Good Afternoon. I guess you are wondering why I called you here today. Just kidding. We’re babysitting my son’s dog for a 4-day stint while they go on a minivacation. As you can see in the video below, Daisy is pure 120 Volt AC. She doesn’t have any off switch as near as I can tell. The house is a wreck but hey. She only pooped inside twice and it’s because she hasn’t developed the ability to hold it in for a while. I reckon my digestive system would be working overtime too if I was running around at 78 RPM. 

I wrote our new VA Secretary this morning after reviewing a client’s file. Calvin won his HCV claim with extras at the Board but they remanded a few things that were ambiguous in their minds. Keep in your mind the idea that Calvin uses a VAMC. They know more about him than he knows. That means the VBA also knows more and is in constructive possession of same. VA also knows it would be a fool’s errand to use 2015 records to finally rate him in ’24 but that’s what they do and that’s what they did. Why? Because then they have to do brand new adjudications and get even more points for more work accomplished.

Redact BVA win 10.31.23

Redact RD 12.15.2023

Here we are sixteen months after the BVA decision waiting on them to grant. Now they want yet another c&p. We even went and got another addendum to our original IMO to include the Diabetes and the thyroid thing. Imagine filing for hyperthyroidism. You get that from using the Bug Juice (Interferon)  to kill the Hep C. Of course, the Interferon kills you, too, but it’s in that skanky fine print on the paper flyer that comes with it. The pharmacist throws that away before they hand it to you. After about 35 years, hyperthyroidism  turns into thyroid cancer. Who woulda thunk it?

Calvin had filed for the hyperthyroidism. After the 2018 surgery to remove the thyroid during the pendency of his claim filed in 2015, he now suffered the exact opposite-hypothyroidism. To add to the confusion, he filed for “brain fog”. It’s a fairly common term among those of us who were 35 years or so into advanced Hep C and a side of cirrhosis. It’s due either to a major depressive disorder or equally to hepatic encephalopathy. When the liver isn’t filtering out your blood, you get an ammonia buildup. In the brain, it manifests as -yep- brain fog. Thinking becomes hard work. You’ll find the term ‘hepatic encephalopathy’ under §4.114 DC 7312. That’s a doctor’s way of saying brain fog. But then, hypothyroidism creates cognitive dissonance or…. brain fog in laymen’s terms.

To supersize the confusion, let’s throw in arthritis. There’s three kinds. But, because VA’s Hep C rating is imported from the old Hepatitis B Diagnostic Code (7345), VA uses the antique ‘arthralgias’ which means ‘joint pain’. Since none of us are doctors, we really don’t get to say one way or another what it is. We can’t win because of this Three-card Monte game. If you choose arthritis not otherwise specified, it’s arthralgia. If you picked osteoarthritis, it’s rheumatoid arthritis. It you picked rheumatoid arthritis, then it was psoriatic arthritis. Heads I win. Tails you lose.  Shit. I thought all you Veterans were hip to this game.

Calvin’s now-diagnosed hypothyroidism has been inspected, detected and rejected because…duh.  He didn’t file for hypo. He filed for hyper. The c&p clinicians have been carefully writing it all down in their c&ps but VA’s ICU2 magic scanning computer doesn’t pick up on the difference between hyper and hypo. Hypo doesn’t fit the search parameters. Neither does brain fog or arthralgia for that matter. Calvin’s been up shit creek for sixteen months and eighteen -18-  in-person c&ps, medical opinions and ACE reviews. And each time it comes back, it goes to a different VARO where a different coach looks at it and says ‘what the hell does hypothyroidism got to do with any of this? He’s hyper.  Run it through the TERA/ ILER computer, check his MOS and deny it. Send the Vet a letter and tell him to file a claim for hypo.’

 So, I did what any self-respecting representative would do. I went to the top, apologized for my forwardness and pointed out the Emperor was naked. In 2008, I got three c&p exams. One for the Porphyria, one for the GSW scar through my thigh and one for the residuals of my HCV. If I was filing for all this today, I can only guess it would be a whole bunch more exams and then the “clarification requests” and ACE reviews would begin to trickle in. And then the next battle of low ball ratings taking another 6 years to appeal up to the BVA and win.

And just to be a complete dick, I cc’d the jackwagon Coach who’s been riding herd on this off and on for all this time. Sometimes, you just have to cut the Gordian Knot, shoot the engineers and commence production. As they say in Rome Tempus est pecunia, baby. But hush my mouth. We know them Coaches all have been awarded Arthritic Tortoise Medals with several Oak Leave Clusters for Meritorious Delay Above and Beyond the Call of Duty.