Karnas v Kuzma(re DC 7354)

Posted on December 2, 2011 by asknod

Something dramatic happened in 2003 that affects all Veterans who applied for Hep. before July 2, 2001. I speak of the effect of the VCAA enacted that year. It changed the way we are remunerated for hep inasmuch as some of us filed before 2001 and were granted SC. The Fed. Circuit decision in Kuzma v. Principi in 2003 overturned 12 years of CAVC precedence set in the Karnas v. Derwinski decision of 1991.

Karnas_90-312

By way of history, Mr. Karnas came before the Court with a problem in 1989. He had been rated 100% for Schizoprenia and it was reduced to 70%. He appealed and it was returned to 100%. Then Va axed him again down to 70%. This time the BVA affirmed the decision. Fortunately for Martin this was the dawn of the new COVA Court. Here he prevailed and got his Andy Warhol fame for a lot longer than the 15 minutes Andy had forecast.

Which brings us up to 1991. The Karnas decision held that your rating was protected in that if you were rated for bent brain in 1972, and the laws and Diagnostic Codes changed in 1978, that your 1972 rating was preserved intact and couldn’t be “upgraded” to the 1978 standards. The import of this was to protect old ratings from being reduced by newer laws. It made good sense and was supported by Supreme Court precedence.

On July 2, 2001, the VA promulgated new Diagnostic Codes for hepatitis. Prior to this, the “new” hepatitis C, also known as Non-A, Non-B Hep., had been rated on the only hepatitis diagnostic code then in existence-DC 7345. Seeing a whole new field of claimants at the gates, VA had decided to divide the codes. HAV, HBV, steatohepatitis and Autoimmune hepatitis were kept in the old DC 7345. HCV was given its own code of DC 7354. The law also changed the DC 7345 ratings % from a 0%, 10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, and 100% to the 0%, 10%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 100% format found in the new HCV code. Of more import, VA tightened up the rules in 7345 for ratings and made them virtually identical to the criteria echoed in 7354. Because of the Karnas holding, if a Vet had been granted SC under 7345 for HCV, he could elect to continue on that rating code if conversion to 7354 might cause him a reduced rating. Imagine being rated 70% on 7345 and converting to 60% on 7354. Karnas prevented this and it was really the only equitable way to accomplish it. Enter Mr. Kuzma in 2003.

Mr. Kuzma got caught in this retroactive triangle in 1997 through 1999 and finally found his way to the Federal Circuit. They threw out Karnas and Holliday upon which Mr. Kuzma had hung his hopes.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14761261010471629301&q=Kuzma+v.+Principi&hl=en&as_sdt=2,48&as_vis=1

Now, let’s look at how this affected hepatitis claimants such as us.Prior to the VAOPGCPREC 7-2003 holding that was issued on November 19th, 2003, if you crossed over into July 3rd, 2001 with a rating for hepatitis C based on 7345, you continued to enjoy that Diagnostic Code unless it was more advantageous to convert to the new DC 7354 and get a higher ratings percentage. Once the Kuzma precedent was issued, VA proceeded to enact the precepts of  the General Counsel precedent (see link below). The law now read that you had to be rated after 2001 on the kind of hepatitis you actually had regardless of when you were awarded your claim.

Purely as an example,  let’s pretend Joe Vet got 30% in 1994 for HCV under 7345. In 1998, VA increased his rating to 50%. In 2000, they increased it again to 70%. In 2003, without any ado, they dropped it to 60% based on his symptoms, existing medical records, DC 7354 and the holding in VAOPGCPREC 7-2003.

http://www.va.gov/ogc/opinions/2003precedentopinions.asp

All the appeals in the world would fall on deaf ears. Joe Vet was screwed. Mr. Kuzma found himself in the same boat.

Thus, you can see that the VA giveth and the VA taketh away. An interesting example of this which was enumerated in the Karnas decision of 1991, was the concept of a stabilized rating being protected to a certain degree after five years (see 38 CFR § 3.344). Do not confuse this with the twenty year protected rating which is immune to revision absent fraud ( see 38 CFR §3.951). Mr. Karnas ably argued that his rating fell into the stabilized category and was protected from revisionist diagnostic codes gerrymandered to reduce his rating. His argument was flawless in that regard and thus he won without much ado. That wouldn’t happen today. Fortunately for Mr. Karnas, his rating became protected this year, assuming the VA grinch didn’t intervene in 2003.

In summary, we as litigants are faced with a bifurcated rating that changed on July 2, 2001. If you floated to a higher rating by virtue of the change, you were decidedly in the minority. Most discovered they received a demotion from 70% down to 60 or from 50% down to 30%. What concerns me today about this is the current pickle the government finds itself in financially.

Could it be the VA will once again use this technique to trim ratings of their assigned percentages in hopes of lowering the amount paid out as compensation to us? This would not be the first time. Veterans might not remember the Tinnitus brouhaha in the late 90s when the Court held that it was suddenly permissible to pay 10% for both ears (bilateral Tinnitus) in lieu of the previous policy of 10% for each ear. This has saved the VA untold amounts of money and allowed them to institute the practice of paying year-end “Santa Claus” bonuses to all those employees so richly deserving of special attention and accolades.

I propose a bonus for Veterans who reach the 20 year mark of compensation. Assuming you actually win while you are alive (and young), a twenty year high water mark truly would be a stupendous accomplishment. The bonus would honor the few who accomplished this against all odds and had the intelligence to file when they did. No one told me to march smartly down to the VA and apply for residuals of Agent Orange or the upcoming HCV in 1973 when I was handed my walking papers. What I wouldn’t give for a DeLorean with a Mr. Fusion and a flux capacitor in the backseat…

 

Posted in Fed. Cir. & Supreme Ct., General Messages, Important CAVC/COVA Ruling | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

QUANTITATIVE STATISTICALOLOGY

Posted on December 1, 2011 by asknod

Hmmm, that’s a mouthful. Allow me to explain. As many know, I drive down the road on autopilot going to my appointments to keep me alive. I leave surreptitiously when Cupcake isn’t watching because she doesn’t like me to inflict myself on other drivers. My theory is that scaring the shit out of other drivers keeps them on their toes-ergo alive longer.

While going to yet another blood letting at the VAMC, I had this epiphany about VA claims. I cannot be in the minority when I observe that the Administration has managed to misinterpret, misconstrue and basically mis-everything they get from me. Another member wrote me about this and wondered if it was just him or if this was endemic to the system. Sadly, I believe it is. Whether it’s a ploy to delay the inevitable or a genuine defect in logic assimilation is what I analyze today.

If you went to the dentist for a nagging pain in the right upper quadrant and the dentist said you had decay in the bottom left, you would question your sanity. Or would you? You trust the dentist to be knowledgeable. That is his forte, not yours. But when you are handed this misinformation, and it clearly is such, you question his ability to do that which you employ him for.

Similarly, when you finally engage in the distasteful job of bringing the VA to the table to settle old debts, you would expect them to be able at that which they accomplish everyday. Silly Vets. What were you thinking?

If every other Vet comes to me for help with their claim and shows me documented proof that the VA, purposefully or otherwise, managed to make a hash of their claim, I would assume they do it religiously for a living. This should be cause for alarm, but it is so prevalent that it passes for normal. How can that be?

The art form of collating evidence is old science. Assemble the contemporary evidence “for” in one pile and “against” in another. Determine who’s been naughty and who’s been nice in the interim and put it in the correct pile. Next, assemble current information and lay testimony and file it in one of these two mounting piles. Finally, weigh the evidence for and against based on judicial canons and if the evidence is in equipoise, give the benefit of the doubt to the Vet. Right? Seems pretty straight forward on its face, doesn’t it?

Now, let’s examine the fractious, disingenuous VA system and see where the two methods of decision-making part company. VA accomplishes, for the most part, all the above actions by requesting your files from the NPRC in St. Louis. The NPRC are water-challenged or eternal optimists, so they don’t own or possess normal fire suppression devices like overhead sprinklers and fire extinguishers. Other people’s paper burns-not theirs. And on the off chance that they do have another fire-what the hey? That means less filing and fewer requests for files from their brethren over at the VA. A win-win situation all around.

If the files managed to make it to St. Louis after you separated (and they don’t always do so), then they are sent to the VARO. This doesn’t mean they’re safe there. I don’t know how many Vets who have told me they filed and got 40% in San Diego and then refiled last year in Sioux Falls only to have VA tell them return to sender, no such number, no such zone. If they had the medrecs in 86, where’d they go? VA can look you right in the face and pull their collective pants pockets out and say “Search me.”

If they do manage to keep the files intact, the battle has just begun. VA looks at all your files including you military service files. If you had a run-in with them over some hashish or a love affair with Johnnie Walker, they know this. Bingo. You smoked hash, shared the pipe with someone who was HCV-positive, and therefore you are not entitled to SC. Same for the JW bottle. If you claim you wiped it off before smoking/drinking? Well, that can’t be corroborated and is mighty self-serving testimony, isn’t it? In a word, drugs or alcohol are the death knell for any HCV claim.

In the event that your milrecs are spotless, then the medrecs come under focus. Absence of any complaint of hepatic malfunction is positive evidence against SC in spite of the cryptogenic nature of HCV and further substantiates their theory. If you did have a hepatic misadventure in service it will be discounted as HAV, HBV or even mononucleosis if they didn’t test you for it. Absent a viable HCV test before 1988, this fact is overlooked by VA examiners or simply buried under the CAVC’s Maxson decision that so much time has passed that they can’t in good conscience attribute this to service.

With the advent of PCR testing, they can look into the past now and see whether you had HAV or HBV back in 1970. What they still can’t do is say you didn’t have HCV then and this is what VA continues to do. Medical evidence aside, your nexus letter is going to be suspect without contemporaneous medrecs from the service viewed by the doctor. Your risks were unique to you alone. The mere recitation of these events to your doctor from your perspective is not considered probative evidence. Lay testimony is supposed to be admissible and credible absent you changing your story every two years. If you give the doc everything you recall verbally, unsubstantiated by medrecs, the VA calls that inventing history and will not recognize it as evidence. Of course, a VA examiner and his cronies are allowed to opine all day long inventing history as they imagine it to support their decision.

In a nutshell, you have a mighty tall order to fill and you’re dealing with a deck that has less than 52 cards in it. Vets who win are few and far between because they do not comprehend what the rules of the card game are. This is what calls into question what the qualifications of the people hired to examine the evidence possess. What school of discovery do they attend to become approved VA sleuths? I submit that the diplomas come from Crackerjack boxes or south of the border from Diploma mills.

VA examiners as the BVA is fond of referring to them, can take a set of facts and come to the exact opposite conclusion you or a logical thinking person might because that is how they are trained. The VARO adage of “Grant if you can and deny if you must” is for PR publication only. The facts speak differently judging from the appeals process. This means that the assimilators and triers of fact have a predilection for leaning towards guilty until proven innocent. As there is no accountability for errors, an examiner can blunder through claim after claim and get absolutely none right. He will, however , get a bonus if he can do several of these a day and keep his in-basket empty.

Imagine the scales of justice-the normal scales. Then picture VA’s interpretation of how the fulcrum is positioned. I conceive of it as looking something like this:

To win at this, your pile has to beat their pile just to get a benefit of the doubt. There is no magic to this. If you are taught by VA instructors that you start with the assumption that the claim is bogus and start filling it in with supportable fact, then you can cease looking for support before you reach the tipping point on the scale. This is one common ploy. Say you had tattoos in service. The entrance and the exit exam says no tattoos because you didn’t think to show them to the pecker checker on the way out. You lose absent several buddy statements.  But let’s say you also had VD in service and they fail to look at that as positive evidence of HCV risk. That in itself would win your case but VA ignored it. Do you honestly think that is an accident? These guys look at everything. If you did time at the Graybar Hotel, they know about it even if you neglect to mention it to them.

We had a recent case when member WGM’s rater said “No sir. Wasn’t them jetguns. No way. That ol’ boy got it from patronizing prostitutes. Lookee here in his medrecs. 6, count ’em-6 cases of the clap in service. Willful misconduct! No money for you.” The service officer had to tell them that VD is not willful misconduct. With egg on their faces they admitted it was CUE. What they were also forced to admit was that they had made a finding of fact that it was clap. Now, they couldn’t change their story in mid-stream, so they gave him SC for hep. based on the STDs. VA doesn’t make many errors so this was an aberration. Usually, they have the story line established 15 minutes after they get all the facts. Claim denied due to … oh, yeah, here it is, no medrecs evidence and let’s throw in the failed urine test as proof of willful misconduct. Good deal. Send it down to steno and let’s look at the next one.

With an error rate approaching 70%, one would think it was time to reinvent the process. There must not be suggestion boxes in the coffee break rooms of VAROs. Think how much money they could save doing it right the first time. They might have to lay some of the raters off or let them go.

Posted in General Messages, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized, vARO Decisions | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

18 SUICIDES PER DAY

Posted on December 1, 2011 by asknod

The Senate woke up yesterday and got pissed. Sen. Patty “tennis shoes” Murray, our staunch defender of all things Vet (when it is politically advantageous), just discovered that 18 of our elite club decide to check out of the hotel every day by their own hand. Ungrateful little bastards, aren’t they? Why, the sheer effrontery of these former souls to put Congressmen/women on the spot.

The problem? Well, it seems that if you, Joe Vet, want an appointment for a mental health issue, you can expect to get in line. If you’ve been down to the VAMC recently, you probably noticed this because you had to stand up for a while. Seems they’re running out of chairs. The wait can be as short as 21 days to as long as 87 in Spokane, Wash. according to Sen. Nike. Were this a sucking chest wound, the delay could be fatal. Our good senator has also finally connected the dots and figured out that delay in mental health care can also result in the cessation of life. No longer can they whistle whilst passing the graveyard and pretend they’ve done their job when Veterans are being so blatant about disposing of themselves in this manner.

Part of Congress’ job, above and beyond appropriating the funds for the VA, is to ascertain that they are actually using the funds for the intended purpose. It appears something is amiss down at 810 Vermont Ave. NW. If you own a company and have worker injuries, you institute training protocols to reduce same. If you throw $10 million at it and get 0% reduction in injuries and actually suffer an uptick, including fatalities, you’d tend to question what the hell is going on. Well, after about 6 years, Congress decided to investigate yesterday in earnest. “Earnest” being defined as it interrupted their 2012 campaign plans for the day.

Since 2006, the VA has been faced with a 34% increase in the number of Vets seeking help for bent brain syndrome. Unfortunately they haven’t kept up with the demand for services. This is causing back pressure in the form of the aforementioned suicides and drug abuse. Nobody is including homelessness in the equation yet, but that can’t be too far down the road. To do so would make the numbers seem more dismal than they already are.

Government guidelines require VA to schedule an appointment for those who so request within two weeks. 40% of Vets surveyed laughed at that and said they were having no such luck. 70% of VA providers queried in the survey said they didn’t have the space/personnel/staff to meet the mission requirements. An additional 46% said they needed to provide more “off-hour ” appts. for their clients to accommodate their (Veterans’) work schedules. Yes, Virginia, Veterans have to go to work and pay bills just like Mommy and Daddy.

This just torques my jaws. This has been going on for many years, and not just on the mental health side of the hospital. Vets have been getting the lowest priority for years and years the moment they get their walking papers. That America’s elected poohbahs just woke up and smelled the coffee is almost absurd. Visualize if you will a person (the military) balling up a piece of paper (a Vet) and hucking it in the trashcan like a basketball. The VA is NOT there to unfurl the paper, smooth it out and file it correctly until forced to do so. Consequently some of the trashcans get emptied before all the paper can be rescued. VA complains they are resource-challenged and they may well be. My advice would be to ask for more M-O-N-E-Y.

Mary Schohn, the head of the VA’s mental health operations was trotted out recently as the fall-gal and beat her chest with the usual mea culpas. She informed Congress that the number of mental health professionals employed and assigned to Vets has ballooned from 14,207 to over 21,000 since 2006-a 47% increase. VA had 1.2 million requests for mental health actions last year alone. Donning sack cloth and spreading ashes on her head, she went further and said VA “realizes we have much more to do.” Well, duh. Where’d you park the squad car, Dick Tracy?

Let’s analyze this. In my war (Vietnam) we were deployed for a finite 365 days and knew it. For combat troops, we could expect 240 days of same. 85% were support personnel but were still recipients of harassing fire and terrorist activity which kept them on their toes. Granted, we have had our fair share of bent brains from this, but as a percentage of number deployed, we have had less than the current war(s). What is so different that we see such dichotomy in the numbers?

First and foremost, it seems, would be the number of deployments. In my war, many were drafted and could only be held to serve three years. Granted, many enlisted for four and served without incident, but the stop loss codicil was never employed due to the large numbers of warm bodies available. Now we are faced with a different set of circumstances. The smaller, smarter, all-volunteer, leaner military has corralled a finite number of servicemen and deployed them repeatedly into the fray-some even now deploying on their third tour. Any farmer can tell you the plow wears down and does not function well without replacing the blade occasionally. Likewise, the continued insertion of troops into battle has consequences unforeseen since the years of WW2. Put bluntly, one cannot watch the continued destruction of his brethren without serious mental deterioration.

Why the military and the VA think this is some new phenomenon never before seen doesn’t pass the smell test. Every war has it’s collateral damage. Brain readers since before time have written papers and done studies on how mental adversity can have odd effects on the psyche. After all, they’ve had an ample laboratory for this with two World Wars, two more in Southwest Asia and that pesky disagreement with North Vietnam in the 60s-70s.

With all this experience under their belts, they now come forward hat in hand and shrug their shoulders as if this is some untoward development that caught them unawares. Wars have had this exact same fallout every time they happen. Christ, you can almost set you clock by it. The fact that they are using a “no deposit, no return” philosophy with soldier’s brains is now demanding a solution-one they are ill-prepared to proffer.

The writing on the wall with the current administration is to blame the prior tenants rather than seek a viable solution. Another aspect that is surfacing is to retreat inwards and shrink our military. This myopic philosophy will simply embolden our enemies to become more aggressive as they see us retreat. We need to choose our battles carefully and, most of all, allocate funds to compensate the ensuing damaged participants ahead of time. No more can we pay lip service as the politicians did yesterday to this crisis unless we are satisfied with the status quo of watching 18 of our citizen soldiers give up and take their own lives every morning. America makes a pact with each and every one of us when we sign up. The fact that they are so parsimonious and indifferent when it comes time to honor the commitment is appalling. With the current,  unsettled economic doldrums, mental health can be a difference between living and dying-something Congress seem inured to. I hope all of you remember this next November. That’s the only time the pen is mightier than the machine gun.  Make it so, Number One.

Posted in From the footlocker, General Messages, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

A PH VETERAN X 2

Posted on November 29, 2011 by asknod

Yesterday I met the man who puts a face on Veterans everywhere from my war. I might have mentioned that my best friend Paul owns a butcher shop. I drop by there frequently just to see what red meat looks like and drool. While I was there an older man who was bent over walked in on a cane. Paul promptly introduced us and mentioned that we had Vietnam in common. Well, Gordon and I looked each other up and down and we started talking. It felt good like draining an abscess relieves pressure on a wound. Gordon said he hasn’t talked to anyone about it all these years and I know why. Nobody understands it. Hell, to this day he and I both probably don’t understand it. 58,000 + is a lot of lives wasted teaching the art of combat and that was just our casualties. This will open your eyes about us.

http://www.vhfcn.org/stat.html

I was watching a show on the 1968 Tet offensive a month ago and they mentioned that only 2.2 million men actually served in Vietnam. Total. That’s really not a lot considering we were there in one capacity or another from 1954 to 1975.  In my post Vietnam travels, I have only come to know less than 25 who were really there or who would admit to it. I have met many more who professed to have been present after it became fashionable, but they show their ignorance of a map when questioned as to where they were in country. Gordon is the real McCoy. He has more stitches in him than Frankenstein, too.

Gordon enlisted in 67 and was chosen to be a land warrior (MOS 11B-infantry) and was so trained. He departed about six months after induction for the Cu Chi-Tay Ninh  area where they were doing search and destroy missions. Gordon said all he remembers was the ping sound when the Bouncing Betty jumped up ahead of him. This is where God and miracles enter. The explosion evaporated the guy when he stepped off it as could be expected. It also got the 90 day wonder and the Point who succumbed a day later. The two gentlemen in front of him lost their legs to the knees and one to the right lost a leg and an arm. Gordon came home with almost all of himself. Guys behind him lost fingers, eyes and pieces of ears.

Gordon held on to consciousness just long enough to hear the dulcet thock, thock, thock of the Huey dustoff. He was actually short-he had 30 days to DEROS. What he was doing near the front of that column probably will haunt him for the rest of his life. He told me the Point was a FNG and nobody trusted him so he moved up to keep an eye on him.

At the Evac hospital at Bien Hoa, they took him in for triage assessment. He handed over a few grenades from his cargo pocket that they had missed and scared the bejesus out of the pecker checkers. The grenades were suspect as they had been damaged from the mine explosion. He tells me he woke up next in Yokosuka EVAC in the intensive care ward and lived there for four months. He must have come down with Hep. because he told me he was yellow as orange juice for several weeks. The doctors were busy picking shrapnel from his body for the first two months and trying to save his right leg. The compound fracture above the knee was messy and got infected right away.

The military police arrived a month into his vacation and wanted to know where his M-16 was. He remembered that the barrel was bent at a 90 degree angle when he opened his eyes after the blast. I do not know this from experience, but I know for a fact that once you are down, they relieve you of your weapons. I know because I had a long discussion with my pilot about who was going to babysit my S&W while I was at the hospital. Gordon was most definitely not loaded onto the dustoff with his rifle and he sure didn’t have it under his gurney at Yokosuka.

His next stop was Madigan Hospital at Fort Lewis, Washington. The Army continued to pursue him for his 16 and threatened to prosecute him or deduct it from his pay if he didn’t cough it up. He spent a year there for more corrective surgery and to get his brain unbent. He did extensive P/T and learned how to walk again. The doctors tried to ship him up to the VAMC in Seattle, but his mother wouldn’t hear of it. Apparently that place had a bad reputation 40 years before I got there and found out for myself.

The scar that runs from above his left eyebrow, across his forehead and ends behind his right ear hides pretty well with a baseball hat. He pooh-poohs the idea that his was a unique experience.For this he got a Purple Heart, but it wasn’t his first one. He got dinged by B-40 shrapnel about 4 months before this incident and had received a PH for that as well.

Gordon must shit ice cream and walk on water. Either that or he is on a first name basis with God. By rights he should have lost his leg and his head or at a bare minimum, the majority of both. He said he now believes in God. He walks with a cane and is 100% P&T. They feel that he may have PTSD but he won’t go see a psychiatrist and confirm their contentions.

A decade ago, Gordon came out his back door to find a cop trying to shoot his Brittany Spaniel over the fence. Apparently a neighbor had a pit bull escape and Dick Tracy mistook his dog for it. Gordon didn’t cotton to this, retrieved his .45 ACP  and came out and poked a couple of holes in the air near the deputy to get his undivided attention. Said deputy smartly retreated and called in reinforcements. They convicted him of assault, took all his guns away and told him they weren’t going to put him in jail. I’d say that was mighty big of them with him being a genuine war hero and all. Gordon is now a convicted felon. I bet that looks good on the old resume, huh?

Gordon lives near me and I will count him a close friend. We get along like peas and carrots because we live in another world few others will ever know. Some will say we’re war Vets-even Veterans of combat. Mostly, we are the brotherhood of survivors of that insane invention of politicians-war.  And the AWOL M-16? Gordon’s First Shirt submitted a letter and said it was destroyed or lost in the Cu Chi area during combat.  Mystery solved. Case closed. Welcome home, Gordon.

If you look closely, you can see the bullet hole through the handle on this RPG. The gentleman shooting it at me didn’t survive the impact of the 5.56mm.

Posted in General Messages, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

HCV and Vitamin Supplements

Posted on November 28, 2011 by asknod

My wife enlisted me on a joint endeavor this year. In order to live longer, we signed up for a longevity clinic. I do not know if everyone is familiar with the concept, but it entails getting a blood draw every 3 months to optimize your vitamin regimen based on what is being absorbed by your system. That is a brief outline. The regimen includes transdermal testosterone and much more. Testosterone makes Winky feel and act young again. That part is  fun.

In my case, with my short bowel syndrome (courtesy of the VA), my absorption of vitamins requires me to eat mass quantities in order to get the minimum necessary daily essentials. This is, of course, the longevity Doc’s idea of the normal baseline if you are healthy. In my case with a compromised liver, eating 10-20,000 units of Vitamin D and handfuls of optimum B 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 12, fish oil pills, Curcumin, ad nauseum  was having a horrible effect on my liver. We were unable to determine which individual supplement was the culprit for driving my AST/ALT through the roof. My doctors experimented by removing me from the thyroid medication, adding a high-fiber diet and other shots in the dark.

My wife and I decided to drop all my supplements entirely in hopes of saving my liver from further damage. Lo and behold, after just three weeks off the program, my numbers have declined dramatically. My results from last week’s draw at the VA revealed my AST had decline from 122 to 49 and my ALT from 301 to 106!

In order to get my vitamins, I have resorted to liquid versions which are far more expensive. They seem to keep my energy levels much higher, too. I still take Ultrathistle capsules by Natural Wellness. This milkthistle product is suffused with a soy product which increases it’s absorption threefold into the system. But the big hit is Intramax by Drucker Labs:

http://www.cleansurroundings.com/drucker-labs-nutritional-supplem-c-34.html

I’m lucky in that my liver is still compensated. Intramax apparently is very gentle on it. Additionally, I now use Barlean’s Omega Swirl liquid fish oil supplement:

http://www.barleans.com/Default.asp

Now, I know what all of you are thinking. The man has gone off the deep end and is swigging all manner of vitamins in a vain attempt to retrieve his health. Not so, fellow heppers. These things appear to be working beyond my wife’s and my wildest dreams. We all need vitamins as we age. What we don’t need as heppers is to overload the liver in a vain pursuit of our former youth. Our systems are far more fragile and require a different, nuanced approach custom tailored to our individual circumstances.

I have been fooling around with gluten-free this and meat-free that since February. Vegetarian nightmares. High fiber, no dairy, no fun regimes all. Cupcake finally reasoned that a high-fiber diet was scouring out what was left of my small intestines. The VA doctors were trying to get me to pound down 25-30 Imodium tablets a day in hopes of making the diarrhea from the short bowel desist. It never even slowed down. Then they tried Atropine. Again , nothing. All the while Metamucil was the order of the day-morning, noon and night.

After eight months of more fiber than the horse gets, naturopathic remedies from the Longevity clinic, lost weight, and rising Liver function panels, we put our collective foot down. We read up on everything I was putting in me and were astounded. The things we assumed were detrimental were good (Coumadin blood thinner). The phlebotomies for the PCT were a lifesaver (reduced iron infiltration and portal hypertension). The culprits were all the pills. My liver simply couldn’t filter them out and the stress was incrementally destroying it. The more vitamins I consumed in pursuit of health, the worse it became.

Now in just three short weeks, my LFTs are lower than they were before 1988. I’ve given up red meat, but would sooner cut off my right arm. If I hadn’t already quit smoking, I think I would try to drive a bargain whereby I quit the tobacco in lieu of the beef. War was hell, but this is something far worse. Lactaid milk I can handle. Little or no sugar? A piece of cake. The gluten-free thing? It sucks beyond words. Cigarettes and Scotch? Regrettably, yes. But filet mignon? Prime rib rolled in rock salt? A marinated flank steak? Take the right arm above the elbow, please. I insist. Hell, take it to the shoulder, but step away from the Spencer Steaks, pilgrim.

There is no Faustian-style bargaining with the Devil where my wife is concerned. No, the program is keep Buckwheat alive and make his food and drink adventures a mere memory. Why don’t I have a vote in all this? Women have controlled their reproductive functions since Roe vs. Wade. All I’m asking for is a few beef functions a month. Living longer has it’s positives such as the rugrats who refuse to move out and the grandchildren, but I’ve relinquished so much to this disease that I feel there should be some quid pro quo.  Princess’ idea of quid pro quo is turkey burgers and chicken as far as the eye can see. Oh, and some fish thrown in for good measure each week.

I’m thinking of changing my name to Sue because life ain’t easy anymore. Driving by Burger King and waving “Hi” to the King is no longer possible. I have been forced to find another way to drive into town on my infrequent forays just to avoid the aroma of beef broiling. All this to stay alive a few more years and keep Cupcake happy. Now I know how Al Bundy felt in Married… With Children. And, if you think this is all very funny, imagine your best friend as a butcher with his own store. I go there once a week and watch steak TV in his display coolers.

Posted in General Messages, HCV Health, Humor, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

BVA–First Inkling Of Innoculations

Posted on November 27, 2011 by asknod

I’m always searching for things to help Vets win their hep. claims. One can search in newer decisions and extract useful info. He can also go to the beginning and search Genesis as well. This was where I started in 2007 when I was so sick I couldn’t work. My wife turned on the computer and turned me loose. After finding the BVA site for researching decisions, I started at the beginning and read every one to the current year (2007). They became a blur and I focused mostly on the ones that won for guidance. I saw a pattern in the losing ones (willful misconduct or HAV acute infections) but the rationale for winners was varied back in the beginning. Anyone with HBV could and often did get a win. Transfusions (with proof) were a given.

The decision below intrigued me at the time as jetguns were becoming the go-to risk factor. This one is slightly different but the gentleman was on the right track. He unfortunately didn’t broaden his search. He was in the service a whopping 30 long years which gave him ample opportunity to pick up the beast from STDs, tattoos, etc. The jet guns were in full swing when he was discharged. In retrospect, he had a great case that he didn’t exploit to its fullest potential. We’re all Monday morning quarterbacks on these things, but I hope he went back and tried again. His hypothesis was so close to the mark as to be uncanny, but the accused culprit was blameless according to the BVA.

I think I might rightfully say this was the progenitor of the modern jetgun claim absent the words in haec verba. It’s too bad he didn’t have better information to present.  Serving in the military for 30 years without coming down with Hep. would be the miracle in my book.

http://www.va.gov/vetapp92/files1/9204584.txt

 

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No Nativity Scene in D.C.

Posted on November 27, 2011 by asknod
 Supreme Court rules no Nativity scene in DC
The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a Nativity Scene in the United  States’ Capital this Christmas season.
This isn’t for any religious reason. They simply have not been able to find Three Wise Men in the Nation’s Capitol.
A search for a Virgin continues.
There was no problem, however, finding enough asses to fill the stable.
Posted in Humor, Uncategorized | Tagged | 3 Comments

Thanksgiving Gift From BVA

Posted on November 27, 2011 by asknod

I received my Season’s Greetings from the Board of Veterans Appeals on Friday. No drum rolls are in order. It was anticlimatic to say the least. Instead of a decision on my claim, they unceremoniously declined to advance my claim on the docket.

There was no specific reason for not advancing it. They cited to the fact that there was an absence of sufficient cause. That is legitimate. I can’t win everything all the time with them. However, I do think that being put on hold on January 5th, 1995 and leaving me there constitutes an administrative error resulting in a significant delay in docketing the case. That was my argument.

The BVA, as is their wont, is extremely sparse in verbalizing their reasons for denial. You do not get a blow by blow description of the whys and why nots. You get a straight forward summary of the regulation and an equally worded denial. The good news is I don’t need to spend my waking hours curled up near the computer checking the Ebenefits page every morning and evening. This probably will not see the light of day for some time.

This makes for dry reading, but is instructional insofar as it allows you to peek under the curtain to see what’s happened and what’s in store for you on appeal in 2012-2013.

http://www.bva.va.gov/docs/Chairmans_Annual_Rpts/BVA2010AR.pdf

I see the BVA issued 49,127  2010 decisions- an increase of 323 cases over the prior year of 2009. Whoo-hoo! The author had this excuse for why there weren’t more forthcoming.

The Board’s productivity in Fiscal Year 2010 represents the greatest number of decisions issued by the Board in any year since the beginning of judicial review of Board decisions. Our productivity would have been greater in Fiscal Year 2010, but for two unforeseen events which dramatically affected our output. Record snow storms struck Washington, DC in February 2010, shutting down the majority of operations for nearly a week. Although the Board continued to hold hearings during this time, this period was far from fully productive. Even more seriously, in April 2010, the Board’s computer system was attacked by a crippling virus that suspended virtually all operations for approximately 10 days. As the Board generally averages 1,000 appeals decided per week, these disruptions took a significant toll on productivity. The Board was able to bounce back from the effects of the inclement weather much more effectively than the computer virus, as the virus also affected the ability of our staff to telework due to the lack of a functioning computer system, the residuals of which lasted several weeks.

Looking to the future, I see a big roadblock. The BVA still hasn’t hired more VLJs in spite of their stated intention to do so. I cite to the list of 48 on page 15. This will result in more days and an increased backlog. Look at this cute little powerpoint poster:

Why the disparity of 5,000 + fewer appeals docketed than filed at the RO (AOJ)? Do some Vets change their minds? The numbers speak volumes but do not speak for themselves here. I love the fact that the word “Apelas” escaped everyone there as well as the spellchecker. At any rate, it appears I may be several years older and closer to Stage 4 decompensation when this is handed down. Hopefully it will occur before I start out on my new adventure.

In other words, what the BVA is saying is “your claim has the right to remain dormant. If and when we get through this horrendous backlog, we’ll get back to you. Should you pass away before a decision is reached, we won’t have to adjudicate it. Your spouse can, if she wishes, elect to resurrect this at the AOJ, but that will take another year or two after filing. With luck she may see justice before 2018 unless, of course, she has to appeal it…”

I’ll keep readers apprised of the progress annually assuming I hear back from them.

Posted in BvA HCV decisions, Humor | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Georgia Pecan Pie

Posted on November 24, 2011 by asknod

Most of you don’t realize I’m from south of the Mason-Dixon line. I ended up on the Left Coast after I got out and was too poor to move back to the Northern neck (of Virginia). Truth be told there wasn’t much to make me want to. I got the Dear John from whatshername about a month into boot camp when I mailed her a picture of my new haircut. My relatives weren’t rich so I couldn’t bum off of them. No, the smart money was skip rent, buy tickets to the Cal Jam at Ontario Speedway April 9th, 1974 and then move to Seattle in the middle of even/odd gas rationing. All in all, a well thought out plan until I got to Weed, California on empty.

I guess you’re wondering how pecan pie fits into that equation. If you are from the south, you cook differently from other folks. We give out recipes for things but never, ever list all the correct ingredients. That way when your friend came over for a cocktail party and complained that the corn bread didn’t rise like yours, you could act stupid. He/she didn’t need to know you inserted baking soda for baking powder. You’d shrug your shoulders and tell them they didn’t whip the eggs long enough. Evil is as evil does.

With that said, and knowing that my ancestors won’t rise from the grave and throttle me, I release the real recipe from Georgia for Southern pecan pie. This is the quintessential Thanksgiving desert in our humble abode. Before you get out the pie pan, let’s get one thing straight. It’s pronounced pea-can pie as in I can, you can and pea can. None of this pecahn pie business with the accent on the second syllable. If you’re from north of Baltimore, then you’ll have to relearn it. I hope none of you say to-mah-to, either. Pe-cahn pie from up north is a gooey mess with whole pecahns and a cardboard crust. It’s not their fault. One of my ancestors undoubtedly gave them the recipe. Where we’re going, there is no crust.

Pecan Pie

Oven =325

3 egg whites (whipped)

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup pecans broken up lovingly

3/4 cup graham crackers  well-crumbled

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 Tanqueray ‘n Tonic (TNT) with two limes (squeezed). Face Great Britain and salute, then begin.

Beat whites and then add other ingredients. Grease 9″ pyrex pie pan. Cook 25 minutes in a slow oven to a light tan crust. Cover with 1/2 pint whipped creme and stand well back from the stampede.  Experience will eventually teach you to make two as one will evaporate before dinner begins. No crust. What could be simpler? I promise this is correct in all respects. It wouldn’t take long to prove me a liar anyway. If it doesn’t appeal to you then you are beyond help.

Veterans’ wives would be advised to butter me up as there are other recipes I possess that make this look like child’s play. My Daddy’s corncake is the talk of two Carolinas and Virginia. Notice I said corncake, not cornbread. It’s been likened to one of Betty Crocker’s adventures in good eating, but you won’t find it there. Bon appetit, mesdames et messieurs.

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Thanksgiving 1970

Posted on November 23, 2011 by asknod

Isn’t it funny how old people can remember something in the past but they can’t remember how to copy and paste? Wait. I’m old so I can’t go there yet. It is true, or seems to be, that we can remember what was afoot in the world 40 years ago but draw a blank when asked who our President is…

I can remember getting a CARE package from my stepmother that had all manner of goodies about Thanksgiving time in 70. It had spray cheese that didn’t need any refrigeration. The A-1 sauce was worth 3 cartons of Marbs. Mostly, I remember the Fig Newtons. I saved them for T-day. We had no turkey. We were located 349 klics away from anything resembling turkey. It was designated T-11 in a small city in NW Thailand. Our component was called Operating Location Charlie, 1980th Comm. Sq. We had a US Consulate with an APO, but no American base- just a short laterite runway. There were several spook outfits there. One guided SR-71s into Russia for overflights. Another Army outfit had an antenna farm that looked into Laos and North Vietnam and picked up stray radio transmissions. We provided them with communications to the outside world via cable, TRC-35 LOS  Microwave and MRC-98 Tropospheric Scatter. Our sum total was a combined 45-50 Army, Air Force and an alphabet soup of CIA functions.  Langley had 3 permanently assigned, not including the AirAm personnel.

That Thanksgiving evening, I decided to share my stash of Fig newtons with some of my friends who had come over for a big chicken dinner in lieu of turkey. In the late dusk I started handing out the cookies by passing the package. Shortly after my first cookie, I felt something on my neck and brushed it off. Moments later I felt more and did so again. About that time, my friends all started experiencing the same thing. One turned on his flashlight and observed that the Fig Newtons were covered in ants.

Repair order? Why, blow on each cookie as you took it out of the bag. Nobody was willing to throw these puppies away.

The best part of all this was the discovery of spray cheese. I made a killing on that for the next 16 months. I also sold scotch and stereo off-base for a 400% markup. Getting the money out of the country without Uncle Sam putting you in jail for black marketing was the trick. One of my AirAm buddies solved that. They all flew down to Bangkok and opened Swiss bank accounts at the Embassy there to avoid paying taxes on their income.  I joined them one trip and followed suit. When I got to the States, my first stop was the Swiss Consulate in L.A. They graciously converted them from Swiss francs into US. currency for me, too. Happy Thanksgiving.

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