jamescripps2

PN is a presumptive of AO exposure if it manifest to at least 10% within one year of last exposure. If it did not manifest to at least 10% within last exposure, then it must be claimed and filed under a direct exposure claim.

Yes it would. There are many secondary conditions that might result from the HBP. You could file on them as they occur, if hypertension was already service connected.

100%, as far as I am concerned, is only a baby step. I am rated R-2. That is twelve steps above 100%. My Check is 10,567.47 per month. Check it out. https://www.military.com/benefits/veteran-benefits/special-monthly-compensation-smc-tables.html

Tbird, was that scooter obtained through the Voc Rehab's Iindependent Living Program?

I have had a scooter for eight years now. I just, last month, complained that it was getting old and unreliable. They sent a consult to prostetics who, in turn, replaced the batteries on my scooter. Batteries did not fix the problem. I complained again and a new scooter has been ordered along with a new replacement scooter lift for my Ford explorer. They included a new scooter cover and a new cane holder. Good communication is key in obtaining anything from the VA. Communicate your needs and prepare to be adamant about it if need be. Don't take no for an answer from anyone as you can go over, under, around or through that person to get what you need. A scooter must be a need, not just a want. Have your cardiologist confirm that it is indeed a need and ask your PCP for a consult based upon that confirmed need and you will get your scooter.

If you are denied a scooter, be adament about it and you will get one. They would rather talk you out of it but just insist on it.

Ask your PCP for a consult to the scooter clinic.

The way to win is to submit a completed VAF 10182 and ask the BVA to take a look at your case. ((.((% it will be remanded back to the VHA with an expedited status ordered by the BVA judge with speciffic instructions on the readjudication of the claim. A win will produce backpay. That is how I won on June 22, 2022.

PCAFC cases are worked by the VHA CEAT teams. The same is true on up through the 0996 HLR and 0995 Supplemental claims for PCAFC cases. PCAFC cases are not worked by the VBA until a veteran files a VAF 10182, asking the BVA to hear the case. Those PCAFC claims go much faster. I went through six appeals inside of eighteen months before finally being granted at the BVA. My case was at the BVA for less than three months before being granted. One of my appeals was worked by the VISN 8 Ceat team and was denied in less than twenty four hours after the appeal was submitted to the VAMC Nashville Patient Advocate. About 99.99% of the PCAFC cases going to the BVA are remanded back to the VHA for prompt addjudication with a "expedite this claim" order by the BVA Judge. You can read more on what I have to say about CPAFC at my web site. vatheredneckway.wordpress.com

According to 38 CFR 3.350, permanent loss of the perenial nerve will be considered as loss of use by the VA. Ask your Podiatrist to check for permanent loss of that nerve. You, on your own cannot determine that you have lost that nerve as the symptems are suttle and hard to put your finger on. Loss of use would get you a 100% P&T, a $24,000.00 vehicle grant with adaptive equiptment, and a $108,000.00 specially adaptive housing grant. My PN was originally granted @ 10%, I appealed and got 30%, once again, I appealed and was granted 40%. Upon my next appeal, I appealed to the BVA and was granted 100% P&T for bilateral loss of use to include five years retro. I appealed for an EED at the CAVC, and I was granted ten years back pay. Next, I asked for A&A and it was granted. A&A is SMC "L". Loss of use of two feet is also SMC "L". If a veteran can get two ratings between SMC "L" and SMC "N" then he is bumped to the maximum rating of SMC "O". At that point, the A&A automatically goes to a higher level, "R-"1". Later on I qualified for the bump to R-2, the highest level of A&A. There are several ancillary benefits picked up along the way. If this all sounds like greek to you, read 38 CFR3.350 and 3.352. To get a clearer version read 38 USC 1114.

40% is the below the knee amputation rate so you could not go over 40% per extremity unless they find loss of use. LOU is 100% for bilatteral below the knee loss of, or loss of use of lower extremities.

Anywhere from 0% all the way up to loss of use of an extremity. Just depends upon how severe. In my own case it was rated as loss of use of bilateral upper extremities ànd loss of use of bilateral lower extremities.

First of all., apply for VR&E benefits. They will assess the feasibility of wheather or not you can be retrained / re educated to return to work for gainful employment. After the interviews they will find that you indeed are not employable. They will do the write up that you are no longer employable. With that being said, then file for your unemployability using the VR&E letter so support your claim. You might consider filing for an increase on that IHD considering your pooped out feelings. You might just end up with an "S" award and plan a shopping spree!

I volenteered, signed on the dotted line, knowing that I was expendable. I preformed my duties as ordered, just as we all did. I knew the risk, but I never ever thought that it could, and almost did cost my children their lives. That was NOT part of the bargan.

Ok John, long read, but here is the skinny on the Fournier's Gangrene and Agent Orange exposure that occured on a daily basis from 1967-1969, and probably more than you care to know, and more than I have ever admitted except to the US Government who took the position against me, along with the DOD and the DVA that " Mr. Cripps! We have never ever used agent orange inside the Continental United States, PERIOD! Well, now they can never again make that statement! I was a 95 Brovo, MP Game warden and a Deputy Sheriff of Augusta and Richmond County Georgia. The reason for my being appointed as a Deputy Sheriff was to get around the Posse Comitatus act of 1878. The Posse Comitatus act, which removed the military from regular civil law enforcement was enacted in responce to the abuses resulting from the extensive use of the Army in civil law enforcement during the Civil War and the reconstruction period. I, as a Game Warden, needed the authority to search, seize, and pursue Civillians, and to carry my weapon off post and outside of the military instillation. I, in 1967, was given orders to work in conjunction with the Fort Gordon Forestry Division, Fish and Wildlife, and Plant Sciences, who were down from from Fort Detrick Maryland. We were involved in testing what is now known as the rainbow herbicides. We were trying to find the optium mixture of the consentrate agent orange, soluble in diesel fuel, and the same with agents blue and white which are soluble in water. Orange is a broad leaf herbicide and kills jungle, whereas blue and white kill crops. We added Piclorium in the mixture in order to enabling the herbicide to remain liquid long enough to drip from the canopy above and make it to the ground before it became an aerasol. We also needed to know what the optimum spray nozzle setting was to be and how wide a swath to make using the Bell G-2 helicopter. Lastly I had to make all test left over herbicides disappear. I accomplished that task by hand spraying to use it up. I was deployed to Germany to work with the NATO forces before I could use all of the toxic herbicides up. My stash of herbicides were found in the early eightys by the Fort Gordon Forester when he cut my lock off of the building where they had remained stashed for more than a decade. The location of my stash, along with my four gallon brass pump sprayer became a toxic clean up site and the sworn, written statement by the Forester that he had verified that it was indeed my stash, was presented as overwhelming evidence to the Judge at my BVA hearing in November 2009, enabling me to be granted medical care and compensation for my disabilities by the US Department of Veteran's Affairs for the rest of my life. In December, 2019, My VA Cardiologist, whom I trust and trusted back then, prescribed the drug JARDIANCE (as seen advertized on TV). Immediately I started getting puss pockets in my groin area, and bleeding from the same area. I complained to Dermatology several times and went to the emergency room on several occasions to no avail. They did exams and prescribed about 500 antiboitics over a year and a half. On July 1, 2020, I drove myself to the VA ER. Don't remember the drive at all and don't have a memory of seeing anyone at the VA, but I made it home with another bottle of antiobotics. In the medicine cabine at Home, I had four strong oxycodone pills left over from a dental sergical procedure that was preformed years earlier. I couldn't stand the pain any longer. I took three consecutive oxycodone pills that knocked me out, three hours each. On July 3rd I woke up from the self induced coma and realized that if I took the fourth opiate, then I would be out of pain killers and I asked my wife to drive me back to the VA ER. We arrived at the ER, which is about thirty miles. I remember my wife saying that she was going to let me out at the door and go park the car. I remember reaching for the ER door handle and that was it, lights out for me right there. Five hours later my son arrived to comfort my wife. Neither was not allowed in the hospital because of the covid restrictions, and demanded to speak to my ER doctor. I was not to see anybody that I knew for the next thirty days. The Doctor agreed to talk to my son and told him that they were assessing the situation to see if they were just going to make me comfortable and let me go, or if it was even feasieble, they would try surgery. They only had fifteen minutes to decide while at the same time trying to get a surgical team together, othereise, there would be no use, as I was being quickly consumed and eaten alive by the Fournier's Gangrene. The surgeons decided that the surgery was a go. I was given a four percent chance to make it through the surgery, and if I did manage to survive I was given twelve percent to make it another 90 days. They cut forty one pounds of dead flesh from my body that night. I went from 235 lbs to 194 lbs on the operating table and then down to 180 lbs before going home. I was reconstructed from my knees to just above my navel. Multiple skin grafts and extensive plastic surgery was involved. And yep, I lost the family jewls and such, got a colostomy bag too. The colostomy was scheduled to be reversed in one year, but had to be postponed because my defective pacemaker / defibrillator wires broke, sprung through my chest wall, got infected, had to be relocated from my left chest to my right chest where everything was replaced. I received my fifth device and I was given seven more years of battery life. I am pacemaker dependent as my heart is unable to beat on its own and anything in there that might cause a heart beat has been zapped, burned and destroyed with a laser. I was transported back to home by the VA thirty days later, July 31st. with a hospital bed, 150 opiates and was encouraged to order an many opiates as I wanted. I was sent home to die. I may have taken five of those opiates and I just sucked it up and decided to live. Almost three years later and I am just now beginning to live my new normal. Along Interstate 24, going through Nashville, there is a static mounted road tractor (a big red truck) way up in the air on a pole. The caption on the sign below says "GET YOURSELF A NEW PETERBUILT". Ouch, take my word for it! You don't want to do that. Get yourself a Mack, a GMC, a Ford, but never a new Peterbuilt. The photo below is an actual picture taken of me, in the operating room, on the operating table mid operation. You can see that someone has my bladder in their hand squeezing to empty it of its stream of urine. The unidentified object is a gloved littie finger of the person doing the squeezing. I actually did some horse trading with the plastic surgeon in order to obtain that picture. The words agent orange make me cringe! Beware of Jordiance. Check your medication list and see if you are taking it. Do your DD and research on the drug.

and the medications thereof.

I was granted two claims in 2022. One was in June and the other was in October. Both were sent back to the RO for implementation

Don't know. I have not heard of DROC.

File a few VA claims, that is comparable to gambling, but it won't help with the depression and might push the anxiety through the roof.

I wouldn't loose any sleep over it!

Diabetes is a known cause of Fournier's Gangrene. Have you been prescribed the medication Jordiance for your Diabetes and/or heart disease? There had been only ninteen cases of Fournier;s Gangrene in thirty five years until they introduced Jardiance. Then the number of cases just exploded. That is what happened to me. Fournier's is some really nasty stuff to have to deal with!

The BVA does remand back to the AOJ. In the case of a grant, it still goes back to the AOJ to be assigned a percentage so it can be implemented.

Don't pay no attentions to kangaroos, file for everything that you feel you have coming to you.

This claim was a new claim filed on a 526EZ for Fournier's Gangrene. No matter what start date the doctor might state, the effective date, was going to be the date that the intent was submitted to the VBA. If the claim had been for SMC, then yes, the EED would be the date of the onset. In that case a doctor's opinion should be considered by the rater. That having been said. I needed to win that claim for Fournier's Gangrene and have it service connected quickly, because I was applying for the PCAFC caregiver's benefit in which they only consider service connected disabilities. From the date of filing until the date of the decision granting the claim took only 45 days. Please note, I asked the cardiologist for an etiology of the disease, and he wrote one of the best nexus letters that I have ever seen. If he would have he opined as to a start date, it would have required pure speculation on his part. That nexus letter contained every component that is required by the VA in a nexus. If I had I asked the doctor for speculation as to a start date, I may have asked for more than he was willing to give and I would have walked away with nothing. Bronco, we all are aware of how difficult it is to obtain a nexus letter from a VA specialist of that calliber. I did not need to stand on that doctor's coat tail and beg for a nexus letter to substantiate my claim. The letter might not have met your standards, but it met mine, and evidently it met the expections of the rater because it won me the service connection for the Fournier's Gangrene, an increase from SMC R-1 to SMC R-2, an increase from 0% to 30% for chloracne, 30% for three painful scars, and 0% each for eleven more scars. I applied and was granted level 2 caregiver's benefits. In the shadow of all of that has been stated in the foregoing. After the claim for the Fournier's gangreen was awarded in 2020, my legal team immediately filed for an EED back to 2011 for the award of the R-2. That fuse has been lit and continues to burn, if I can only manage to outlive it! Thanks for your input!

Above 100% there are twelve SMC letter awards. Top pay is North of $10,000.00 per month. Don't fence yourself out of being awarded the higher SMC awards by not filing for disabilities beyond 100% because of fear of reduction.