US Navy Veteran Seeks Grant Money To Resume Working And Keep Apartment
by Andrew
I served in The United States Navy as an operation specialist during the first Gulf War (Desert Storm), and Somalia (Restore Hope). I was an OS3, 3rd class petty officer (E-4). I was studying to take my E-5 exam, when my disability occurred making that not possible. I have a Migraine and Seizure disorder with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. After returning from The Gulf and Somalia, I went on leave for 3 weeks (saved leave). On my last day of leave, me and some friends from my ship and locally, went out to a bar, for a going away party for a friend. During this time at the bar, some skinheads in the club started messing with one of my (black) friends, saying he spilled their drink. He did everything he could to mellow out the situation, including buying the aggressors a beer to make up for the "spill." Upon receiving their drink, they walked over to my friend, and dumped the drink on him and a girl he was sitting with, and made several racial statements. At this point my friends and I went over and told them to leave him alone. The main guy then hit my friend with a bottle. The bouncer came over and restrained the guy, and we restrained the other 2, helping to take them out of the club. My friends pushed them out the door, and went back into the club. I was still tied up with the guy I was escorting out. When I went to go back in, the bouncer said it was after 1:30am and no one else was allowed to enter the venue. So I was now outside with the 3 skinheads that we had the problems with, and more of them kept coming out of the club. I pleaded with the door guy to go in and get my girlfriend to pull the car around, to avoid any more confrontations, to no avail. I then went upstairs to see if I could get in there, but the door was locked. As I came back down the stairs, I saw the skinheads in a group around my friend (the guy they were originally messing with in the club) as he'd realized I never came back in, and came out to look for me. They were pushing him around between each other, and that's when I saw another guy from our earlier altercation, coming across the parking lot with a knife. They were setting up my friend to stab him. I just reacted as best I could, yelling "knife!" to the door guy as I ran towards the guy with the knife. I hit the guy with the knife from the side knocking him into the taxicab. The knife fell out. He and I both tried to get to it. Right as I reached it and pushed it away, I got hit from behind and knocked to the ground. Then I got kicked again and my head bounced off the tire into the corner of the fender well, (This is what bruised my brain). After that I don't remember what happened until I came to and my friends were trying to revive me. I had been kicked many times in the head while I was out. And those kicks knocked loose a bunch of bone chips, that settled in my right temporal region of my brain, where my brain had been bruised. Over the next few weeks these bone chips started affecting my motor skills. I went to the hospital the night of the fight, but they cleaned me up and sent me home. I felt OK when I went to bed, but when I took a shower in the morning while getting ready for my first day back of work, I blacked out in the shower. At this point I don't remember much for the next year or so, but I went through multiple aphasias with my speech, and memory. As I got to the point of remembering what was going on, I was having seizures, and migraine headaches, along with nightmares, and inability to speak clearly, from stuttering to stammering, to slurred speech, plus a facial and body tick. They had me on all kinds of anti-seizure medicines that worked but made me a virtual zombie, and gave me major mood swings. After 2 years I opted out of the medication, feeling the only way I would get over this was to face it head on. And I have been fighting it since and getting better. I no longer have speech impairments and I haven't had a seizure in a year or more. I do still have migraine headaches, and difficulty sleeping. My short term memory is a lot better but still causes me a lot of stress, as I always feel I'm forgetting something, whether I am or not. I have been able to get my disability reduced from 110% to 60%, but that's as far as I've been able to get it reduced to. I ended up homeless after leaving the hospital, because I was unable to organize my life due to the seizures, migraines and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that I was going through. This lasted for 14 months, at which time my benefits kicked in. And I have been able to keep a roof over my head for the past 14 or so years. Unfortunately, although the seizures are now extremely rare, I still have the migraines, and a lot of trouble sleeping due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. So it's nearly impossible to hold down a traditional job. I have instead worked odd jobs wherever I can get them, and have found something I'm able to do. I had a decent job for the past 6+ years at a local venue, but due to the economy, that job ended without notice. I would normally be able to find another job, but unfortunately I had to sell all $5000 worth of equipment I had acquired over the past 10 years for a mere $1000. I needed the money to cover expenses, such as rent, bills and an unforeseen event. One month prior to losing this job, my equipment blew up. A wire shorted out sending direct current through my entire system, frying all of the components. I naturally had to have equipment to continue to work, so I had to get it fixed, and in the meantime also had to rent equipment. The total cost of the repairs was $880. The cost of the rental for the month the system was being repaired was an additional $500. When I lost the job, I was only halfway through paying off these costs. This resulted in my having to sell my equipment (that I had just fully fixed), and any ability I have to compensate for these losses. I'm currently selling all of my personal belongings, though they are not much, to try and keep a roof over my head. I have lived paycheck to paycheck since getting out of the military. I have been receiving money from Veterans disability, and have never asked for anything more. Now I am desperate. I have been able to make it through tough times with my $100 a week job, but with all of these added unforeseen expenses, and not having that job, I feel that it's only a matter of days before I lose my apartment, rendering all that I have been able to accomplish back to square one. I'm not looking for a handout, and would be willing to pay back any assistance I am given, if I'm given an ample amount of time to do so, and a way to do so. I am out of things to sell, and I'm about to have my gas, electricity and phone shut off on the 1st. I don't know how I'm going to pay rent in the apartment I've lived the past 8 years. I don't want to be homeless. I have worked very hard to not end up on the street, and so I'm looking for any help I can possibly find to keep that from happening. I don't have a car, so getting to and from jobs is always a journey here, where most bus rides require an hour or more just to get where I'm going. And getting home after the buses stop running makes me reliant on people for rides. I have been able to work odd jobs, electrical work, construction, boat cleaning, house cleaning, etc. I'm not always able to work, due to sleep issues, and the migraines, so I work when I can. Music is the one thing that calms me, and makes me feel like I'm almost normal. Luckily I have friends that realize this and work around it in music related jobs. I have done charity benefits, raising over $20,000 for Breast Cancer, Leukemia, MS, Firefighters, Fire victims, school music programs and numerous fundraisers for Katrina, and 9/11 victims and first responders. I say this not to boast of my giving, but to point out that I am an active member of society, and have much to give regardless of my disability. And that even though I'm labeled disabled, I have still been able to be contribute to my community, and would love the opportunity to be so again. I currently receive $980 a month from the VA, and as I have had no other income the past 3 months, that is the extent of my earnings/income. I'm looking for a grant that would allow me to get back to working so I can subsidize my disability income, so I can afford to keep my apartment. And to reduce stress, so I can continue to work on getting my health and life back to normal. What I need is: help with my rent $750, my Gas and Electric $145, my phone $160. And I need $3,000 to get new equipment to replace what I had to sell off. I use the equipment for special events. I make between $50 and $100 a show doing this. The $3000 seems like so little to get back into the game, yet in my present circumstances it seems monumental. Anything anyone can do to help would be much appreciated.
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