Progress Report

It's been just over two months since Ben's last surgery, and so far everything is still going alright. The leads haven't moved, though one of them isn't hitting as well as it used to. But he's still getting good coverage from the other, so it's hard to say what's going on. We saw his pain doctor on Tuesday, and even he is dumbfounded as to why he still hurts. It's not as bad as it used to be. Instead of his pain being up around 8-9 like it used to be, it's now more around a 5 (or 6 when it's bad). So definatly better that what it used to be, but still not completely pain free. We decided to try another procedure, which will be done on the 18th. I can't remember the exact name of it. It was kinda long and complicated. But basically the doctor is going to go in and burn the ends of the nerves so they stop sending the pain signals. It's a riskier procedure, but the doctor has done it several times and feels comfortable doing it. So I should probably be more concerned than I am, but meh, it's just another procedure. He's had a million done before. This one's not much different. So that's where we are with the pain. He's still hurting, and we're still trying to make it stop. We FINALLY got the med board started. YAY! Now it's just a hurry up and wait thing. We are still waiting to hear when his first appointment with his med board doctor will be, but once that happens things are going to get super busy. The first part is all doctor appointments. At the first appointment we'll go in and go over all his aches and pains with the doctor. So we'll talk about his stomach pains, his back pains, his kidney stones, his carpal tunnel, and every other little thing that bothers him. And then the doctor puts in referals to get all those different problems checked out if needed. We have 100 days to get all those appointments done. So the next 3 months-ish will be full of doctor apointments. And that will include VA appointments too. Then once all those are done, they send all their findings and paperwork to Fort Lewis. They come up with whatever they decide, then send it out to the VA headquarters in Seattle and the VA decides what their rating will be. The VA sends it back to Fort Lewis, who then sends it back to us in Hawaii. When things are running smoothly, that part takes about 120 days. Things aren't going smoothly right now, and it's taking over 200 days. But once we get the results/ratings back, we can either agree with their decisions, or if we don't agree we can appeal and have them look at it again. Once we get results that we are happy with though, we will have no more than 90 days left in the Army. So it's a very long and confusing process. Luckily we have our liason person who will help and guide us through each step. But it's looking like it will be about a year before we are done with it all. Could be shorter, could be longer. We'll just have to wait and see. At least things are started though. And we can say this is finally the beginning of the end. :)