Posted on 07/04/2014 6:45:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Joe Geoghagan is a 31 year old veteran and he’s begging the VA not to let him starve to death.
Let me repeat that.
Joe Geoghagan is a 31 year old veteran and he’s BEGGING the VA not to let him starve to death.
Joe first came to my attention because he wrote the Right Wing News Facebook page asking for help. Imagine that: a veteran who did three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan reduced to writing the owner of a Facebook page because he doesn’t know where else to turn to get basic medical attention.
After doing some basic research to confirm Joe’s story, I reached out to him. It was difficult to discuss the case on the phone because after years of being mistreated and ignored, Joe’s story pours out of him like a flood now that he has someone listening. Almost without taking a breath, Joe produced countless details about the snubs, red tape, and frustration of dealing with the VA for the last few years. Although you’d expect anger — even red hot fury — there was more of a sense of desperation in Joe’s voice.
Yet all the while, my mind kept turning back to the central, almost inconceivable reality Joe is being forced to deal with: The VA is allowing him to starve to death.
This saga began for Joe back in 2008 when he left the service after spending four and a half years in the Navy. Joe developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during his service, although he didn’t know what to label it at the time. He just knew he was anxious, depressed, and aggressive towards friendly people who didn’t deserve it. Joe reached out to the VA at that point, but was told he was perfectly fine and didn’t need any treatment after a cursory ten minute interview with a doctor.
Joe’s problems with PTSD continued and although he managed to get a job as a military contractor, more physical symptoms started to plague him as well. He began experiencing a lot of nausea and semi-regularly throwing up his food. Eventually, his increasingly frequent vomiting made him too sick to work and he was fired from his job. His fiancée didn’t like the changes she had seen in Joe’s behavior and left him before he was ever diagnosed with PTSD. Money was hard to come by as well and Joe’s depression worsened. He even tried to kill himself at one point.
Then, Joe had his first glimmer of hope in a long while: in late 2012, he realized he was still eligible for treatment at the VA. Initially, Joe was treated by the VA in Washington State and perhaps surprisingly, given the beating that the VA has taken in the press lately, he had nothing but good things to say about his treatment in that state. After a long, dark period, things were finally starting to look up.
Joe Geoghagan
But, there was trouble on the horizon. Joe was moving to Alabama and he was warned by his doctor that the VA in that state had a “rub some dirt on it” approach to medicine and that he shouldn’t expect the same quality of care he had been getting in Washington. Joe was a little concerned, but he didn’t really expect to see a big drop-off in the level of care he was getting.
Little did Joe know how bad things were about to get.
After he moved to Alabama, Joe’s problem with throwing up his food grew considerably worse. In fact, it got so bad that he could no longer hold ANYTHING down. If Joe ate two bites of food, he threw it up. Even liquid nutrition like Boost shakes were quickly regurgitated. Unfortunately for Joe, the VA wasn’t exactly quick to address his problem, nor did it EVER treat it with the seriousness it deserved.
In fact, to this day, more than a year and a half after the VA started treating Joe, no one has figured out WHAT’S WRONG WITH HIM. In other words, after all this time no one at the VA can even tell Joe why he’s throwing up. If Malia Obama somehow walked into the VA with the exact same problem, you could be sure that someone would have a diagnosis and treatment plan prepared for her in 72 hours. Unfortunately, Joe’s not a VIP. He’s not a big donor to a political campaign. He’s not the son or daughter of an important man. He’s just a soldier who risked his life to serve his country.
Despite the fact that the VA hasn’t taken Joe’s case seriously enough to even figure out what’s wrong with him, a doctor cut a hole in his stomach and ran a tube into it. That allows Joe to spend 13 HOURS EVERY DAY feeding Boost shakes into his body while he wastes away. At one point in his life, Joe had been as heavy as 267 pounds. During his military career, he carried 220 pounds on his frame. After he started throwing up in his contracting days, Joe’s weight dropped down to 190. When he had the tube put in his stomach, Joe weighed 140 pounds. Today? Joe is at 130. How much more weight can Joe lose and stay alive? He’s already so weak that he’s had to move back in with his parents again so they can take care of him. What must that be like for Joe’s poor parents? Imagine watching your 31 year old child slowly starve to death in front of you while the VA shrugs its shoulders. Joe even told me that his poor mother said that she feels Joe is going to “die at home, slowly and wither away while they just take their sweet time keeping me in the red tape.”
In fact, Joe wrote me this week-end to let me know that the VA has decided that his stomach problems aren’t its responsibility any more.
Hey Mr Hawkins
I just got my ratings decision in the mail from the VA dated the 24th of June this year. …They say that my stomach issues….are not related to my military (service).
…I also received a letter saying that they’re not going to pay for my pump anymore, I mean the pump that feeds me through my tube. They’re not going to pay for the supplies anymore either, the feeding bags the syringes etc. So to summarize they’re not going to pay me and now they’re going to stop providing me nutrition.
…I’ve never felt so small or so betrayed in my entire life. After what I’ve done for my country and what I continue to go through today. I just can’t stop crying. How can they do this to a veteran, I just don’t understand.
After you’ve cut a hole in a man’s stomach and put a tube into it, it would seem to be a little late in the game to decide that it’s not your problem anymore. Yet, that’s exactly where we’re at today. Sick as he is, IF he can even get an appointment, Joe drives 40 miles to see a doctor and says he’s typically left waiting for 3-4 hours before he can get in to receive substandard care. Joe told me, “After three combat deployments for my country, I gave it 150% for my nation. Then I come home and I can’t get 30% effort, it feels like. It makes my jaw drop, it makes me cry, it makes me want to implode and explode at the same time. It’s the ultimate betrayal.”
As an American, what do you say to a man after he says that to you and YOU KNOW HE’S RIGHT? We talk a lot about “supporting the troops.” Is this it? Leaving a man who served his country to starve to death? That’s just not right. It’s just not acceptable. Maybe the problems the VA has are so big that the people reading this article can’t fix them, but I believe with all my heart that we can do something for Joe Geoghagan.
What can we do?
First of all, I may not have the juice to get the VA to treat Joe Geoghagan, but there are people who do. If the offices of Alabama Senators Jeff Sessions or Richard Shelby were to get interested in this case, it might get some people moving at the VA. Joe’s Congressman is Robert Aderholt. He may also be able to get the VA to decide it matters whether Joe lives or dies. Additionally, if you’re a specialist, particularly one in Alabama who might be able to diagnose Joe’s problem, it would be incredibly helpful. Also, if you have a few bucks to spare, Joe could really use the contribution here. Failing all of that, just spreading this story far and wide by sharing it across Twitter and Facebook could make a difference. There is someone out there who can get Joe Geoghagan the help he needs and if we can’t do it, let’s get his story to an even bigger outlet that can make it happen for him.
Joe Geoghagan is a 31 year old veteran and he’s begging the VA not to let him starve to death….and it’s up to those of us reading this article to find a way to save his life.
There was a case like that in the Readers Digest a few months ago, kid was throwing everything up almost immediately. I’ll see if I can dig it up.
He needs to move back to the other VA.
Amen.
((((Hugs))))
I'm not a subject expert in medicine, but those symptoms sound like some sort of poisoning.
Here it is:
http://www.rd.com/health/conditions/amazing-medical-mysteries-solved/2/
Turned out to be a problem with the esophagus
There’s another similar case I read about, but I’ll FReepmail the details to you.
I thank you for making that comment, it made me swell with pride, for reasons I can’t even explain.
I pray this young man gets the much deserved help he needs.
Why is he waiting on the VA? Someone needs to walk him into any hospital emergency room. Now.
If he doesn’t have Obamacare, he can sign up for it after the fact. A physician may be able to submit the paperwork for him to receive state disability (check with the doc). He could have something minor or something major going on with him but waiting around on the government isn’t going to make things better.
Thanks for posting. Hopefully, some publicity will help him. Based on personal experience with my son at several VA facilities, the story sounds believable. As a parent, it was like being alone in the ocean trying to get help. One good thing has come from the recognition of how bad the VA can be, and that is that these soldiers now know they are not alone.
Thanks for the ping - jeepers.
This February, my very-first trip to VA for a long-lasting disease in my left eye, resulted in an hour+ of "getting registered". A week later, a letter from the VA refused me service. (Paraphrasing, here):
"If you had just served in Iraq or Afghanistan, or were a victim of a sexual assault, we could take you in. Your assets also preclude service to you. You can take an appeal..(etc)"
This result was of a "new law" in 2009. I must have missed the memo.
:-(
Well no kidding. No one should be treated for PTSD if they don’t have it.
Now, how about you tell me what is a “PTSD situation?”
And even the ones from Iraq and Afghanistan get booted after a certain amount of time, like 3 years I think. I thought my son misunderstood until the letter came. I think then they have to reapply and go through all the BS again. There is so much wrong with the system. When they are injured and they cannot finish their tour, they get a severance. If the VA gives them a disability rating that results in any kind of payment, it gets seized until the severance is paid back. It is just insane.
Thanks for the ping! So important!
btw, I posted this a couple of days ago on another thread:
“Here’s an excerpt of my email from Terri Schiavo’s foundation:
“July 3, 2014 (examiner.com) – Joe Geoghagan, a 31-year-old Navy veteran who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, now suffers from PTSD and has to be fed through a feeding tube because he is unable to keep food down.
Making matters worse, John Hawkins wrote Tuesday at Right Wing News, the VA has told Geoghagan that his stomach issues are not related to his military service and as a result, have stopped paying for his equipment and supplies. According to Hawkins, Geoghagan recounted a horror story involving the snubs, red tape, and frustration of dealing with the VA for the last few years. ..”’
It took years to get an achalasia diagnosis. Doctors wanted to blames smoking, acid reflux, .... Lost 35 pounds when It finally got bad. Went to a surgeon for acid reflux surgery. He ordered a couple of extra tests to nail down how tight to make the esophagus. Opps it’s not acid reflux at all. I thought t was living a nightmare. Made me hate pill pushing lazy doctors. Never went to them after they fixed it, I was 26 when they did a pneumatic dilation of my lower esophagus to break the muscles up. 10 years later started getting sick, tired breathing troubles. Doctors suck so I just kept working and doing the dad thing. 8 months go by and I’m doing real bad. Long story short stage 4 bulky lymphoma weeks shy of being dead. That was 7 years ago. I’m still here. Still don’t swallow we’ll but it’s manageable.
My Mom begged and pleaded for my brother’s life, but the VA killed him anyway. These people do not care. They will kill Joe Geoghagan, and never give him a second thought.
“My Mom begged and pleaded for my brother’s life, but the VA killed him anyway. ..”
Your own brother was a victim? When did this happen? I’m so sorry!
Thank you. He died September, 2009.
Sun, the VA killed my brother through a pattern of bad care and deliberate sabotage of care he was receiving elsewhere. He was on one of their waiting lists, but that was only part of how they killed him. The secret waiting lists are not the root of the problem. They’re a symptom. The problem is the military-hating civilians in powerful positions, not just nationally, but within individual facilities. They’ve permeated the VA for generations. They are a cancer which must be extricated very carefully, like a brain tumor. There are some good people there too, but they can’t always prevent the damage.
Gotta get started on my day. I think I’ll start by playing ball with the puppies.
Have a blessed day.
bttt
“..The problem is the military-hating civilians in powerful positions, not just nationally, but within individual facilities. ..”
How can anybody in good conscience take a job, if they hate the patients. Sounds like many of them take the job just so they can harm them.
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