Retired Disabled Navy Veteran Seeks Grant Money Help For Debt Relief
by Bryan Walker
My oldest boy is currently serving in the US Navy, both my daughters are pregnant (one is getting married this weekend) so I will be a Grandfather soon and my youngest son is about to turn 16. I retired after 20 years of service in the US Navy at the end of 2008. While in the service I was a Hospital Corpsman, I served with the Marines, on a Ship and with the Seals along with several hospitals and clinics along the way. When I joined the Navy in 1988 I was actually a high school drop out and wasn’t going anywhere in life. Over the course of my 20-year service I actually managed to complete two Masters Degrees, one in business admin and one in health care management. After retirement I got my first job at UC Davis, but that only lasted four months. It just wasn’t the right fit for me. The next job I got was managing an Urgent Care clinic in my hometown, which I was very successful at, but this is when my disability started getting the best of me. While I was in the military I started getting abdominal pain in my upper right quadrant and mid-epigastric region. I went through multiple labs, radiological studies and examinations. Finally after about a year and a half a test showed that I might have a Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction. This is the sphincter that controls the flow of bile from the common bile duct from the pancreas and gallbladder. By the time this was figured out it was really close to my retirement date. The Navy sent me to UC Irvine to have some tests conducted; one of the tests was called Manometery, which involved testing the pressure from my Sphincter of Oddi. This test has a chance of causing pancreatitis (and it did). They did the test, it came back that I did have abnormal pressure that is consistent with this dysfunction and they did what is called a sphincterotomy. This means they cut the sphincter in hopes of correcting the problem. When I woke up from the procedure I felt okay and was sent back to San Diego. Along the way my pain grew worse and by the time we got to San Diego we went straight to the ER at Naval Medical Center San Diego and I was admitted with Pancreatitis. I spent about four days in the hospital, was released and began the process of checking out of the military for retirement a week later. I did feel better initially, but the pain came back within a couple of months. I then started seeing my Doctor here in my hometown. He sent me to a Gastroenterologist who again did a sphincterotomy and again I got pancreatitis. This time, however, I ended up with pain that was worse than what I started with. I ended up having to take pain medications to control my pain and I also have frequent nausea. This is all exacerbated by stressful situations and I quickly found that between the pain and the medications that I can no longer work. I spoke to my Doctor and told him I felt it was time to go on disability and he agreed. I was taken off of work and I am now getting California State Disability, which is still less than what I was making from the very good job I had at the Urgent Care Clinic. I have applied for Social Security and I also have a request in with the VA to increase my disability rating. I am currently at 60% and would like to be at 100%. My financial situation is not good. I make enough from my military retirement and VA disability to pay my mortgage and keep food on the table but that is about it. My state disability won’t be enough to keep up with the rest of my bills and that runs out in a year. I don’t know if I will be approved for Social Security or an increase in my VA rating so that part of my future is uncertain. I have two vehicles financed and I owe more on them than they are worth. I have a personal loan, a loan for a new heating and AC system for my house, a maxed out 20K Visa card and a motorcycle loan. I was making more than enough money to pay all of this prior to becoming disabled. I was even paying extra on the motorcycle trying to power pay off my debt, but now things are going from bad to worse. I have always tried to pay my debt on time and had a good credit rating. I am willing to let the vehicles go and just buy a used car, but will still owe whatever overage there is on the vehicles since I am upside down with them. I just need to ensure that I stay on top of trying to get benefits going for me and maybe see if there are any grants or charitable organizations that would help out someone like me. I am just looking for a way to get through all of this.
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