Fantom Medical Records

I've been fighting for Mikes death to be ruled "SERVICE CONNECTED" with the VA since he died. It has not been easy at all. There are several factors for this.

The first is that Mike was in denial until the end. He never sought help. He never saw a doctor for the specific condition. He did see the doctor for every symptom related to the illness but he nor the  medical staff connected the dots that created the bigger picture.

His medical records are now magically missing from the VA as well as the archives in STL. There is record of his service but never record of him having been seen by any doctor for any reason in 20 years of service.

After Mike died I did have his full medical record. I gave it to an Army advocate who was helping file. He then gave it to my sister...who mistaken,you gave it to Mikes mom and now she refuses to give them back to me.

I got a letter from the VA today stating that all efforts to locate his medical records have been exhausted. There is no hope of locating them. It is now up to me to provide medical records to proceed.

This is basically irrelevant because as I said above, he never received treatment specific to PTSD or mental illness.

I have provided them with the requested "buddy letters" from former coworkers, neighbors, friends and family members testifying to his personality and behavior change as the illness progressed. I also provided my blog entry dated more than year before he passed recounting his suicide ideologies dating back to 2005.

As many of you remember, he became suicidal back in 2005 while on Recruiting Duty. It wasn't so much the duty but a combination of several circumstances that created the perfect storm.

He began the duty on the heels of his first Iraq deployment. Just 4 months after returning he was preparing for the duty in school. It was the height of the war. We were based in an affluent area of Chicago and we had just found out his first child, a son was to be born. Young Marines were dying daily in battle. On the local news reports on the deaths were long. The area seemed to take a huge hit. He had to work it out in his head. He was enlisting kids he knew he may see on the news as a KIA. That weighed heavily on him, I think. Especially since he was going to have his own son.  He became despondant. Just defeated.

He also began to have physiological health problems. He lost 25 lbs. He began bleeding from his rectum. He smelled like metal. His skin literally smelled like...iron. He had a colonoscopy to try to determine the cause. There was nothing wrong psysically. The doctor said it was stress.

His world came crashing down. He fought hard just to make it through the day. I became genuinely concerned when he explained the ways he was considering taking his life. I contacted his command.  I went straight to the commanding officer. I told him everything. I felt such relief. He said he would help.

He asked Mike if he was suicidal.  Mike told him no. The subject was dropped. Never addressed again.

He behavior and health continued to decline. It became noticiblein his job performance. So much that he was pulled in for review. The report said he was willfully disobeying by not recruiting. Again they did not connect his behavior with depression. Instead they called it insubordination and relieved him for cause. Which is something that followed him the rest of his entire career. He would never be promoted again.

They completely failed him. I failed him. I began to feel guilt for even alerting the command. All I did was make it worse. It all could have been treated right then. The negligence in hindsight is painful.

I sent a letter to the former commanding officer, (who ironically is the xo of a grunt batallion here at Pendleton currently) I begged him to please write a letter to the VA testifying to the situation back then. I never heard back from him. I think he's afraid that his lack of follow through with the matter will cause him some punishment with the Marine Corps. I don't want him punished I just want Mikes death to be ruled service connected. I don't want revenge. I want justice. I want his honor restored. He wasn't a shitbag. He was sick and neglected.

The facts are right there. He committed suicide just 135 days after retiring. I had a job, he was in school, we had a house and we're finally back home. We had our entire life ahead of us. Other than his illness we had everything. Unfortunately his illness eclipsed it all.

He refused help, that does not mean the illness didn't exist. Pride is a mother fucker. It's one of the biggest reasons I'm here struggling now. It's so much worse KNOWING he was sick and not being able to properly substantiate it.

Even if I lose this fight, it will never change the truth and the fact that the kids and I had to live that way for all those years and now he's dead and we are basically called liars. I couldn't convince him to see he had a problem when he was alive. I can't get the VA to see he had a problem in death.

I feel like the crazy one. I wish I could make peace with it and let it go but I know the truth. I feel obligated to see it through. I'm going to end up in a psych ward somewhere but as long as I can I will keep fighting for him, for our kids, for the truth. I can't let it rest.

No one would subject them self to this stress and insanity if they didn't feel 100% certain. I am.

If you are a veteran and are suffering silently, reach out for help. Your wife or husband could be where I'm at right now someday. I do think wish it on anyone. There is no lower feeling than losing your husband to suicide and then being tossed away by the VA too.