I am a disabled Veteran.

  That means a lot of different things to different people.  For most Americans it means something happened 'over there' and left some poor guy or gal less capable than they were before.  It could be a lost limb, blindness or any of hundreds of conditions.  Most people don't think about disabled veterans at all.  Few people outside a disabled veteran's family actually deal with what it means.

  I'll tell you what it means for me.  It means constant discomfort.  It's regular appointments for health care.  It's a dozen prescription drugs a day just to function.  It's inconveniencing my wife who has to wait for me to feel better before doing anything.  It's a struggle to get out of bed every day and tough to find a reason to try.  

  For me, being a disabled veteran has meant struggling for over twelve years to get the compensation my conditions warrant.  I have spent over a decade wrangling with a faceless federal government agency to accept my everyday reality.  Its a discouraging uphill battle, more difficult than anything I had to endure in my ten years on active duty.

  I want to talk about that in more detail.  The agency is the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).  They are the providers of all my healthcare.  I am thankful for the good care I'm afforded.  I have to ask for most of that care on a regular basis, but I eventually get what I need.  VA also pays me a monthly disability compensation amount based on the severity of my conditions.  The disability scale progresses in increments of 10% all the way to 100%.  I am on the scale at 90%, but I have appealed that decision to ask for 100%.

  That process started for me before I left the Navy in 2000.  I spent the first five years after I got out of the service unaware that I had been awarded 30% disability at my discharge.  I began to get sick while still on active duty and the first signs of that sickness was Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  Its is as bad as it sounds, and I won't go into detail about how miserable it makes me.  I'll point out here though that even without losing a limb or my sight I still belong to the disabled veterans 'club'.
  In 2005 I found out the VA owed me money for the five years I'd been rated (the word the VA uses to talk about disability percentages) at 30%.  According to VA they couldn't find me.  I was in college receiving GI Bill benefits and in correspondence with two other VA offices during that time.  Somehow finding me to tell me the government owed me money was not as important as when they tracked me down for an over-payment from the GI Bill.

  I used the money to buy a house.  Then I got sicker.  I went through one of the darkest times in my life.  Some days I just didn't make it out of bed.  I was sleeping a lot and found myself choking in my sleep.  I went to the doctor about it and found out I had sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome.  I was supporting my two year old son, his mother and myself on $324.00 a month from VA.  I was on every public assistance program I was eligible for, and still behind on all my bills.

  A year or two later the VA finally agreed that I had both conditions and raised my disability rating to 50%.  I got my mortgage caught back up and could afford to pay my bills again.  At some point VA decided or I just agreed that I needed to see if I could work.  I went through a VA process called Vocational Rehabilitation.  I saw some counselors and they found me a self paced community college program to learn about industrial maintenance.  I did well at first, but eventually felt overwhelmed and dropped out.

  I found another program online and tried again.  This program was learning and working from home.  I graduated at the top of my class and was hired to work for the school.  I stayed with them for about a year then the foundation that ran the program eliminated my position.  The VA had raised my disability rating to 80% while I was in school.  I was already feeling my health deteriorate from stress and the weariness I'd felt all along was growing, so I applied to VA for an increase to my disability rating.

During the series of ordeals that my life had become, I was diagnosed with depression due to my other conditions.  That at least explained why I slept so much and found no joy in things I used to do.  By this time I was taking three or four prescription medicines a day.  I didn't like it but I tried to take them as prescribed.  I was just dragging along for a while.

In the mean time, I met and married my wife, Brenda.  We met online and fell in love despite trying not to.  Our wedding day was one of the happiest days of my life.  I thought maybe I'd turned a corner and the darkness of depression and misery was over.  I found a part time job working for a friend and life finally seemed to not drag at me.

  The honeymoon and my euphoria did not last long.  My wife started school as the business she worked at for 15 years closed.  I became the only source of income for us but felt confident I could keep us above water.  I waited for the VA to finish my claim for an increase and hoped for the best.

 And I waited.

  A year and a half after I filed for an increase to my 80% disability rating I received a denial letter with several long winded and contradictory reasons listed for each condition.  It took the wind out of my sails.  I knew that appealing their decision would take another year or two.  Money was already tight and the stress kept growing.

I can't fit all the frustration, anguish and despair I've felt through this process in just a few words.  I can't adequately explain how dehumanizing it is to beg for benefits you know that you have earned.  All I can do is tell you that I am not alone in this.  Veterans all over the country from every conflict we've fought as a nation since World War Two are going through the claims process.  The backlog of claims is well over half a million.  That is over half a million families clawing for help from the agency that is supposed to be our lifeline after serving honorably to protect and defend this great nation.

  I don't know how much longer the appeals process will take for me.  I'm behind on our mortgage again and robbing Peter to pay Paul with our other bills.  I've become an incredibly deft hand at juggling bills, but eventually that act will come to an end.  Because of our financial hardship VA is expediting my appeal.  That should mean that a decision is imminent.  It doesn't.  I got a letter yesterday demanding that I drive almost two hours from home (my wife will drive me) so the VA can have someone (probably not a doctor) examine me again to see how bad my conditions have become.

   The appointment is April 8th, 2013.  That hardly seems expedited to me.

  I see nurse practitioners every month at the local VA clinic for medical and mental health care.  My records from those visits alone should be enough to decide my claim, but if I refuse to go to the new exams the VA can deny my appeal just for that refusal.  I'm stuck again and feeling every day weigh me down just a little bit more.  I've been robbed of my joy for life again.  It affects my sleep, and my waking hours.  It affects my relationship with my wife and my son.  It affects how I experience the holidays, the weather and the dragging feeling I spend most of my time railing against.