Dear United States Government Part 1 of 2

Dear United States Government

Dear United States Government,

My name is Daniel Lee Meyer and I am 27 years of age. I served in the United States Air Force for nearly six years and served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I suf­fer from a ter­mi­nal lung ill­ness called Bron­chi­oli­tis Oblit­er­ans which I obtained from being exposed to toxic burn pits on our mil­i­tary instal­la­tions in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have many ques­tions as to why this hap­pened to me, but let’s just focus on the big picture.

Tens of thou­sands of mil­i­tary per­son­nel, civil­ian con­trac­tors, and local civil­ians have been put at risk by these burn pits. Allow­ing these toxic burn pits to oper­ate so close to mil­i­tary personnel’s work­place and liv­ing quar­ters was a lack of judge­ment to say the least. Now, many vet­er­ans are seri­ously ill or have passed away due to the tox­i­c­ity of mate­ri­als that were being burned. In my case, its left me on oxy­gen for the rest of my life, in a wheel­chair due to large tumors in my legs, and a seri­ously dete­ri­o­rated qual­ity of life. Regard­less, I’m still proud to have served our great coun­try and would repeat every­thing the same way, even with know­ing the con­se­quences to my health. Still, who should be held liable for this atrocity?

What makes every­thing worse is how badly I’ve been treated by the mil­i­tary and the VA through­out my entire illness.

Here is my story:

Although my injuries are appar­ent now (I’m attached to an oxy­gen tube and in a wheel­chair), in the begin­ning they were con­sid­ered “invis­i­ble”. I wasn’t shot, struck by a mor­tar or rocket, or injured by an IED. I didn’t lose a limb and wasn’t air­lifted out of the com­bat due to injuries. Instead, my injuries man­i­fested inside me for years. While oth­ers receive pur­ple hearts and com­men­da­tions, I received mal­ice and ill-contempt. But how is my injury any less wor­thy of your atten­tion? Why was I ridiculed, instead of supported?

I spent eight gru­el­ing months being poked, prod­ded, and called a liar by mil­i­tary doc­tors. I endured some of the worst breath­ing prob­lems you could imag­ine. I expe­ri­enced ter­ri­ble bouts of insom­nia, con­stant episodes of bloody spu­tum being hacked up, the lin­ing of my throat tear­ing from end­less cough­ing, and cough­ing so vio­lent that breath­ing was nearly impos­si­ble.  Doc­tors at the Mike O’Callahan Fed­eral Hos­pi­tal on Nel­lis AFB, NV diag­nosed me with every­thing from lung can­cer to every­thing being in my head. A mere fig­ment of my imag­i­na­tion? Still, it con­tin­ued to get worse.

I was pun­ished at work for “fak­ing” an ill­ness because there was no diag­no­sis. I was ordered to work in a posi­tion where I handed out toxic chem­i­cals and tools as my duties. A civil­ian Pul­mo­nolo­gist who was work­ing towards a diag­no­sis with me wrote a let­ter to my mil­i­tary doc­tors and lead­er­ship within my squadron stat­ing I should be “com­pletely absent from any indus­trial work envi­ron­ment.” They all com­pletely ignored it and denied ever see­ing it. In my new posi­tion at work, the fumes from the mate­ri­als I handed out made my con­di­tion progress expo­nen­tially faster because of the bla­tant dis­re­gard for my health. On mul­ti­ple occa­sions, I was found lying on the floor, puk­ing my guts up from hav­ing a severe reac­tion to the chem­i­cals I was need­lessly being exposed to.

Next, came the Air Force phys­i­cal fit­ness test. I couldn’t climb a flight of stairs or go five min­utes with­out cough­ing so hard I would be sick, but with­out a diag­no­sis I was expected to per­form at full capac­ity. The first test I attempted, after five or six sit-ups, I coughed until I was sick. Now, I was deemed lazy and out of shape. I returned to my Pul­mo­nolo­gist who wrote another let­ter stat­ing I was in no way phys­i­cally able to per­form my fit­ness tests. Again, my mil­i­tary doc­tor denied the let­ter and sent me back to work. It took me going to patient advo­cacy and fil­ing a com­plaint against that doc­tor in order to be placed on the proper med­ical profile.

At that point, I still didn’t have a diag­no­sis and was get­ting sicker and sicker by the day. Soon, I would have some answers.

In Feb­ru­ary 2011, I under­went a very painful lung biopsy and was diag­nosed with Bron­chi­oli­tis Oblit­er­ans. A very rare ter­mi­nal lung dis­ease that is pro­gres­sive, untreat­able, and incur­able. All I could do is wait and see if it con­tin­ued to get worse. After eight weeks of recov­ery from surgery, I attempted to return to work. How­ever, the con­di­tion was con­tin­u­ing to progress which made ever the com­mute to work dif­fi­cult. Shortly there­after, I was placed on full time oxy­gen and was told it would be required for the rest of my life.

It took get­ting to this point with my med­ical prob­lems before my squadron finally placed me in an admin­is­tra­tive type posi­tion. Unfor­tu­nately, the prob­lems con­tin­ued to get worse.

Due to my lungs fail­ing, my heart began try­ing to pump oxy­gen into my body. This shot my rest­ing heart rate up to 180 beats per minute and I was quickly put on med­ica­tions to slow it back down before it became inef­fi­cient. Then in June 2011, fatty tumors formed in my knees, mak­ing walk­ing extremely chal­leng­ing. My imme­di­ate super­vi­sor finally stepped up and told me it was unre­al­is­tic for me to come to work any­more and to stay home and rest. If they needed me, they would call. For a month or two, I was finally able to stay at home and tend to the med­ical con­di­tions that were quickly debil­i­tat­ing me as I waited for my retire­ment paper­work. But, it surely could not end here.

My active duty case man­ager found out I wasn’t work­ing and demanded a full inquiry as to why. I started receiv­ing phone calls and e-mails telling me that I was abus­ing the sys­tem and that I was no longer con­tribut­ing to the “team”. “How is it fair that oth­ers have to make up for your absence,” they would ask me. By this time, I was almost com­pletely unable to walk and obvi­ously still on oxy­gen. Then came the bombshell.

I was being ordered to undergo a phys­i­cal assess­ment at the Health and Well­ness Cen­ter on base to deter­mine my work capa­bil­i­ties. What would I be able to do you might won­der? Well, accord­ing to the case man­ager, make a full return to the flight line. That’s right. They were order­ing me back to turn­ing wrenches on the flight line when I could no longer walk and was unable to breathe with­out an oxy­gen tank by my side. It was the most demor­al­iz­ing thing I had ever expe­ri­enced in my life. They were going to lit­er­ally work me to death.

I was forced to con­tact Con­gress­woman Shel­ley Berkley’s office. I explained to her office the details of my sit­u­a­tion and they couldn’t believe what they were hear­ing. They offered to do any­thing pos­si­ble to help me and were appalled at how the Air Force had been treat­ing me. Just days later, I received the med­ical board deci­sion when I was told it would be many months before it came and that’s why they wanted me back to work. I was awarded a 100% dis­abil­ity rat­ing, was given home­bound sta­tus, and was sched­uled to be med­ically retired just three weeks later. I informed the Congresswoman’s office and they let me know if I needed any­thing at all to con­tact them.

Octo­ber 1, 2011 I was hon­or­ably med­ically retired as a Staff Sergeant, E-5, from the United States Air Force.

I thought enter­ing the VA sys­tem would help alle­vi­ate my issues and work toward treat­ing some of my con­di­tions, instead the prob­lems have con­tin­ued to com­pound, wreak­ing havoc on my mind, body, and spirit.

To be continued.….

Related posts:

1. Life in the United States Air Force — Part 1
2. Life in the United States Air Force — Part 2
3. Life in the United States Air Force — Part 3