Just Checking . . .

I have been checking on ebenefits.va.gov and have seen little or no progress regarding my new claim with the VA. So I moved on the a Veterans Benefit Forum run by veterans not the government.

I learned that since the Secretary of VA determined that there were three new presumptive disabilities regarding Agent Orange that the VA has been swamped with claim actions. There was a court decision sometime ago and is now referred to as the Nehmer Stipulation. It makes the VA go back in time to check records, etc. regarding Agent Orange claims and determined that there were disabilities related to Agent Orange exposure in Viet Nam (and curiously to Korea War too). I was a wash in the stuff exposed on the flight line in both DaNang and Bien Hoa. In the case of DaNang my roommate was a "Ranch Hand" pilot. Ranch Hand was the code name for the fellows that sprayed Agent Orange all over View Nam (and probably areas of Laos and Cambodia too).

Most of tour time in Viet Nam was at Bien Hoa Air Base which was adjacent to the "Iron Triangle." The Iron Triangle was an area of swamp, etc, part of the Mekong River delta zone of many square miles in size and infested with Viet Cong. So a lot of Agent Orange was sprayed there and I am sure a lot of it waifed over good old Bien Hoa where I lived for a year.

At any rate my Diabetes Type II is considered a Combat Related disability. And it has spawned other problems - cataracts and Neuropathy in both feet and left hand. These things will only get worse with time and of course Diabetes Type II is a life limiting disease with no known cure. So I just get to live with it. Maybe they will even award a Purple Heart in retrospect - not.

My combined service related and combat related disabilities have almost reached
100%. They are at 90%. The VA has a complicated rate table to make these determinations. So in fact I have 170% in total disabilities but when aggregated on the VA rate table it comes out to 90%. This table has been in existence since WW-1 and has historical roots all the way back to the Civil War. So it is a tried and true process, at least one that will not change anytime soon.

I made the mistake (well maybe not a mistake) and made a request to be determined as "unemployable." Age of course was not a consideration in such of a new rating. But the VA had a panel of doctors evaluated me in Sept of 2010 in regard to employablitiy. There was an Ophthalmologist, a Orthopedic Surgeon and a GP, each doing his on thing so to speak. The eye doctor said that my cataracts were a 1 on scale of 1 to 4, the Orthopedic Surgeon noted that my knees were popping and cracking, and recommended I stop walking as an exercise (I did not stop, I need to exercise regarding Diabetes and potential heart disease), and the GP did a number of BP tests (and I provided him with a list of my current medications) and other agility tests and the usual thumping and listening thing.

And I began the wait. Takes a while for things to percolate through the VA. About mid December I checked in with the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), my on scene representatives. I am by the way a life member of the DAV. You know the DAV, they are Red Poppy people. At any rate I get a email from then saying they were doing a look see at Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD).

That is a new disability and it is another Agent Orange thing. Scared the crap out of me. I did the Internet search and found out that IHD was another name for Coronary Artery Disease. Ah ha - Cholesterol, etal, has risen its head. I have been treated for elements of CAD for years. Take blood pressure medication, two medications for Cholesterol and one for heart rate - that is four medications for CAD. So in the terms of the VA I have at least one MET for IHD. That on their basic table for IHD is a rate of 10% for the disability.

Could that drive my total disabilities to 100%? Perhaps. But the rub is that since the Secretary has added these three new disabilities to Agent Orange, there have been almost 90,000 cases to adjudicate in the Texas Department alone. Looks like I am in the middle of all of that hoopla. A veterans run forum, that is by us veterans and not the Government Veterans Administration, they indicate the VA can address about 1,500 to 2,300 cases per week. You do the math. I could be the middle of the summer before I get an answer. And they do it by date of application, so mine is September 15, 2010.

And what is worse is the bad weather shut them down. They lost a week of work time and probably gained as many new cases to evaluate/adjudicate. Its gonna be a long time this go round. On the other hand, since I made claims about high Chlorestorol way back in 1989, they may have to compensate to that date. That would be a nice piece of change and is totally tax free (state and federal).

As Hermine said in Harry Potter, "And now we wait."