For all of you Vets submitting claims for bent brains syndrome, you would be advised to investigate the condition of your heart. If you have IHD or other heart-related issues, chances are, according to your friendly VA, it’s more likely than less likely that it is related to the pretzel brain syndrome. Check out this interesting link. And this one too.
Brownwater Jim is at it again.
Two 90-year-old Vets from WW2, Phil and Joe, had been friends all of their lives.
When it was clear that Phil was dying, Joe visited him every day.
One day Joe said, “Phil, we both loved playing baseball all our lives, and we played all through high school and the service. Please do me one favor: when you get to heaven, somehow you must let me know if there’s baseball there.”
Phil looked up at Joe from his deathbed and said, “Joe, you’ve been my best friend for many years. If it’s at all possible, I’ll do this favor for you.”
Shortly after that, Phil died.
A few nights later, Joe was awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to him, “Joe, Joe”.
“Who is it,” asked Joe, sitting up suddenly. “Who is it?”
“Joe — it’s me, Phil”
“You’re not Phil . Phil just died.”
“I’m telling you, it’s me, Phil,” insisted the voice.
“Phil Where are you?”
“In heaven,” replied Phil. “I have some really good news and a little bad news.”
“Tell me the good news first,” said Joe.
“The good news,” Phil said with joy and enthusiasm, “is that there is baseball in heaven. Better yet, all of our old buddies who died before me are here, too. Even better than that, we’re all young again. Better still, it’s always Springtime and it never rains or snows. And best of all, we can play ball all we want, and we never get tired.” And we get to play with all the Greats of the past.”
“That’s fantastic,” said Joe “It’s beyond my wildest dreams! So what’s the bad news?”
“You’re pitching Tuesday.”
Life is uncertain – Be Sure To Eat Your Dessert First!
I came across this 2013 Memorial Day article and video about “A Ride for Healing.” I’m taken aback. The Veterans of Foreign Wars did not offer membership to returning Vietnam veterans because the war was undeclared.
“You know what? We’ve got a wall in D.C. with 58,200-plus names on it,” Ulferts said. “You go tell them it wasn’t a real war, they died somewhere.”
I’m glad that the VFW is sorry but why now? This is a nice website but should this effort be filed under “better late than never” or “too little, too late?”
If you want to do something truly positive at this late date, get busy on helping veterans with HCV.
Editor’s note.
Rarely do I piggyback comments onto my fellow columnist’s posts but this is one time I feel it necessary. Few of you who were not there in Vietnam understand the loathing we felt from the American public. Hell, we probably loathed ourselves in private. There were times when I seriously questioned what I was doing there and whether God could ever forgive me. Eventually, being hard-headed and 20, I decided to piss on the fire and call in the dogs. I signed up for the second tour. If you’re going to Hell, you might as well go in style.
The empathy we Vietnam Vets feel for each other is something none can describe from any other war. Being despised makes the bond tighter than ever. Kiedove’s husband can probably confirm this. Being considered lower than whaleshit for decades requires some acclimatization. Suddenly being greeted by a Veterans Service Organization with the sobriquet ” Yo. Welcome home, brother” rings hollow-now and forever. They made their bed. Let them lie in it. My ultimate respect will always be for those who fought with me-not against me. As such, the VFW and I have nothing in common and never will. I actually have more respect for those who decided Canada was a viable alternative. At least they had the guts to stick with their convictions and not try to rid themselves of their leopards’ spots decades later. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Here’s a great article to include with any VA filing of cryoglobulinemia, secondary to HCV. It affects many when they go out in temperatures below 40 degrees F. The cryoglobulins precipitate into a semi-solid state and cause blockages in the very small veins of the hands, feet, nose and ears. When you return into a warm place, they liquefy again and the pain is indescribable.
Cryoglobulinemia is most often associated with Raynaud’s phenomenon described here. Hope this helps some of you to win your claims on this. Many have this and do not know it. VA is not inclined to do a test of the IgG immunoglobulins unless you pitch a bitch.
Member Dennis “pop smoke” of Hugfest fame sends us this one. Dr. Cecil has a lovely assessment on it as well. Great read.
Fukushima strawberry destroyer
While picking strawberries this year, I’ve noticed some genetic throwbacks. Apparently the gene pool is a little shallow when you let the same plants fester and reproduce for years on end unsupervised with no mitigation. Our family strawberry tree is becoming a straight line with no diversity. This incestuous situation is coming to a head at the Nod ranch.
I know. I hear the guffaws and laughter rising in your collective throats but you have to understand the enormity of the situation. Strawberry Fields is in trouble. Cupcake has put her foot down. I no longer am permitted to bring in berries that look defective. This happened when we got back from Hugfest. I humorously suggested that the deformities were being caused by the Fukushima Nuclear plant meltdown and subsequent release of radiation. That did it. If a berry is not perfect in every respect now, it becomes horse food. While Dude and Wally have no problems with this, the waste is stupendous. Apparently she doesn’t worry about them glowing in the dark down in the barn.
In addition, some of the berries have been “nibbled on” by birds and slugs. They really don’t consume much so the majority of the berry is intact. Since I am the chief cook and strawberry processor, I have, in the past, smuggled these in and surgically repaired them. These, too, are now persona non grata at the dinner table following my ill-advised Fukushima remark. This effectively curtails my available production to about 40% of it’s former amount. Fortunately my dogs have developed a taste for strawberries. They have no problem with glowing in the dark. In fact, if they become exceedingly ripe to the point of getting that weird grey fuzz on them, it doesn’t faze the dogs in the least. Dogs are not judgemental. Dogs have never heard of Fukushima. Grey fuzz is a flavor enhancer. The only problem is that they think it is acceptable to dine on strawberries at any time now. Consequently, they cannot be left outside unsupervised.
Cupcake went so far as to cull the last batch and illustrate what is passable and what is verboten.I had no idea women had such stringent strawberry rules- none whatsoever. When men pick berries, they get out the berry box. Pickin’ the berries, pickin’ the berries. No thought is given to size, abnormal shape or photogenic qualities. For men, the rule is red. It’s very cut and dried. They don’t taste good if they are green. It’s a very simple test. For women, the rules are far more intense and exacting. Not only do they have to be ripe, they have to be genetically perfect e.g. Fukushima-free. They cannot exhibit any evidence of being “partially sampled” nor can they have any of that grey fuzz on them. These rules are inviolate. I’ve caught Cupcake surreptitiously spot-checking my harvest technique when I come in following the misspoken nuclear humor . She’s about as subtle as a hand grenade.
For you men who are still clueless, I have assembled a photo gallery of what is and isn’t permissible. Here, for your strawberry edification, are the rules.
Acceptable berries look like this:
Fukushima berries suffering genetic defects usually look like this:
Due to Cupcake surveillance (which makes NSA spying like childishly amateurish), I can no longer smuggle these babies in and wash the grey fuzz off. These are now classified as dog berries:
Similarly, berries that exhibit any evidence of having been tampered with are not for harvest. I eat them while I’m picking now. If they are more than 50% compromised, I share them with Molly and Shadow. What the hey? There’s still plenty here for everyone in spite of the new rules.
Strawberry knowledge is strawberry power. If you men pretend these standards for consumption are of your own making, you will impress your spouses no end. They’ll think you are civilized and were brought up in a good home. Fortunately, I had a valid excuse. I had servants when I was a child. Nobody told me the strawberry rules.
Just a short note to report that today we checked out the Blue Button feature. We were able to view more VA health information online today but not able to download the information because the system is overloaded. With over 1 million users, they can’t handle the traffic. We’ll try again tomorrow morning and email our Congressman (Kline, a veteran) to report this issue.
Here’s the message:
You are reading this because the number of My HealtheVet users has exceeded our capacity while we undergo system upgrades. Please try again later in the day. We appreciate your understanding as we work to make My HealtheVet the best personal health record possible.
Thank you for all that you do for our country.
We looked at lab results and used secure messaging but a lot more information is reported when using the VA Blue Button. You have to have a premium account–a “P” will be next to the veterans name.
This is a great service but alas, not functioning as it should!
Amazing. I had no idea they were approved for any. Of course, I also had no idea they are still trying to make them fly as a sanitary delivery system short of hog-tieing you like a calf at branding time to keep you from flinching away.
Sylvia sends us this important knowledge to add to the HCV library of Bozo no-nos accomplished with jetguns over the ages. File this one under “What were they thinking?”
Tank in Korea
I came across a nice group of concise slides to share while researching Hensley v. Brown, 5 (1993). But first, here is the definition of what is considered a current hearing disability.
38 CFR 3.385 – Disability due to impaired hearing.
For the purposes of applying the laws administered by VA, impaired hearing will be considered to be a disability when the auditory threshold in any of the frequencies 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 Hertz is 40 decibels or greater; or when the auditory thresholds for at least three of the frequencies 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, or 4000 Hertz are 26 decibels or greater; or when speech recognition scores using the Maryland CNC Test are less than 94 percent.
Link to Slides:
HYPO: HEARING LOSS, Comedy of VA Errors Creates Lengthy Delays Answers and Advise
Excerpt from last slides:
Advice to Advocates
Two questions:
Have any ASKNOD readers written to the VA and received, copies of their audiograms and C & P audiograms–or examined them in person at the RO prior to making a decision to obtain a private medical opinion?
If a veteran needs to provide a private medical opinion for the VA to decide a hearing loss claim, shouldn’t the VA pay for it if the veterans do not have private health insurance?
Finally, this 2003 (#0304151) case was favorably decided by the BVA veteran (an armored tank driver in Korea) whose records were destroyed in the St. Louis fire. It gives a good overview of hearing loss issues and the information that Judge John E. Ormond, Jr. considered in his decision. It’s clear that the RO abused this veteran by making him appeal.
We don’t hold a candle to the seminal Two Mules for Sister Sarah. As some of you may recall, member Leigh and her husband sent me corn to plant this year. Leigh is fighting VA for HCV SC and is having a rough go. It seems VA doesn’t want to grant her claim. She recently underwent a liver transplant and it was pretty rough. The opportunity to do something for her was uppermost in my mind this spring. What better way than to show her how it takes less time to grow corn than to get the VA off their lazy asses and adjudicate her claim.
Alas, it isn’t to be. She will have to go to D.C. for justice. We hoped to avoid it but, as most know, jetgun claims are a bone of contention with them. While it is a fairly well established fact that the Munjis and Pedojets of yesteryear were horribly unsanitary, VA still clings to the myth that this is merely plausible and no one has ever been documented as actually being infected by one. This lends credence to the old saw that “If we don’t investigate it, then it didn’t happen” theory.
As you can see, being stage 4 with cirrhosis and poor health demands extraordinary measures. I’m inherently lazy about weeding so what better way to subdue the crap than to simply pave over it for the summer? Thus the groundcover you see is simply a way to avoid work.
Farmers crow across the midwest when their corn is “knee-high by the fourth of July”. Eat your heart out, Kansas.
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Bethanie Spangenberg
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Wesley McCauley
