Please help!!!
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Hi Jeremy,
I found and signed your petition shortly after it was posted. My situation is much the same as your mom’s. Jim passed so quickly from this disease that he wasn’t even considered for disability. I turned 60 shortly after he passed away and was atleast able to get social security benefits. I’m sorry that your mom was not treated with more compassion when she inquired.
My claim was also denied for the same reasons. The few claims that have been approved so far have all been boots on ground and Jim was stationed on an aircraft carrier 3 miles out, although he also spent time in those countries like your dad. I too am not ready to give up for myself and for all those others who have or will have claims like this in the future. Hopefully if we keep fighting for this eventually things will change.
I am so sorry for your loss. My thoughts are with you, your mom and your family.
Darla
Jeremy, I am very sorry about your Dad and I think that what you are doing is not only admirable but I am sure he is very proud of you. I love your poem, I collect them and reuse them (if you don’t mind) to hopefully make our family here feel better. My Teddy served in Korea and the VA would not listen to anything. But I want you to NOT give up on this. We had an issue with a Hospice facility Teddy’s last 4 days and I made a you tube video about it and the Director of 22 facilities here apologized to me on the you tube video. Because of the inhumane way they let him die, I got an attorney and this Thursday the Director is having a meeting with him as she also told him, My attorney, that the facility was wrong. They even fired 3 head nurses!!! Anyway she wants to settle this so she can “put it behind her”. That is why I say, good luck and don’t give up. Please keep us posted.
mlepp0416 wrote:I tried to sign your petition but the link the site sends in an email to ‘activate’ my account does not work.Margaret
You can try logging in here https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/user and then click on forgot password and see if that works.
nanjvd wrote:I am sorry for your loss.Your Mom should be able to collect SS benefits at age 60 because she is a widower. They sometime refer to it as the Widowers pension and it is payable at 60
Thanks for the information nanjvd. My mother is only 58 so she will have to wait 2 years before she can apply for that. Last that Social Security(SS) had told her is that she would have to wait until she was 62 and a half to collect. SS was scheduled to pay disabilities to my father starting in January but because he passed before his 60th birthday she doesn’t get to receive his disability. Their words to my mother while my father was still alive was ” If he passed before turning 60 then all benefits will cease and you will get nothing…”
Such compassionate people huh? So all the years of paying SS out of your paycheck gets you nothing…
mlepp0416 wrote:Jeremy: Tom (my husband with CC) and I also tried to get his Cholangiocarcinoma under Service Connected Disability and we were rejected for the same reasons as your dad. Even though I supplied enough evidence that this cancer is also caused by PCB’s and he was exposed to the Green Army Paint which contains a horrible cancer causing agent including Cholangiocarcinoma (liver cancer). He was in direct contact with no protective gear for three years. Spraying it (breathing it in) – heating and scraping it (getting it in through his pores of his skin) – Grinding it (breathing it in) along with tons of documentation that this cancer does not manifest itself until so 40 – 60 years later. They rejected it and I’m not so certain that appealing it would do any good. It is unfortunate that the Veterans changed the rules along the way. When we got married, even for non service connected disability as his wife, we had to be married for 8 years and he had to be totally disabled for more than 10 years and I would have received his benefits as his spouse. They changed it about 5 years ago that for non service connected disability the spouse gets nothing. Talkk about a huge dissapointment. Not that I married him for any type of VA benefit, but really, how can they publish something like that, then simply choose to take it away?I will sign your petition and wish you tons of success.
Margaret
Margaret thank you for your information. We are prepared for a long fight. My mother has gotten a hold of several claims that the VA paid out to Veterans that had Cholangiocarcinoma in result to the liver fluke parasite. I think the last count was 10 claims. All of them are exactly what my father had. So she has included copies of that in with the claim. The VA representative for our area was shocked that she had these Accepted claims for they are documents that are confidential between the claimant and the VA. I can’t say on who and where she got these documents but the fact that she has them. As for the Appeal it was told to us that almost 90% of all claims that the VA receives get denied the first time because they never get fully reviewed ( this is what the VA rep. said) and to always get an appeal. For the second time the claim goes in it gets reviewed fully and close to 60% get accepted. So with this knowledge we will continue to appeal it. This was my father’s fight and we are not going to let it down.
Thank you for signing the petition. I know it is a little bit tricky by having to register, check email and then sign but it is a legal electronic signature that way.
I tried to sign your petition but the link the site sends in an email to ‘activate’ my account does not work.
Margaret
I am sorry for your loss.
Your Mom should be able to collect SS benefits at age 60 because she is a widower. They sometime refer to it as the Widowers pension and it is payable at 60
Jeremy: Tom (my husband with CC) and I also tried to get his Cholangiocarcinoma under Service Connected Disability and we were rejected for the same reasons as your dad. Even though I supplied enough evidence that this cancer is also caused by PCB’s and he was exposed to the Green Army Paint which contains a horrible cancer causing agent including Cholangiocarcinoma (liver cancer). He was in direct contact with no protective gear for three years. Spraying it (breathing it in) – heating and scraping it (getting it in through his pores of his skin) – Grinding it (breathing it in) along with tons of documentation that this cancer does not manifest itself until so 40 – 60 years later. They rejected it and I’m not so certain that appealing it would do any good. It is unfortunate that the Veterans changed the rules along the way. When we got married, even for non service connected disability as his wife, we had to be married for 8 years and he had to be totally disabled for more than 10 years and I would have received his benefits as his spouse. They changed it about 5 years ago that for non service connected disability the spouse gets nothing. Talkk about a huge dissapointment. Not that I married him for any type of VA benefit, but really, how can they publish something like that, then simply choose to take it away?
I will sign your petition and wish you tons of success.
Margaret
Thank You Patty. That is the best way to share it and pass it along. My wife and I post it everyday. We even post it on other Facebook pages.
Becky the last few weeks are the hardest to go through. The most important thing you can do is visit and be there for her. I have read some of your website and I know what you are going through. It is important to watch the liver counts and if your mother gets really tired, suggest Blood Transfusions to get the counts back up. It worked for my father for a while giving him a boost of energy until the cancer got too bad.
Did the doctor’s explain to you that with chemo it is a high risk for blood clots? My father took the chemo root and got the blood clots in both his legs. Now very important if you mother has swelling in her legs or the feeling that her legs are cramping really bad and are tight, then Do Not massage them. It could be blood clots and massaging them could release one and be fatal.
We believe that is what actually happened to my father. He had fallen in the bathroom and my mother helped him up and when she propped him up with pillows (he had become really weak by this time) he slumped over in her arms and took his final breath. So a blood clot must have broke loose when he fell and when he was helped up it must have traveled to the heart resulting in a heart attack.
My prayers go out to everyone that has a loved one going through this.
Here is a Poem that my family loved and I would like to share it.
God’s Garden
God looked around his garden and he found an empty place,
He then looked down upon this earth and saw your tired face.
He put his arms around you and lifted you to rest.
God’s Garden must be beautiful, He always takes the best.
He knew that you were suffering, He knew that you were in pain.
He knew that you would never get well on earth again.
He saw that the road was getting rough and the hills were hard to climb,
So he closed your weary eyelids and whispered
“PEACE BE THINE”.
It broke our hearts to lose you, but you didn’t go alone,
For parts of us went with you the day God called you home.I like this idea, Jeremy. I’m sorry for your loss. My mother was diagnosed around the same time as your dad. She’s still with us, but not for much longer, I’m afraid.
I totally support your petition. I wish you the best of luck.
Hi Jeremy, I’m so sorry to hear of your loss. The stress of losing a loved one compounded by the financial burden of medical bills etc.. must be overwhelming for you and your family.
I’m not a lawyer but you and your family may not be responsible for the medical bills. The laws vary from state to state and it would be worthwhile to seek the advise of a lawyer or estate planner.
I attached a link below for some additional information. I”m sure others will respond with whatever knowledge they may have in this area.
http://www.ehow.com/info_7952992_one-responsible-spouses-medical-bills.html
I’ll sign your petition.
Hi my name is Jeremy. My father was diagnosed with Cholangiocarcinoma on July 4th, 2011 and passed on October 31, 2011. He had just turned 59 on August 19. He served in the Navy from 1970 to 1975. During his time in the Navy he had shore leave in cities all over Southeast Asia. From Thailand to Japan.
I have done my research and have found that he more then likely ingested a liver fluke from that region. Now since his diagnosis we have been trying to get his Veterans Disability to help pay with the medical bills that have been piling up. The Veterans Administration has denied his claim for the following reasons: 1. He was not “Boots on the ground” in Vietnam. and 2. he was not diagnosed 1 year after his active duty date.
We have one letter from one of his doctors stating that this cancer was caused by a parasite (i.e. Liver Fluke) instead of hepatitis b or c. Since he never had Hepatitis to cause the damage to his bile duct nor his liver.
So needless to say we are in a fight to get help from the VA to cover those expenses and also to get medical benefits for my mother. My mother is just a homemaker and has no income of her own. My father tried all means to prolong his life as much as possible so he could at least get Social Security Disability. But his body gave away 3 months shy of being able to receive those benefits. So the only way my mother can get those is when she turns 62 and a half years old and she is currently 58.
He did have a 401k from his place of work but needless to say without any other help from VA or SSI his 401k would only cover his medical bills and the mortgage on their home.
So I wrote a petition for the Presidential Ballot to help not only our family but any and all families that have veterans which are in need of immediate help from the VA. In hopes of speeding up the process of all the cases that these Veterans with Cholangiocarcinoma need.
The Petition can be found here http://wh.gov/bC5 . It only takes a couple of seconds to register and sign it. Please share it with others. I need only 150 signature to make it public on the White House page and then 25,000 signatures for it to become a ballot measure. I have until November 30th to get all the signatures.
This cancer once diagnosed is a swift and silent killer. From the time symptoms show most of the time you are already in Stage 4 of this cancer and Liver resection is not an option as it was not an option for my father.
Thank You for your time.
-Jeremy
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