How Did I Get Here?

Quote of the Day: “Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”

A friend sent me a link to Loop’d which is kind of like a Facebook crossed with sponsorship for my running.

I spent a little time filling out my past race results and some other information on the hope that, well, if they want to sponsor my running, let’s do it!

So far, I was offered a 40% discount on all SteelMX/SMX optics.

I guess that’s the way most of these “sponsorship” offers go. They offer you discounts on their stuff but unless you were already going to buy the stuff, I think it’s just an advertising set-up for these companies. Time will tell but the fact that I was offered a sponsorship before even applying specifically to their program makes me think they are not all that picky on who they “sponsor.”

In two other related situations, the weather let up for a couple of days and thus there has been a strange lack of rain up here in the Pacific Northwest. I decided I should do something about the rest of the leaves that have been blowing around my yard since autumn and broke out the rake and the mulch bin after my workout today.

An hour later a couple of facts emerged:

- Raking up damp leaves embedded in the lawn is not fun
- My obsessive personality is not pretty when applied to yard work
- Because of #2, I switched from a rake to bending over and using bare hands to pick up individual leaves.
- My lower back and hamstrings are going to hate me tomorrow.

By the time I was done, my back felt like a few baseball bats had been broken over it.

Being 41 sucks.

Speaking of getting old and physical abilities starting to expire, I called the VA today and made an appointment.

This is something I should have done a long time ago and most people will tell you to take care of it before you get out of the military.

In my defense, I was overseas in the Middle East my last year in the service and the only place I could have seen the VA was in Germany and they were not going to send me on a boondoggle Hammerschmidt-style just for that.

But OK, I should have taken care of it prior to being out for 6 months but stop nagging me, sheesh.

It works like this: when you get out of the military, you make sure you have every physical problem documented in your medical record. Then you go to the VA and you tell them if there is anything wrong with you that they should consider for VA benefits.

You fill out a cubic butt-ton of paperwork, send it in, and they come back and tell you if you rate monetary compensation for your service-related injuries.

They can say one of three things:

1. No, sorry, go pound sand.

2. We will rate you at 0% which means that we recognize you are jacked up in some way but not enough for us to pay you for the rest of your life.

3. OK, you’re all jacked up. We will give you 10%, 20%, 30% (or whatever they decide) to make up for us breaking you. Thanks.

You might be wondering why #2 is important and I’ll tell you. Because even if you have a 0% (you get no money), you still “get rated” which means that you get special consideration on things like jobs that give extra points for being a disabled vet.

You cross a threshold of being rated or not rated. Even with 0%, you are STILL RATED and can claim benefits set aside for veterans with injuries.

I’ve also heard that those benefits also exists for my kids when they enter college. They might get extra consideration if I’m a rated vet with injuries.

I have not confirmed this but I will.

So I’ll see what they say. To tell the truth, I thought just about the only thing I would be even close to claiming is my back. During the Christmas I came back from Saudi, I had my back MRIed and they found a slipped disk. I don’t know if they will give me any money for it but hopefully that will get me at least a 0% rating to “cross the threshold.”

My first order of business was to go through my medical record and see if there was anything else. I didn’t think there would be but after 22 years, you forget a lot of stuff. It took me an hour to go through it, reading all the criminally bad handwriting, and making notes on all the injuries I had over my career.

And BTW, my medical record is like a small phonebook and I had a relatively low amount of medical problems while I was in, compared to most career Marines.

The lady at the VA told me that if there was anything I think I could apply for, to go ahead and include it because the worst they can do is say no. And her reasoning was a very interesting and sobering explanation:

If it is documented and I can get even a 0% rate on even something I don’t consider serious, it could help me down the line.

The perfect example is my ankles. I have twisted them so many times over the years that the elastic bands that give me lateral stability have been stretched out like so many old rubber bands so that they hardly provide any support at all.

Later in life if when I develop arthritis in them, if I have a 0% rating from the VA about my ankles, I can get the medical costs covered by the VA.

If I have not identified the problem and had it covered by the VA, and I develop problems later on because of it, well, tough shit. I have to cover the medical expenses myself.

So I am going to try for a litany of medical problems I have had over the years and see what I can get covered. I’m thinking back is a sure bet, ankles are a pretty good shot, and a couple of others are a possibility.

And to think all the crap I put my body through running marathons and ultras and the only injuries I have were service-related.

Oh, the irony.

Free Advice for Today: “When travelling, carry the phone number and address of your destination in your wallet.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 7:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.