No Hearing, Great Results, Excellent Birthday!

I know that many of you know that I had a hearing scheduled for this morning to appeal my initial disability rating from the Army Physical Evaluation Board (PEB) of 30%. Up to this point I didn't want to reveal too much information because my attorney had a strategy and the last thing I wanted to do was to undermine it. I know that sounds kinda' lame, but I don't know who's reading this blog. I can't remember how much detail I went into after I got my initial rating so I recap just a bit.

After I got that rating, it seemed low to me so I went to talk to a rep from the Disabled American Veterans (DAV). They have someone on-site at Walter Reed (WRAMC) to help us out with these things. When he looked at it and then looked at the regulation, he said it looked like I was supposed to get 100% disability. The DAV has a program where law firms in the DC area will represent soldiers that want to appeal their ratings. I was assigned an awesome lawyer from the firm Jones Day. This guy was awesome. He looked up tons of information regarding my situation, gathered documents and records and spoke to me several times to discuss my case. We finally met face to face last week at their office in DC and we went over all the information they gathered for my case. Then late last week I had to do some running around to gather a few more documents right up to Friday night. I took the weekend off and stayed with my good friends Amanda and Buddy (check out their blog!).

Monday morning I was getting ready to do some more info gathering when I saw that I missed a call on my phone. It was my PEBLO Counselor and he said that he had a new DA199 for me. The DA199 is the form that has a disability rating on it. I was a bit confused and when I called him back, I had to leave him a message. I then called my attorney and he said he wouldn't be surprised because they came to WRAMC last week and observed a hearing and then had a chance to speak to the board. Then as I was about to run out the door, my Case Manager called me saying that I needed to speak to my PEBLO ASAP! I headed right over there and as I was walking down the hall, he came out of his office and he called me back immediately. He showed me the new paperwork and apparently, after my attorney met with them, they convened another informal board and changed my rating from 30% to 100% through Aug 2009 on the Temporary Disability Retirement List (TDRL). So, I did not have to go to my hearing after all! I shared this new information with my attorney and he told me it looked like this was the best I was going to get, so I signed it.

Now the paperwork has to go to the Army Physical Disability Agency (PDA) for approval. If they agree, then they will cut order for we to leave WRAMC and I couold be home by the end of March. I know it's all confusing, but there is a very good short summary of the whole process, including what TDRL and other things mean, here: Military Disability (Medical) Separations and Retirements. This has been such a relief for me and my entire family. This entire four year saga of being away from home might soon be over... but lets just keep on praying for now. Thanks for praying for me and sticking in there. We only have a little bit more to go!

So today is my birthday... I'm 33. The staff at the Stripe newspaper office had cake for me - that was nice of them. And this evening I went back over to Amanda & Buddy's for dinner, games and cake. I'm so glad they invited me. It was nice to have a somewhat regular birthday. I wish Holly was here with me, but I'll see her soon enough. BTW - I think Amanda is going to be giving birth either Thu or Fri, the contractions are kicking in, so please pray for a safe delivery!

PEB Results Questionable

I got my PEB results back today, but they only rated me at 30% on TDRL. I can’t get into specifics right now, but I am not sure if I should go along with this or contest it. There are two organizations here, the American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans, who help answer questions we have regarding our PEBs. Unfortunately, they’re all out today at a Christmas party at the headquarters office. All day?!? Well, whatever. I left them all voicemails and slid letters asking for help underneath their doors, so I should get my questions answered Monday.

I have a list of questions ready to go and will add to it all weekend. I just want to make sure that I completely understand what is going on here. In the meantime, I have to stew all weekend long. I apparently haven’t learned enough about patience, so the Lord is teaching me another lesson. Please pray that all my questions are answered Monday so that I can make a decision soon. I have until Dec 26th, but I don’t want to have to wait that long. And please just pray for peace for me over the weekend and that this does not drive me crazy. Thanks and have a great weekend.

MEB Done... on to the PEB

Well, Holly and I just met with my PEBLO and we were presented with my DA3947, or the finding of the MEB. They agreed with my thinking that there are three things that should be medically unacceptable: cancer, seizures and right-sided weakness. It looked good and I signed it. Now it will go to the PEB tomorrow. I got what I expected, so thank you for your prayers. I'll update you more later on about what's next.

Got The Call

Roger just got the call that his PEBLO wants to see him. We don't know if it's to tell him what the doctors decided or to tell him more paperwork is missing or needed. So please pray for us. We see him at 12:30pm. Please pray that we react in a Godly way no matter what news we receive. Thank you!

MEB Addendum Complete! Docs Make Decision on Mon?

After my last post, I continued to sit in the waiting room for about 15 minutes. My Neurologist came out and said he was done. He gave me my file and told me to go down to the medical boards office and ask them to process a particular case number that he wrote on a post-it. I hurried down to the office and told them what the doctor told me to say… and they were quite confused. First it took them a while to realize that I was in the Army. Uh, hello? My uniform says US Army! They then told me that he had indeed done a dictation and that it would not be available until sometime next week. Talk about your hopes being dashed. We called my Neurologist again to make he sure he understood what he was doing, and he said yes. It kinda ticked me off because he gave me the impression that he was going to put it in the computer, but he didn’t… he still dictated it. Well, whatever. I’m used to being run over all the time now, so I gave in, thanked him and filled out the required paperwork to route the finished product to me at WRAMC.

I decided to listen to my stomach and went to the cafeteria to get a bite to eat. As a soldier on medical hold with a meal card, I get to eat free there too. On the way to the cafeteria, I saw my Rad/Onc, Dr. Duelge. His wife and daughter were there too, it was nice to see him and to meet some of his family. After eating, I went back up to wait for the bus, which finally came after a few minutes and I was on my way back to WRAMC. But as the bus was driving off, I got a call on my mobile phone. It was the medical boards office. Somehow, the dictation was completed already! She needed my Neurologist to review and sign it and asked me for his phone number… I gladly gave it to her. She asked me to call her back when I got to WRAMC.

I called her immediately when I got off the bus and she said everything was good to go. I gave her my fax number and the fax number of the PEBLO and headed off to the PEBLO’s office. Upon arriving at the PEBLO’s office, I explained that they should be expecting a fax from NNMC and I wanted to make sure they received it. They told me to take a seat and I did. I was sitting for no more than a minute when my PEBLO came walking out of the office! I told him they were faxing over an addendum and he raced off to fetch it. A few minutes he came back with it in hand and I breathed a sigh of relief. Whew!!

He explained that all the MEB docs were gone but he would pass the paperwork to my MEB doc first thing Monday morning. He said that they should have a determination regarding which conditions are ratable and will go forward to the PEB. I will have 72 hours from the day I receive this form to either concur or nonconcur with the findings. If I agree, my case will move to the PEB and they will say that I am either ‘fit for duty’ or ‘not fit for duty’ and then assign a disability rating. If I agree with them and everything goes smoothly, there is a chance (just a chance) that I could be home for good before Christmas. I just glossed over how the system works. It is a confusing system with all sorts of rules and such. If you’re interested in learning just a little bit more about where we go from here, I suggest you check out this link regarding the Army Physical Disability Evaluation System (PDES).

Let me know if you have any questions by posting a comment or emailing me directly. This is what the last seven months here have been leading up to. This is also what the article in the Washington Post discussed earlier this year. I’m diving head first into all of this. I hope I can keep my head above water! Please pray that everything moves swiftly and easily… I would really like to go home soon.

Confusion Leading to the End?

I am sitting at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda waiting to see my Neurologist. Holly blogged yesterday that I was going to see my Neurosurgeon, but she was slightly off. I saw my Neurologist two weeks ago and at that time he answered all the additional questions that the MEB doctors had. In the past few weeks I have seen all the specialists involved in my care so that they could enter final notes into the system for my MEB. They call these addendums. I thought everything was done and I went to see the PEBLO (Physical Evaluation Board Liaison Officer), the guy that is the go between the MEB docs and everything else. He went into the system, printed out all the notes and said he would pass them to the MEB docs. I got a call a few hours later from my PEBLO and he said the MEB docs were ready to move forward with the process... Except for one thing. When I saw my Neurologist two weeks ago, he said he was going to dictate a new board. What that means is he would speak into a microphone all the new information and it would have to be transcribed and sent over to Walter Reed. Minimum time? About two to three weeks. So that would stop everything in it's tracks... Again. So, my question is why?

If he already answered all the questions... Why do this again? I already have a board dictated. Okay... Terminology break. When a doc dictates a board, the resulting document is called a Narrative Summary or NARSUM for short. A NARSUM initiates the Medical Evaluation Board process (MEB for short). From there it moves on to the Physical Evaluation Board or PEB. More on that when we get to it.

So, I already have a NARSUM. It was a very poorly written document and it was out of date. I told this to my Case Manager at the time and she said that was fine. That updated information could be added via these addendums. As far as I understand, all the addendums are in. But as I said, my Neurologist wants to dictate a new NARSUM. He asked to bring my old NARSUM, which I did. But I still don't understand why he couldn't ask the doc that did it in the first place since he's in the office next door! Talk about the right hand not talking to the left!

Anyway, I have no idea what's going on. The big question that I have today is, if all the questions the MEB docs were answered in the addendum, why does a new NARSUM have to be dictated?

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Okay, he just called me back and said that he is going to enter the new information, whatever it is, into the electronic system - a new addendum. He says he's putting in a new NARSUM. Whatever. I think I better call and see if what he's doing is valid.

I just called my PEBLO and he said he just left me a voicemail! He said that he can enter a new NARSUM into the system and the docs can start on my case as early as Friday!

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I will update you later on what exactly takes place the rest of the day. Looks like things might be moving along! :-)