Ch 6
Short & Cold
Yes cold… I loved it. Being from Texas it may seem strange, but on snow days or with icy winter weather I would drive for hours just enjoying the weather. I did not mind shorts and a t-shirt while making snow angles. Today, if it gets close to 70 Fahrenheit I shiver, and when I shiver my spine tends locks up (or my hips, or knees, basically it is far from pleasant anymore). I have literally only been out of the house one day in over four months (and counting…) this mild South Texas winter. Even now spring is here early it still finds me “in hibernation”….
Our stay with my parents in their apartment was only a few months long, thru the end of winter and spring. It was more than enough put me in my place. If I felt the least bit cold enough the spasms I had been having in my back for over a year would race out of control and it was cold every day. Those around that witnessed likened the episodes to seizures or Parkinson’s Disease. Not only did this chill create volatile conditions for my spine (ripping muscles, tendons and ligaments over and over) but caused the chronic pains in my hips and knee, to become constant and daily to date.
Losing ground fast on the health front, I again dove into the VA. I went thru the process of entering Tennessee’s system and the typical transitional procedures. After a few weeks of the run around and constantly calling I was finally told I would be assigned a doctor within a month. With a new appeal put in upon the 0% rating for my spine and medical treatment on the way things were bad looking better.
Within four months plans to move all the way back to Texas were underway for us. The appeal had been rejected as none of my medical records from the Texas VA were available (the records I had with me were not ever taken into consideration either), and I had yet to get a doctors appointment with a different excuse on hand by the VA each time I inquired. In addition my wife was pregnant with our second child, somehow having the same problem with medical records transfer across state lines. Time was passing and the only way left to us to catch up on these issues was moving back where our medical records were available (and being held against our will).
In this time though I was fortunate enough to establish myself in the Social Security system. I never had a medical evaluation and the process was surprisingly fast. With what is said to be stricter guidelines than the VA and longer waits, I merely gave the Social Security Department my medical records from the VA I had so far. Within a few months a 100% disability rating for Social Security Disability backdated to the day I left the Army was granted and it only took one try (on the downside being disabled so young I did not exactly have the time under my belt to “build my benefits” up enough to even break one grand per month). The back pay was just enough to rent another truck and move back to Texas and reestablish. So with a bump in her belly and a hump in my spine we set off for what we all considered our home state anyways.
(In these months things were cramped and cold, me working out or doing “physical therapy” as I knew how, was on hold. Telling myself “it is temporary”, and “I can resume once we got a place of our own again and settled“, well bad choice on my part. The more muscle tone I lost the harder it became to keep injuries in check. As for moving, in addition to the labor and it’s consequences on me, was the thousands of dollars burned. Gas price alone was a thousand dollars for the “there and back”. Truck rentals, property and utility deposits, the furniture we had let go, the friendships and support systems, our pets we had to get rid of before the trip… and to top it off we end up over two hundred miles away where we should have gone, back to Fort Worth.)
