were going numb and it felt like somebody was in side of me cutting their way though that spot between my Johnson and you know what. I was always told, what do you want fixed. Immediately my response was, I want this knife to stop cutting me!!! Then it comes to me being in the shower one morning (you know, those 40 seconds as a Drill that you get before you go to work) and I there was a lump. That scared me. I went in, talked to the Boss and said hey gotta go to the Doc. Doc said yep, you gotta tumor and its gotta come out. I was like OK, so what's the next step? When's the biopsy? His words, "Oh, no biopsy, testicular cancer moves to quick, we just cut them out". True story. I said no, they did a second ultrasound and decided not to, I still have them both incase you are wondering.
Legs still Jacked up by the way, no one wants to listen. I'm mid way into '09 and I'll be honest I was off active duty doing nothing but looking for work and fell asleep on my couch with my legs on the coffee table and man, I got up and they just hurt. I mean like I just did a 20 mile road march and yes, I do know what 20 miles humping 100 pounds is. Next night in the bed but same thing. Third night, I could not move my legs, AT ALL. Thankfully my bathroom was right off the bedroom because I had to roll myself off the bed and drag myself to the toilet, then pick myself up. All of my battle buddies were gone by then and couldn't call my ex, she'd just laugh. It took about three days for me to get my legs under me in order to drive myself to Louisville VA. To proud to call for help, as long as I could drag myself. My first time at the VA, I think it took me about two hours to get from BFE parking to the ER. The good Doc examines me and sends me home with a script. Needless to say, all of those pills went down the toilet. Yes people, I'm sorry but I tried one and I just can't do pills. However, they do send me home with an appt. for an EMG.
So I get to the EMG and nothing, they don't find anything wrong. OK, no big deal it's just in my mind and they are "getting" better just not full functioning. Yeah, whatever. By this time, I'm back in the USAR (just one, one of the reasons why I hate the Guard/Reserves) my 1SG tells me no problem, if we need to come get you, we will. Not gonna dime him out, but if I need to I will. We're talking about two hours one way. In the same time frame they gave me not one but two flu shots and wanted me to do a PT Test the next day. I said OK, I did 11 and 11 and had myself a nice 2 mile walk. Since then..... They busted me from Staff to a Pvt but that's neither here nor there. Back in '06 I broke my wrist and right pinky in Combatives class. I hate Army medicine so bad it took me three weeks to go the doctor and then only when it got to the point where I couldn't open a door. They stick me in a "munster" cast and send me home with the 800mg of IB. The cast immediately came off (damn that thing hurt) and after three weeks of showing up at OT doing stupid exercises I said, "yep, all healed, all's good to go". I bring this up only because the Army diagnosed me with Carpel Tunnel Syndrome and as of 2014 the VA says, nope, no CTS found. BTW, the pinky was never set and the bottom joint is as big as the knuckle and constantly locks up.
So the pain is getting so bad, both physical and mental. I can't even sleep with my wife without the beating her down during the night due to the nightmares. Constant fighting in my sleep, waking every hour or two with night sweats/night terrors. Between '09 and '12 I can't hold a job. Nothing but a temp job here and a temp job there. I'm self medicating with alcohol to kill the pain when I get off work. I'm drinking when I'm not at work so I can sleep without nightmares. I "had a dream" that I went into work one morning and hit a car in the parking lot. I never got out of the car, just put it in gear and went home. When I "woke up" I looked at my wife and said take me to the VA, I need to get cleaned up. She packed my toiletries and a couple days of clothes in a 1989 model Ft. Sill "Red Leg" duffel bag and off we went. After six hours of sitting in the ER waiting room they take me back to triage and send me home with an appointment for the Ft. Knox VA clinic two weeks later. I went home, depressed and needless to say, I got drunk. I didn't make that appointment, my health continued to fail and I have not worked at all since early 2012. In March of 2014 I had a seizure.
This was my first and only "witnessed" seizure. I don't know if I have had any before or after. I say witnessed because my wife can spend 13 to 15 hours a day away from home do to work. If she sleeps 7 to 8 hours a day then we have very little time to spend together on her work days. Living alone, sometimes I really don't know. I do know that I have missed time. I do know that I have "woken up" in a different room. It's very scary and hard to explain. ALL 100% SOLBER. I do know that since the seizure I have had multiple issues addressed by the VA. I say addressed because I have an open VA disability claim and the doctors that I see will not or can not give a diagnoses. In late March of 2014 I started working on a disability claim for the SSA and the VA. Both of which I've had to do by myself and with the help of my wife.
SSA. My wife drove me down to the SSA office in Elizabethtown, KY to fill out an application. We get down there and the wait wasn't to bad, only about 45 minutes or so. However, when we do get a chance to speak to somebody, they say we needed X, Y, and Z. Of which, we did not have and we needed to get it, but he suggested that we might want to do a phone interview as opposed to bringing everything down there with us. I get a letter in the mail. stating time when the call would take place and Jo (my wife) ensures that she will be present for the call. She does most of the talking. Together we get the forms filled out. A month later I get another letter stating that they need X. Two months later I get a letter stating that they need Y, and so on. Eventually, they denied benefits partially do because they made a decision on the fact that they don't have proper Army/VA records and the fact that they make a diagnoses on the basis that they can't get records for the eye doc that the VA sent me to. Not that it matters, but denied again and now I have an attorney.
VA. I should have started my claim in '92 but to be frank, I thought it was all BS and anybody that filed a claim of disability (without missing a limb, etc...) was full of nonsense. I started mine after the seizure. Understand that my last year of active duty, I worked with these people (VA reps) on a weekly sometimes daily basis. I was lucky enough to be the NCOIC of the Ft. Knox a RSRP site and seen the VA reps that often. Finally after the inability to work, I try to file a claim with the VA rep at Knox. I was told can't help you. Come see me when you have all of your med records, hard copy only, nothing digital. I, of course, said who could expect anything less in this day and age of a paperless Army and a paperless government, right? The wife and I go to IACH at Knox and file a request for med records. They said about six months. I had my those records in about thirty days. She and I then go to VAMC in Louisville, KY to request records.... I was told 30 to 60 days. Sixty days come and go. I then show up at the records request office at the LVAMC and request the same records, at that point I was told, "she has been out and they are still on her desk", OUT, REALLY, FOR HOW LONG????? But I filled out another request. Long story short a total of three request I finally get my records. That are incomplete, just so that you know. Then I call the DAV. In turn, they turn me onto the local DAV rep in E-Town. His words, "Throw it away, I've been doing this job for twelve years, I've helped over a thousand Vets and their families, I know what's going to go though and what's not. You might as well as put that in the trash". At that point I decided to do it on my own, on the web. Probably not a good ideal, because I just had no clue what I was doing. Since then I have received three letters stating that my claim is important to them and it will be taken in the order in which it was received, lol. And since then I have read one article where a woman's claim was finalized after 24 years and another after 17 years.... And since then.
The VA has told me I have degenerative bone disease, (as you were, the records state that I have) I need neurosurgery on my cervical and lumbar spine. There are three to four vertebra that are limiting or have closed off SPF between my C-4&6 and L3-&7. All due to alcohol. They have also acknowledged bone lesions. Due to alcohol. I had to have a bone biopsy on my left pelvic bone. If what they did to me then wasn't arcane enough wait to you hear about what they did to my eyes! After sticking me in an out of this machine again and again (drilling), the main guy tells the other guy AND SAYS," we're just not getting it". The other guy states, "well, look he's moving his leg", then they ask me if I can feel it?????????? Needless to say I said of course. After talking to the doc ole boy reached up grabbed my IV and that was the last thing I remember until it was all over with. Thankfully, soon after, my wife was at my bedside and took me home. A couple of weeks later I meet with my Primary Care Physician (PCP). My PCP (whom I LOVE) wasn't sure about what was going on so she suggested some more test. I did the test and NP. She gave me another referral to neurosurgery. In the mean time I have this going on with my eyes and my mind.
I'll start with the eyes because it's the easiest. I have never had a "real" eye exam my entire life. I could pass my Army exams with 20/20 and had no problem. But, by the time I got off active duty in '09 I could tell that we they were getting a little weak, not much but weak. After the seizure I cold not see a thing. I could see what I was seeing but my brain couldn't process it quick enough to make sense. I would/still have to slow everything down so I can function. I think I can read the eye chart and soon there after I can. It's just a matter of what day and how long it takes me. But when I had my first real "eye exam" it wasn't with the VA. It was with Dr. Biszer's, a VA off site referral. Yea, I don't mind diming you're a$$ out. Dr. Biszers in Elizabethtown, KY told my wife, "wait till his glasses get here, he and sees what you look like, he may not be married anymore", (yep, that's what you got working for you). I didn't hear, b/c if I did we'd be one less eye doc in the world. At which point I only had been making up to six appointments a week to the VA. Jo would always walk up to the eye clinic and ask if there was anyway I could get in any early. You see, I can not see anymore and I definitely can not see colors and brightness kills me. Without sunglasses, count me out, just can't open my eyes. After three sets of glasses from the VA I still can't see. I asked for transition lenses and got them but when I received them they did not work, when I took them back to the little "store" inside the VA hospital for glasses, I was told, "well, they don't work behind glass". I asked, "how am I suppose to see how to drive"? The response was, they don't work behind glass. Now all that said, let me tell you about my eye exams. Because to be honest with you, I don't have enough experience in the matter. I have always had a good exam, never had a problem with my eyes. At least when I did my Dr. Bizsers exam they did the gluclomo test and they just shot air into my eyes. Unexpectedly, but that's all they did. Six months later when I got to the VA they stuck this metal probe into my eyes. Both of them!!!
They literally put drops in your eyes, take this metal probe, expect you to look at it while they poke you, No Stuff. The eye "doc", who was doing this to me said you can't feel it, just hold still!! I looked at the little college Co-ed who was doing this to me and said, "WTF, you have contacts, have you ever had this done to you"??? Her reply was no! Maybe I should before I except you to do it? You think, was my reply! Last time I went to the eye clinic at LVAMC was in Feb of this year. Again they poked my eye so bad that eye (no pun intended) could not see. The day after my eye was watering so bad still could not see. I "looked" at my wife and said no more. You have to understand that the last person that my wife and I talked to was an optomolidgist and not an optometrist. This guy looked right at me and said, "Well, you're not driving? You can't drive, I mean legally you can drive but morally you can't". EXACT WORDS!!! The VA doc's can say stuff like this because they don't won't any responsibility. You see, I have an open VA claim and they can not make a definitive diagnose. Which I understand. Same guy looked at me and said, "You're just an alcoholic, right?". But what you need is a Nuero optomologist. Even told me the best Nuero optomologist in the nation is from Lebanon Junction, KY. Which is where I live now, just out side of Knox.
But you see people, I'm not a medical doctor, but just maybe, I mean just maybe, that there's something to be said about Gulf War Syndrome! I mean, I can't even ask the person (that was) considered my best friend, closer to me than my brother, to admit that we took those pills. We took "NAP" pills. Nerve Agent Pills, we did this because it was suppose to build our "tolerance" against nerve agent, the same thing SH was going to throw at us. They lined us up, made us take them. To ensured we did not cheek them, then when it was all said and done counted the ones we turned in... They came in little foil backs, just like you could buy sutifedde, white front. They read NAP Pills, Nerve Agent Pills. We did this all the while burning human faciese and urine with diesel and Mo gas for months prior and then made our way back though the oil fields.
This is a difficult decision for me. My plan was never to admit this to anyone but maybe I'm being selfish, and if it was then God please forgive me. If that's the only thing He has to forgive me for than I am a lucky man. For those of you that know me, for those of you that don't know me, you better never let me hear a word of this come out of your mouth. If I hear one word of it, it'll be two in the chest one in the head day,,,,, Just Saying!!!
I peed the bed. I peed the bed every night from the minute they gave those pills us until the night that we moved forward. We were already on/at/in the boarder so it was not fear. Or maybe it was, either way we were shooting. I wasn't afraid of killing someone and I wasn't afraid of dieing. I was afraid of someone would learned that I had peed "the bed" my sleeping bag. My bag which laid on the ground. My bag that laid on the ground and I was so very thank that the rainy season had ended (even though it was frezzing cold) that I could grab some (dry) sand, rub it in the bag pour it out and do it again before I had to go to OP. I was glad that we had moved and had no time for bags, we had a poncho and poncho liners on the ground. I did that until we got back down south. It wasn't fear fear my friends, I'm not afraid of anything walking on God's Green Earth. I'll take on any man walking; however, if you throw in some heights or a bee, you'll see me squeal like a 12 year old school girl.
Last summer I crashed on the couch for a bit, was fighting in my sleep and ended up kicking the coffee table so hard I thought I broke my foot. It took two months for the mark to go away. Just the other day, I was napping on the couch and had another nightmare. Jo, was on the loveseat. I woke up and she said, "I'm surprised you didn't break your hand". Appearently, I had hit the table, it hurt, but would never admit to it. I was like, yea, NP. Constate nightmares, either falling/jumping out of a plane or war. Doesn't have to be over there. I can have them about Veitnam, never been there. But falling, always. Sad thing is, my Mother, God rest her soul. I was just a kid we were living in Fayetteville, NC. Seeing those muroon berets, man I just wanted one. My Mother would say, "David, there's only two things fall from the sky and that's bird shit and fools. You are not either one of them!". Sometimes, don't you wish you would have listen to your mother? BTW, all due to alcohol.
So there I am last summer sleeping on the couch. I wake up and my left chest is sore. NP, right? I fight all the time in my sleep and I just figure I hit myself (my wife beats me, please help). I don't know maybe I fell asleep on the remote, you know anything. Couple of days latter, still sore and I'm in the shower. I'm soaping up and feel a knot on my left nipple. I call the wife and she fells it Yep, there's a knot. So, I "secure message" the my health care team. I one thing I can say good about the VA is this guy ALWAYS gets back to me. But my message went something like, hey gotta be in there on Thursday can I stop by and have one of the nurses give me a breast exam? I have touch many of boobies (I love boobies) but really I have no ideal what I'm doing, I don't know if this is something I should be worried about or not. Instead of e-mailing me back, this guy calls me and says nope the Doc want to see you. But listen, she is squzzing you in and doesn't have a lot of time so just that. Let her check out and be done. I'm like NP, I'm there anyway. You have to understand that I'm poor and broke. Haven't worked in a very long time but I still don't want to waste the VA's resources, I could have been just fine with a nurse checking me out. The Doc comes in, does an exam and agrees there is a lump. She give me a referral to get a mammogram. That comes back as nothing but gynoplascimia. Due to alcohol. I mean I just gained thirty pounds in two months sitting on my butt. Where is the weight going to go? My tummy, my butt, and yes my boobies. At my peak I was 168 pounds and then went to 119. At that point I was back up to a buck fifty and had nothing to do with alcohol.
I have problems speaking, I know what I want to say just can't get it out. I can talk to my wife just fine. I can talk to my therapist or so I think. I have memory issues, both long term and short term. I can not spell, count, or throw. I walk with a cane. All due to alcohol. I was a Drill Sergeant in the US Army and could do all these things. Very well, I might add. I wouldn't call myself Einstein but I would like to call myself a little bit smarter than the average bear, before the seizure. I once ran twenty miles because my Section Chief (Go Staff Trott) told me I couldn't. I have five rolls of Ribbons on my Uniform along with two sets of Wings and a DS Badge. None of that means anything to me any more. What I want, what I would like is someone to tell me why I can not walk with out a cane. Why I can not see. Why I can not count, etc.. I would like someone to tell me why I cannot speak without thinking about what I'm going to say three days in advance. What I want is the ability to get up and go to the latrine without thinking about left right, left right.
Besides all of the physical issues that I have (Due to alcohol) we come to the mental health of the VA. The first person I meet outside of the hospital was a VA mental health social worker. Eventually I realized that I could get on line and get my records (or at least some of them). Well, this chick went on and on about how I praised her when it came to her "turning me on" to my shrink. When I meet the good doctor all was fine. Then I meet another VA head shrinker. His words to me were, "We only have thirty minutes, what do you need from me?"............ Enough said on that? I went along time without alcohol and I'm fine with that. The gabapentin kills the pain spikes and I can live. I can not sleep, at least not without nightmares but that's fine. After 20+ years I guess one gets use to it. I did recently talked to my main head shrinker on the phone. My wife had a question for me and I didn't really know how to respond so I called my shrink and left a message for her. She called me back on a late Friday afternoon, and her words to me were, " Call me back on Monday, you're drunk". I mean really, she was my last hope. Since then I cancelled all of my VA appointments. I just can't deal with it anymore. I loved my therapist, I really did. She was a ray of hope for me, but I'm so tired of people telling me it's due to alcohol..........
I cancelled all my remaining VA appointments, including the surgeries. One would think I could type up a quick paragraph and post it. Truth be known it takes a good day to type one out. Mainly because of my mental status but also my wrist. I just can't sit and type, they lock up on me. They hurt if I move them, they hurt if I don't. Due to Alcohol!! I have a lot more to say but it took me two weeks to write this, if I continue then it'll be another seven months.
