Mark Bradley

Thank you everyone for such detailed responses. This provides amazing content to create a sample document for my Denver oncologist to read and use as a template for a new IMO/IME. Thank you for taking the time to provide these responses. Mark

I recently received a "Service connection for myeloma multiple is denied" rating decision. I visited my local Disabled American Veterans chapter and they are in the process of helping me submit a VA Form 20-0995 Decision Review Request: Supplemental Claim. My purpose for posting in this forum is to ask for advice on how to appropriately present my supplemental information; more specifically, are there "magical" words I should be using in my Nexus letter? I retired from the Air Force after 24 years on active duty (1987-2011). I was stationed in Minot, ND (pesticides to mitigate mosquitos) and Korea (pollution and Chinese yellow dust); and also was deployed to Afghanistan. I was a missileer in Minot, and spent 200 alerts over 4 years underground in a capsule with air and sewage problems. I retired in Colorado Springs. I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma on 20 Feb 20 and received a stem cell transplant on 22 Jul 20. My current life expectancy based on my Kappa Free Light Chains number is 6-10 years. My Colorado Springs oncologist wrote a letter for my VA disability application. Part of it reads, "There are there are multiple etiologies/contributing risk factors for multiple myeloma and it is hard to pin-point one single event that could have caused his cancer. It is very possible Mark was exposed to something prior to his retirement in April 2011 that caused the cancer. It is possible during his deployment to Afghanistan in 2009 or his multiple trips to Korea he was exposed to a cancer-causing agent, but we cannot conclude this definitively at this time." It's impossible to narrow down the cause of multiple myeloma to one event or deployment. In fact, my Denver oncologist asked me if I had grown up on a farm. So it seems the trigger for multiple myeloma could have happened many years ago, and the cancer then manifested itself last year. Bottom line, I find it hard to believe my multiple myeloma was triggered in the past 10 years of retirement and not in the previous 24 years on active duty. I'm going to visit my Denver oncologist on 13 July (who is a multiple myeloma specialist) and ask him to write a letter to the VA. I don't want him to misrepresent my condition or the cause for my cancer, but I want to be able to use the correct words to try to strengthen my disability case. Thanks for reading this all the way to the end. Mark