MEN LIKE AU CHOCOLAT TOO

Posted on January 30, 2012 by asknod

Unfortunately, guys also like white socks with brown shoes. Big belt buckles are often another trademark of men here in the west. I’m interested in the wallets with chains attached to the big belts with the big belt buckles. What’s that all about? Seriously, do you get  plowed so frequently that it’s become a problem in the past?  Is the Alzheimer’s so bad that you misplace it fairly regularly in bars? I’m just making an observation, mind you. I noticed them mostly on motorcycle enthusiasts over the years and assumed they vibrate out of your pocket while riding. Now I see them everywhere.

While waiting to have a blood lab drawn this morning I happened to look across the waiting room at another man in his sixties. I’m lucky. My hair is just starting to turn grey. This old boy has had a harder life than me or saw a ghost. He’s seriously grey. What was weirder was that his hair was combed straight forward-all of it. It’ wasn’t a massive comb-over to cover a receding hairline. It was a massive comb-forward with something like Dippidy-doo goo to approximate a new frontal boundary. The effect was like a frozen, artificial widow’s peak iceberg, but more disorderly. Nothing was going to hide the fact that the hair had lost and was retreating. A sudden gust of wind would treat him the same way it does Donald Trump. I hate that when that happens.

Fortunately, I have a minder. I’m sure you’ve heard of these. If you ever manage to get into North Korea for a little downtime, you will get to meet one. When you leave your State-assigned hotel, you are accompanied by a free “government-assigned tour guide”. They help you find all the good photo shots and steer you away from embarrassing ones.  In my case, it’s a spouse with good taste. I think she’s embarrassed to identify with me or that friends in town will call her and ask if she knows I’m out and about unchaperoned.

In the old days  BH (before hep), I was allowed to leave home to go frame houses in just about anything. Steel-toed boots don’t come in accessory colors. Blue jeans could be color-coordinated in paint and ABS glue with the sweatshirt du jour. T-shits were chosen for their messages. I found a magazine with all kinds of neat ones and ordered several without clearing them with Chipmunk. The best one (“If it has tits or tires, you’re gonna have trouble with it”) disappeared mysteriously after the first trip to the laundry room. I’ve never seen it again. The same gradually happened with others over the years.

Now, in AH (after hep) life, I find my significant other lurking in the hallway around the garage door when I leave. Occasionally she has had to step in my path and give me that oh-so-painful looking pout. That’s followed by the usual “Honey, would you at least go look at your hair in the mirror? You just can’t leave here looking like that. Where did you find that hideous sweater? I thought I threw that out.” (She did).

So the new Nod has recently been born. I now actually look at my blue jeans to make sure they aren’t “work” jeans. They can’t have any questionable (visible) spots on them.  If the blue jeans are brand new, then all the tags actually have to be removed before wear. The socks have to match the shoes. Why? I have no idea. It’s just one of the rules. No one looks at your socks. If they do, then they’re weirdos and perverted.

White tennis shoes are fine with white socks. I know this now. Cupcake just blows the ass gasket when the white tennis shoes aren’t completely white. I’m going to have to get some hi-gloss enamel and keep it in the garage to solve this one. Tennis shoes don’t get comfortable until they lose their luster. Men know this. They also know they don’t need ten pairs in exciting pastel colors. Quite recently I learned that you cannot accessorize shoes with duct tape. I thought it showed you were a rebel and proudly announced your independence. I stand corrected.

The sleeveless sweaters have all migrated to Goodwill when I wasn’t looking. My old, faded Lacoste polo shirts with the slightly worn collars? Gone with the wind. In their place are  new black, white and electric guacamole  celery green ones that seem to accessorize with her wardrobe-not mine. Why does my shirt have to match her purse? I can find nothing on the internet to support that hypothesis.

I don’t do blue. Blue was the color of my dress Air Force uniforms. It is a chapter of history that is closed. Why, then, do I find all manner of blue in the walk-in closet at my end now? I actually can’t remember when the last time I went out and bought clothes. Perhaps they reproduce by themselves? Well, come on. We have same sex marriage now and they even manage to have kids somehow. Anything’s possible.

I guess I shouldn’t complain. Now my daughter says things like “Whoa! Stylin’, daddy-o.”  I’m convinced my wife paid her to say it. I notice complete strangers or “store associates” at Home Depot don’t come up and say things like that. Perhaps they’re impressed, but are keeping their thoughts to themselves. I’d like to think they are full of envy because they don’t have my wife’s good taste in clothing. As for the hair? We’re still negotiating on that. With the way things are going, I’ll wake up some morning and discover it’s accessorized itself. That would solve so many problems.

Posted in All about Veterans, Humor, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

CAVC– KATH v. SHINSEKI–NO RETROSPECTIVE EXAMS

Posted on January 29, 2012 by asknod

images

Richard P. Kath filed for hep in 1978. As with most of us, he didn’t know the program and received a denial slip. He didn’t appeal, but it appears he refiled in 1980. He got the same treatment  from what little the record reveals. His 1980 C&P exam concentrated on his eye and heel complaints and didn’t address the liver issue.

Fast forward to 2000 and a new reopening of the hep claim. VA prevaricated for several more years and finally denied yet again. As luck would have it, a VA examiner in an October 2002 review of the evidence finally “got it ” and they granted him SC. We talk of the empty lollipop stick or the ice cream cone with two scoops of air frequently here. That’s exactly what Richard got- 40% from the date of his filing in August 2000. That’s more than most, but still doesn’t reflect the severity of his symptoms or address his earlier filings with basically the same evidence.

Richard, over the years, had reported credible symptoms of RUQP, gastrointestinal abnormalities and occasional jaundice. These are all symptoms that we are competent to observe and report on (Layno). VA. as is their wont, ignored him and said it was not supported by the medical evidence of record. He continued his quest for a higher rating and an earlier compensable date to no avail. In 2008 the BVA put a fork in it and said no way. They granted SC to 1977 at 0% and that was that. Hence the analogy to the empty lollipop stick.

Mr. Kath promptly filed his NOA like a smart fellow should and off to Indiana Ave. NW they went. VA immediately sought to take this away from the Court and bury it back down at Vermont Ave. NW. They succeeded. In 2010, it floated back up to the Court following another denial. What the Board had done was use the old “no evidence is negative evidence” ploy to deny a compensable rating. With this logic, Mr. Kath magically became very ill on the day he filed and not one minute before. This contradicts most medical theories on HCV but there you have it. If this were one isolated incident, it might be notable. Mr. Kath was probably the 120,001st recipient of VA’s ULUZ award.

Mr. Kath argued at the Board that he deserved a retrospective medical evaluation based on numerous factors, to include his lay statements. This was a reasonable request but VA, in an attempt to husband their financial resources, politely declined and spent it on souvenir coffee cups and ballpoint pens with the “for he who shall have borne the battle” logo. All those meet and greet performances cost money and Mr. Kath was simply being unreasonable.

Mr. Kath lost his argument that the October 2002 medical exam was not adequate. It failed because the exam was to determine if the hep was related to service and nothing more. Having solved the conundrum of the etiology, VA was not remiss in failing to discover the onset date. That’s analogous to the mechanic repairing and replacing a blown head gasket and not changing the oil. When you’re in the doctor’s office why not kill two birds with one stone? That concept is a hard one for VA to grasp, but they won it here nevertheless.

We finally see Mr. Kath get some traction when it comes to a discussion of his lay testimony. The Board’s decision was silent on this probative testimony. They use one of those circular arguments that says “Gee. Rich. You were healthy in 2000 because your LFTs were normal. Therefore we don’t have to go back any further even if it might show you were ill, right? We have all we need to make our decision here in front of us”. The VASEC’s minions do this frequently. What they are also fond of is explaining later, here at the Court, why they did what they did and that they simply forgot to put it in the BVA decision. No harm. No foul. If you’re interested, we’ll explain it here and now…

First, the Secretary highlights that none of the evidence cited by the appellant predates August 2000. Secretary’s Br. at 16. The Board, however, apparently based its determination that VA was not required to provide a medical examination in this case in part on a July 2002 VA document noting that the appellant’s liver function tests were normal. R. at 11-12. Therefore, because the Board determined that evidence postdating August 2000 could be used to determine whether a retrospective medical examination is necessary, an assertion that it need not discuss other evidence because it did not predate August 2000 or that such evidence cannot be relevant is not convincing. Moreover, since the Board chose to apply the July 2002 document against the appellant’s claim, in order for its statement of reasons or bases to be adequate, it should have discussed record materials that are potentially favorable. Caluza, 7 Vet.App. at 506.

Next, the Secretary attempts to mitigate the Board’s silence on the evidence cited by the appellant by explaining why that evidence is not sufficient to support the appellant’s arguments. Secretary’s Br. at 16-21. The Court, however, will not accept the Secretary’s attempt to provide a statement of reasons or bases on behalf of a silent Board decision. See Martin v. Occupational Safety & Health Review Comm’n, 499 U.S. 144, 156 (1991) (“‘[L]itigating positions’ are not entitled to deference when they are merely appellate counsel’s ‘post hoc rationalizations’ for agency action,
advanced for the first time in the reviewing court.”).  Kath v. Shinseki (2012)

Mr. Kath will get another bite of the apple and the VA will undoubtedly try to give him the bum’s rush yet again. Once again, our illustrious VASEC, through the shenanigans of his General Counsel, has attempted to mitigate VA’s less than perfect adjudication system. Coming into Court and trying to explain what your lawyers did and how they arrived at their decision is still not kosher. The time for that was 2010 and wallpapering over it won’t fly.

Once again, valuable judicial resources, which we are told are in short supply, will be expended righting another wrong. This will delay justice for another Vet patiently waiting his turn. It doesn’t seem to require a lot of intelligence to see why our claims system is mired in hopeless backlog. A cursory examination of this case shows the deficiencies. VA has one job in this respect-to develop and decide Veterans’ claims. They’ve been employed in this undertaking for over a century yet continue to make the same mistakes again and again. This wouldn’t seem so horrific if they just acknowledged the error and fixed it. By fighting tooth and nail all the way to the halls of the Court defending stupidity, they delay justice for all of us.

We all make errors in our everyday life. When identified, most freely admit them. Granted, there are the adherents of the Flat Earth Society and nothing will convince them otherwise. I suspect we would have no difficulty changing their beliefs if we were to launch them into space. VA, on the other hand, seems to think they have cornered the market on logic. Their abiding hope  is that one day the Court will agree with them on this post hoc rationalization technique. Converting souls to your cause at the Court must be predicated on law-not excuses and tortured explanations.

Meet Rich Kath- a smart cookie with the bug.

Kath HCV vacate and remand

Knowing the intractible nature of the BVA, my money is riding on another denial based on a new review and exam. Richard will have more grey hair before he sees a paycheck. He’s asking for a glorified Fenderson rating (with compensation) from 1977 forward and VA wants to commence the financial clock in 2002.

Fast forward to January  2015.  And sure enough, here comes Rich Kath again with the typical VA Bum’s rush. Now that they have given him his 1977 date they are forced to abide by the VA’s Schedule of Rating Disabilities or VASRD in effect in 1977. DC 7354 didn’t exist until July 2001 and the old DC 7345 was far more liberal back in those the days. I, too was rated under it when they granted my EED to 1994.  Detroit’s VA raters refuse to go back that far nor does the M21 computer seem to want to comply.

One thing his VA agent may have overlooked in this retrospective C&P examination would be to send Mr. Kath out for a Fibroscan to determine exactly what stage of Hepatitis he’s in between Stage 0 and stage 4 as of today. This will definitively determine the age and the severity of his debility retrospectively. Hepatitis advances in stages of ten years when using the common Metavir scale. Thus, if he contracted it in 1975, he would ostensibly be stage 1 in 1985, 2 in 1995 and in 3 by 2005. By now, he’s pushing the far side of 3 like me which is technically 100% assuming he’s not good at describing his symptoms. Hey, he’s not a doctor. Why should he be held to the standard? Because VA has screwed this up, the best thing is to waive review in Detroit and give it to the AMC for a rating. They’ll do the Pontius Pilate hand washing and give him 100% from 1990 and be done with it simply to get it off the books.

Nevertheless, the Detroit RO continues to step on their neckties and use the new DBQs reflecting all the newer DC 7354 percentages. Twice now the Acting VLJ, William Yates, has sent it back with a stern remand. This time it’s couched in either/or format so even the village idiot can digest it…maybe. Old Rich is going to be due for a Writ to beg the Court to effect his remand if Yates can’t get this back on track.

We are all condemned to this hamster wheel unless or until intelligent life forms begin to populate the Veterans “Service” Centers across the fruited plain. Until then…

 

small-farmers.inferior correct jpg

Lord help us.

Posted in BvA HCV decisions, C&P exams, CAvC HCV Ruling, Earlier Effective dates, Important CAVC/COVA Ruling, Remanded claims, VA Medical Mysteries Explained, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Will Electronic C-Files Reduce VA’s Errors?

Posted on January 28, 2012 by asknod
Posted in All about Veterans, General Messages, polls | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

VA –PAPERLESS CLAIMS BY 2015?

Posted on January 28, 2012 by asknod

Tom Philpott had an interesting article about our claims plight in this morning’s paper.  I attach the link but have no faith in VA to honor this commitment;

http://www.military.com/Opinions/0,,Philpott_Index,00.html

VA told us in 2009 that they would be cranking these things out in 125 days or less from date of claim. Then the excuses started. The large influx of AO Vets with IHD and hairy cell leukemia, etc. followed. They saw this coming and did little or nothing. They hired about 11K FNGs and started the laborious process of training them for several years. When do they come on line? Look at Mr. Philpott’s numbers as quoted by the VA mouthpiece. 585K are a little outside the normal timeline of the 125 days by about six months or more.

The clear implication of this dog and pony show was to “acknowledge” once again that things are a little delayed and VA is unhappy with their performance statistics. Donning sackcloth and ashes does not camouflage the Rolex, the Armani suit and the Gucci loafers. Life is good down at the Puzzle Palace- make no mistake about it. The boys are working hard with the Neanderthal tools they were handed and this infernal paper system that was foisted off on them centuries ago after that nasty War of Northern Aggression.

Vets should look at this from our standpoint. We know they have computers. Witness the plethora of terms the Dial a Smile “technician” rattles off. “Yes sir. Well, all we have to look at here is the VACOLS computer. It’s not connected to VISTA or the WARMS computers.” Does that sound like a paper system? The M-21-A1 is now so complicated a rater cannot even read it. It, too, has become computerized to spit out a decision after all the incorrect info is uploaded.

With all this, these guys should have a dart board in the break room and be sipping IPAs by 1500 hrs. I make light of this, but even the Supreme Court of the United States knows these bubbleheads are wrong 60% of the time and go to extraordinary lengths to defend their errors. The old adage that you just need to throw more money at it to make it work may pay off here if it gets rid of the paper filing system. On the other hand, being the last agency of major proportions in D.C. to relinquish this antiquated system might have been planned. Do you realize how many more people they’ll need to hire and how many compatibility studies they’ll have  to do in order to integrate this spider web?

Smart money says to invest in computer stocks because this one is going to be a whopper. As for accomplishing this by 2015, I think someone has been concentrating aromatic aromas and sniffing them to get high. It took VA this long to get comfortable with the CAVC as an overseer. It has only been a blink of the eye since they broke the BVA of the habit of playing Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare.

The paper system will proliferate at the far corners of the RO empire for at least another decade. Sioux Falls and the office in Guam will be the last to switch over. Nevertheless, we welcome this long overdue touch of modernization. Perhaps we can turn the shredder rooms into ratings offices. In fact, with the elimination of all those acres of filing cabinets, scads of room will be available for even more personnel to keep up with the new tidal wave of injured vets from the latest Olympic games in SWA. This is simply a win-win for us. I wish I could live long enough to see it.

Posted in All about Veterans, General Messages, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Helping Homeland Security Agents

Posted on January 27, 2012 by asknod

While hiking down along the border this morning, I saw a Muslim extremist fall into the Rio Grande River . He was struggling to stay afloat because of all the guns and bombs he was carrying. Along with him was a Mexican who was also struggling to stay afloat because of the large backpack of drugs that was strapped to his back. If they didn’t get help, they’d surely drown. Being a responsible Texan and abiding by the law to help those in distress, I informed the El Paso County Sheriff ‘s Office and Homeland Security. It is now 4 PM, both have drowned, and neither authority has responded. I’m starting to think I wasted two stamps.

Makes me proud to be an American knowing guys like this can get over the animus of a terrorist or drug smuggler and worry about their well-being.

Posted in Humor, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Hunting and Poll Taxes

Posted on January 26, 2012 by asknod

Seem incongruous? How, you ask yourself, can I conjoin two such disparate concepts into one diatribe considering one went out with whites only water fountains? Pull up some grass and have a seat as my daddy used to say.

I was born and raised in the south and by rights should be a dyed in the wool racist. The fact that I am not is due to my father. He wasn’t born there and thus was not imbued with all the hate and ill feelings associated with the aftermath of the War of Northern Aggression. Having said that, I will point out that the animus was palpable in everyone and everything there. One of my early memories (1956) was going to the movies in Albany, Georgia to see Cinderella. Dad was stationed at Turner AFB and was the 31st  Wing Commander. The theatre  was on Main Street and, as was the practice then, there was a water fountain there.  The sign above it said “Whites only”. Albany is hot most days. I asked my mother why that was. She dissembled and said it was simply the way things were. No long dissertation on the Civil War and emancipation. No diatribe that these southern Neanderthals were remnants from the stone age of common sense. Nothing.

Dad was the 4th Wing Commander in Goldsboro, N.C. in 1962 at Seymour Johnson AFB. He stopped by the Sheriff’s office to pick up a key to some acreage we dove hunted on. The Sheriff owned it and let us use it. It was fun going to the jail. If I’d been misbehaving, the sheriff would take me back to the lockup and show me my future fate if I didn’t eat my brussels sprouts.

One September afternoon we arrived and an older black man was there sitting across from the Sheriff. He winked at my dad, which I thought was weird, and said he’d be with us in a minute. What happened next was indelibly printed on my mind for life. I had no idea what the significance was but knew it was a watershed moment.

The black denizen was there to pay his poll tax and prove he was literate. This would entitle him to vote in the upcoming  Presidential election. The Sheriff told him to hold up on the tax money and asked him to read a newspaper he had pulled out of his top desk drawer. ” Here, Denny. Read this. What does it say?”  The newspaper was printed in Chinese characters or possibly Japanese. I wasn’t educated enough then to know the difference, but I knew something wrong was happening.

Denny said ” Well, Sheriff. I’ll tell you what that says. It says I ain’t gonna be votin’ in this election is what it says. I’se might sorry I bothered you folks today.” The Sheriff allowed as Denny was welcome there any old time, and if he somehow became literate in Chinese some day, well, he’d be eligible to vote then. On the way to hunt, I asked my father why you needed to be literate in Chinese to vote. My dad proceeded to enlighten me on southern politics in general and racism in particular. He said we were fortunate that it had been banned in the military and that some day it would be the norm everywhere. This was food for thought on the order of a 10 course dinner to me.

Martin Luther King had not spoken his famous line about how the content of your character far outweighed the color of your skin yet. As a matter of course, blacks would continue to be effectively discriminated against for many more years. I was 11 years old then and had no inkling there was a color line, even though there were no black students in my school. I knew that they often got out of line ahead of us at the local Piggly Wiggley Supermarket on the rare occasions my mother shopped off base. It seemed they had forgotten something and had to leave the line to go get it.  It didn’t dawn on me that it was a perennial response every time we shopped locally.

When I was 17,  my father was  stationed in Sumter, S.C. at Shaw AFB. By now I knew there were “rules” and blacks crossed them at the risk of whites’ approbation-or worse. One of my friends’ dad owned a gas station/liquor store off base. This was a good friend to have, too, I might add. That’s where we got our  94 proof Orange Julius pints on Friday nights for the drive-in. They employed a black man to pump gas and clean the store. We were leaving and heading into town one evening and the young man was walking on the side of the road in the same direction. I pulled over and we offered him a ride. He was absolutely and completely terrified of the idea. We finally induced him into riding in the back back of the old Ford station wagon in the seat that faced backwards. As we drove I happened to look in the rear view and discovered he was slumped down out of sight in the seat. We dropped him off several hundred yards before his street because he didn’t want his folks to think he was “uppity”. That was a concept I hadn’t even considered.

I don’t live in the south anymore, but go back to visit with relatives fairly regularly-or did before I became ill. The same thing happens to this day in the Northern Neck of  Virginia. A young black lady stepped out of line at the five and dime when I went in to get something. She looked in her basket and fretted that she must be absent-minded to have forgotten whatever it was. The white shopkeeper gave her that  patronizing smile and nod of approval for her “politeness” in letting a white person go first.  Bad habits die hard…

Posted in All about Veterans, General Messages, Uncategorized | Tagged | 3 Comments

BIANNUAL HEPATOLOGY VISIT

Posted on January 25, 2012 by asknod

VA PACT

Employing the latest Patient-Aligned Care Team (PACT) model, I attended my first hepatology appointment  Monday. I could see no apparent difference other than the two ladies who greeted me at the Blue team check-in desk. They sat and did nothing while I waited for several minutes and finally one looked over at the other and then at me. Only then did I get the magic “Next?” I guess they were playing Not it! and seeing who would blink first. And yes- I did turn off my invisibility-cloaking device before I walked in.

My appointment was for 0800 so I reasoned that it was the first of the day. No one else was even in the waiting room. Nevertheless, I still had to do penance for 30 minutes. Everyone knows this. We are asked to arrive 15 minutes early. I refuse to play that game any more. If I had, I could have sat there for 45 minutes.

Finally my ARNP came out and invited me back. This is part of the new “hands on program”. The doctor or poohbah you are seeing personally fetches you. That was the high point of the visit. Everything went downhill from there. Irene (name changed to protect incompetence) has decided I need a new liver biopsy. The last one is 3 years old and apparently out of date. VA wants to know if the HCV is winning or the autoimmune hepatitis is ahead. Who cares? They can’t do anything about it because I’m 1) not a candidate for IFN Tx and 2) not a candidate for a new liver. Irene asked me “Well, jez. Don’t you even want to know? Aren’t you just a little bit concerned? My answers were “No” and “No” respectively.

Having little or no medical training, but being well-versed in the art of internet parsing for knowledge, I countered with the usual. “Do an Anti-Nuclear Antibodies test and and an Anti-Smooth Muscle antibodies test, honey. Also an alphafetoprotein test or whatever its called. This will tell you if the AIH  has highjacked the liver. A viral load test will also tell as much if those numbers are elevated. Also run the normal LFTs and IgA, IgG, and IgM test to see if the cryoglobulinemia is up.  As for another biopsy, I have no interest in getting a new shelf life sticker. It won’t change anything.” Her rejoinder was icy. “Mr. Nod, this could advance medical science on autoimmune disorders”. My parting shot was equally cold. “Fine. If you get there before the cremation, ask them to put the liver in one of those styrofoam doomoflotchies to go. Check with the wife on that, though. You guys pissed her off when you almost killed me in 09”. She’s not the biggest fan of VA medicine anymore.

The last time I saw Irene in August, I couldn’t even get her to run a viral load to check out the AIH. Now she wants to irritate what’s left of the liverbox with a core needle biopsy. Huh? Three quarters of it is non-functional and they want to scramble another egg in there? I’m on Coumadin blood thinner because they gave me a heart attack for Halloween 09. I have no desire to be taken off that to do the biopsy.

The last straw was the admonition that if the AIH was in the active mode, she wanted to put me on Imuran again. That’s also known as Azothiaprine-aka cancer causing. This would just throw a new monkey wrench in on top of the other lethal medical processes at work. When I  indicated that I had no desire to add cancer to my problem list, she reluctantly acknowledged  that maybe it wasn’t a good idea. PCT is almost a guarantee of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in conjunction with HCV. She’s not an MD, but would like to opine as one. She also tells me the doctor who supervises me looks over all this. I’ve never met this phantom doctor. I’m too polite to call bullshit on her.

Since Irene refused my request for phlebotomies for my PCT in August, I didn’t bother to enlighten her and explain that I’d sought out my old PCT doctor and got him to write the scrip. I’ve been getting them for 6 months now and the hematocrit is finally going down. Irene probably thinks its due to Immaculate Intervention.

Anyone using the VA as their primary medical provider should start studying medicine-and soon. You’ll  live longer. This may not be the norm at all VAMCs , but it is cause for concern. VA loves to experiment on us. I know that from experience. They do things that may harm us to see if it “fixes” things or simply makes them worse. I would make an analogy to pulling the wings off of flies to see if it impairs their aerial capabilities. VA’s take is “Well, you don’t know that ahead of time without trying it, smartypants. After all, I’m the doctor here and I have more experience.”  I went into the VAMC in 09 for a  surgery that turned into 3 more. What no one noticed was that they left me on the prednisone they were treating me with for the AIH. They took me off the Imuran, but left the other in place. The nurses dutifully administered dose after dose every day for a year. I was so toasted on Dilaudid I didn’t notice. When I escaped in 2010, someone did notice and I was surreptitiously weaned off it with not another word said. This is why my staples and stitches kept falling apart and caused the peritonitis.  After the fourth surgery (to correct the “medical misadventure” in the third one). the surgeon said “Well, duh! Here’s your problem. The prednisone was weakening the fabric of your tissue. Everyone knows that.” This would be the same surgeon who did the first, third and fourth surgeries.

Do not let VA play doctor on you. Remember the childhood game “Operation”? It has new resonance where this is concerned. I will give Irene credit for one thing. She didn’t try to put me on the new Vertex IFN treatment this time. I think she read her old notes on it and bit her tongue in time.

One last thing. Does anyone think it odd that a person trying to ascertain your health would wait until you arrive to then order lab tests?  I do. I built houses for 35 years and like to work from a position of knowledge and strength. I liken this to building with no blueprints. PACT? Physicians Absolutely Confused and Tactless…

 

Posted in All about Veterans, General Messages, HCV Health, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Dupont Spinners

Posted on January 24, 2012 by asknod

When I first arrived at Udorn Thani Royal Thai Air base in May 1970, my chaperone Ron (NLN) introduced me into how to make extra money. Nobody kept track of M-26s.  Why would you? Hand grenades were a dime a dozen and we sure weren’t paying for them.

Ron was an entrepreneur of the first order and naturally found a way to make money off anything. He was the squadron scrounger-a modern day Radar O’Reilly. He was the squadron orderly and knew where all the bodies were buried.  He collected the styrofoam containers for MK-82s and sold them to the local fishermen for disposable boats. For you who are not bomb aficionados,  an Mk-82 was an iron bomb of several different sizes, the most common a 500 or 750 lb. version. They were shipped in huge styrofoam wraparounds with the two pieces conforming to the shape of the bomb. Naturally they were hollowed out in a perfect curve and would support a small-statured oriental. They were supposed to be returned to the port at Sattahip for reuse. “Supposed to” is the inoperable verb here.

Enter the M-26. They were made by  E.I. Dupont Nemours and Company of Wilmington, Delaware fame. They’ve been making hand grenades for several wars and are getting quite proficient in it. Ron was quite a fisherman and had used dynamite down in Alabama as any lazy fisherman has. He called the M-26 a Dupont spinner, named after his favorite Mepps spinner. We caught a Baht bus up  to Nong Khai which was the border crossing into Laos. This is the Mighty Mea Kong River like our Mississippi. We were graciously greeted with many bows and the hand grenades were fondled and pointed to.  The local Buddist priest was called out to drive the Phee (ghosts) away from the boats and the hand grenades. This cost 10 cents per boat and the same for hand grenades.

Ron argued the price with them because he’s a natural Milo Minderbinder. We arrived at 2,000 Baht ($20.00 U.S.) per person and a minimum of 6 hand grenades per person. They provided a “boat” and tied ours to theirs. Out we went.

When a fish experiences the detonation underwater, their flotation bladder decompresses and they tend to do the chicken. They generally float to the surface and the fishermen scoop them up in nets before they recover. Twelve hand grenades nets an inordinately large amount of fish. We accomplished this in 3 hours and were rewarded with a liter of ice cold Singha beer each and several skewers of  roasted water buffalo. MMMM.Water buffalo are harvested where they keel over and die from old age, so you can imagine how tough that was. Soom tam from raw papayas with Kow neo sticky rice was included.  Desert was cow neo sakaiya (I don’t even want to know what it was). A good time was had by all and we did this on succeeding Sundays until someone blew the whistle.

Turning large quantities of Baht or MPC into greenbacks was the trick. I’ll save that for another story.

Posted in From the footlocker, General Messages, Humor, Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

BVA– THE VETERAN IS COMPETENT TO REPORT HIS DRUG HISTORY

Posted on January 24, 2012 by asknod

FROM FORT FUMBLE

 IN RENO

The last laugh has to be on Mr. Cronk and Dr. Snood. This is what happens when you set your febrile mind free to extrapolate all the myriad ways you can use pot and hash. Of course, IVDU immediately comes to mind and thus is born a drug addict from an occasional toker. Here, it backfired as the Vet is a credible witness and didn’t prevaricate. His story never waivered one bit and VA was forced to admit-through lack of evidence- that this ever happened. VA’s “fig newton” offense is  thus unmasked and the Vet wins.

The Veteran is competent to report his drug history.  
Jandreau v. Nicholson, 492 F.3d 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2007).  
Moreover, the Veteran is credible in his reports. The
record reflects no clear first person statement that
he used IV drugs.  Where that allegation is made, it 
is done second hand, where another party has interpreted 
either a statement or a record.  The Veteran has offered
a reasonable explanation of the confusion, and the fact
that only one doctor has specified use of IV drugs raises
serious doubts as to the accuracy of the allegation. 
While the Veteran has used drugs in the past, such is 
limited to the smoking of marijuana and hash; there is no
credible and competent evidence of intravenous or 
intranasal (or any other) use of other drugs such as 
cocaine or heroin.

A good win just wouldn’t be complete without our erstwhile Doctor friend:

Dr. B. Cecil, associated with a hepatitis C treatment 
center, reviewed the Veteran's service records and current 
treatment records, and opined that the currently diagnosed
 hepatitis C and associated liver damage was related to 
service.  He noted that the Veteran had "no history of 
drug abuse or transfusion," and felt that the extent of 
current liver disease was "very suggestive" of a 1979 
infection.  Dr. Cecil also noted additional risk factors, 
including air gun injections, shared razors, and blood 
exposure during football games.

http://www.va.gov/vetapp11/Files4/1132255.txt

E.I. Dupont Nemours- when you care enough to serve the very best.
Posted in BvA Decisions, BvA HCV decisions, Nexus Information, Tips and Tricks | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

BVA– NEW FORMAT ON CLAIMS?

Posted on January 24, 2012 by asknod

FROM THE BRANCH DAVIDIAN

RO CAPITOL IN TEXAS

OUR MOTTO?

BURN FIRST AND ASK

QUESTIONS LATER

 

Strolling through all the new releases of BVA decisions allows for little nuggets of info to be picked up. Here, I spotted a subtle new wrinkle to go with our new HCV medical form:

The record reveals that the Veteran submitted a claim of 
entitlement to service connection for hepatitis C.  As 
will be discussed further below, the medical evidence of 
record reflects that the Veteran was diagnosed with 
infectious hepatitis during service, and a January 2003
 letter from the Carter Blood Care Center reflects that 
the Veteran tested positive for hepatitis B core 
antibodies.  See a January 2003 letter from Carter Blood Care
 Center.  Concerning the Veteran's in-service diagnosis of 
hepatitis, the Board points out that hepatitis C was not 
diagnosed, nor could it have been, during the Veteran's 
service since hepatitis C was not specifically 
denominated as such until the 1980's.  Further, the 
United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims 
(the Court) has held in Clemons v. Shinseki, 23 Vet.
 App. 1 (2009), that when a claimant makes a claim,
 he is seeking service connection for symptoms 
regardless of how those symptoms are diagnosed or labeled.  
In light of above, the Board has recharacterized the 
issue as entitlement to service connection for a hepatic 
disorder.

I like this one, too. Vet loses job. Vet tells VA in Claim. VA “construes” it to mean he wants to file for TDIU. Vet has a 0% or No% rating so he isn’t qualified to receive this. VA knows that so why did they do it?

In an September 2007 statement, the Veteran asserted that 
he was "dismissed" from his job because of "medical 
reason."  See the Veteran's September 2007 statement.  
It appears that the RO construed this statement as a 
claim for TDIU.  See Roberson v. Principi, 251 F.3d 
1378, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (VA to "determine all 
potential claims raised by the evidence, applying all 
relevant laws and regulations").  Indeed, in a letter 
from the RO dated in November 2007, the RO notified the 
Veteran of the laws and regulations relating to TDIU 
claims and provided him a VA Form 21-8940 (Veteran's 
Application for Increased Compensation Based on Individual
 Unemployability) to complete.  Servello v. Derwinski, 
3 Vet. App. 196, 198-200 (1992).  However, it does not 
appear that the Veteran completed and/or submitted the 
VA Form 21-8940, and the RO did not adjudicate the Veteran's 
TDIU claim.

Even money says that if he did apply, they may have slapped him with a fraudulent claim! We’ll never know.

This old boy will live to fight another day.

http://www.va.gov/vetapp11/Files4/1132924.txt

Posted in BvA Decisions, BvA HCV decisions, Tips and Tricks | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments