Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Soliciting for Opinions

Hi and welcome to KA.

It is a truly difficult decision to allow ourselves to use something like a cane, crutches or wheelchair, especially when we have always been active. I am lucky in that I have never needed the chair, but I do have a sizable collection of walking sticks, bought because I needed them. Try to see it as a tool you are using to get yourself through this time in your disease activity. Continue to work toward being able to live your life the way you want to live it. You may or may not be able to get back onto your bikes, but you've already seen the value of the cardio exercise inherent in powering your own wheelchair.

You are not being a fool, but mourning the potential loss of something important to you. This is normal and we have all experienced it to some degree or other. Just take one day, one moment, at a time. Use the wheelchair when you need to, use crutches when you can, work toward needing neither. We're here to support you and bolster you when you need it.

Hugs,

Thank you all! I think it is the cultural "pressure" that has caused me so much conflict regarding this decision. Johninco, thank you for your input. I am still wearing the uniform waiting for my Med Board to be over. With the crutches I will occasionally get the "look", but most people are understanding. It is hard to hang the cripple card from the rearview mirror while wearing my uniform, but it is what it is. My wife and loved ones are very supportive, she and I were talking last night about the trip and how valuable the chair was to us for creating those good memories. Now I just need to see if my PCP will prescribe it....
Thank you all again, your insights and support are what I needed to hear!

My pleasure...our respective services may give each other grief, particularly late in the college football season, but we stand back to back at the drop of a hat, brothers in arms.

I flipped off my Exit Physical, telling them I was "Fine! Just fine!" (even though I walked with a slight limp and my lower back was already hating the first hundred steps of the day). Between Active and Reserve I got away with flipping them off five times.

So now I want comp and pension for my AS because a severe back injury incurred in service almost certainly started the inflammation cycle. VA has been trying to say it
isn't service connected because I got out five times and never complained once.

The moral, I suppose, is make sure you tell your Board EVERYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF that might be even slightly related. It's so much easier to come off active duty with an established VA disability rating than having to endure fighting them tooth and nail. Fortunately my VA PCP and my attorney have taken over that fight and my life is much simpler.

What's your poison, Chief? Aviator wings? Dolphins? Water wings? Whatever it is, buy the stickers and display them prominently on your wheelchair or scooter once you're out. Then if you call "Hey, Rube!" your fellow veterans will know you're one of us and come a'runnin'.

It works. I flipped my scooter over backwards in a parking lot trying to get aboard my van and gave the back of my head a nasty whack. When I opened my eyes, there stood three veterans assisting me and my wife, with a fourth coming at a dead sprint with a medic kit.

I'm glad I can help.

I'm a puddle pirate, I couldn't get sent afloat again to earn a pin. I got selected for Warrant, but they are holding that "pending the Med Board results". I just fired off a BCMR on that issue, all I can do now is wait.
As much as I dislike "most" of the attorneys I come in contact with, I agree with you about how much they make my life easier in regards to not fretting over the Government's requirement to uphold it's promises to Vets. I believe that my nightmare began when I fell through that scuttle, my left butt cheek is what landed on the wheel, and my pelvis/sacroiliac has never been the same. I may have developed AS anyway, but I do kind of subscribe to the "Big Event" trigger theory. I also believe in the gut bacteria (Klebsiela?) theory, I did get very sick after eating the meat-on-a-stick from a street cart in Cartegena that one time.... But I can't tell anymore of that story (what happens in ____, stays in _____!)
I have an appointment with a local med equip company for them to come by the house and start the paperwork to get my insurance co to get it. Thanks again to all, I have always been blown away when I come here to see the encouragement and support. I am even more blown away and grateful when it is sent my way!

Can't say I've ever had klebsiella-- if I did, I have an incredible immune system which killed it without symptoms. My system beat malaria falciparum and amoebic dysentery with very few problems, though, so I suppose it's possible.

I guess you may have had the "don't eat off base" admonition. They don't give that to Rangers; we have to eat too many strange things in too many places.

We're going to leave it up to the VA button counters to prove "Big Event" is not valid-- the big event was my catching 48 rounds of M-203 ammo weighing about 300 lbs. before it could drop from the back of a deuce and a half to a concrete parking lot. Not catching it could have been very, very messy. My back was tweaked so bad I couldn't walk for three hours. An ER MD known by all of us to be an idiot diagnosed it as a mild strain without a single x-ray, gave me a five day supply of vikes and gave me five days of quarters and five days of light duty.

I've found witnesses. One of them retired as a full bird.

Nobody kicked grenades off trucks in my civilian jobs.

Keep me apprised on your endeavors.

Snipe Chief and Johninco, this is what kickas is all about. Finding a common denominator so to speak, this is great for the 2 of you to be able to share like this.
Snipe Chief, I agree with the group here, do what you have to do to make your life easier and be able to get out there and enjoy life as best you can. I've spent the last 4 years stewing about the fact that I have to use a cane and grieving the person I used to be and comming to terms with having to quit work and go on disability was even harder to swallow.
Cindy

If you're a Sr. Chief, you can probably deflect much comment or "the stare" from Jr. CPOs, ratings (correct me if I'm wrong; someone told me that's what you call E1s through E3s who have graduated boot) and Ensigns by growling and scowling.

In my latter days before they riffed me for my left knee in Feb 2001 (and wouldn't let me back in after 9/11, dammit, even though I was one of a cast of thousands who actually won Charlie Wilson's war; I knew and understood Afghanistan and they still kept me out! I'm still fuming, in case you couldn't tell...) the very sight of the Drill Instructor badge on my left front jacket pocket deflected a lot of stares and comments within "the culture" when I occasionally used a walking stick.

The company butterbar lieutenants were all scared spitless of me. It works. I'm sure senior NCOs run the Navy, too.