VA...Lie and Deny Till You Die!!

Who would have ever thought that joining the Military would one day either kill you in combat, or you would die later down the road from being exposed to a deadly chemical. This is the story of Travis Steve Owen, Joined the Navy at 18 to serve his country. Never got sent overseas to Vietnam, as many would say he was one of the lucky ones and didn’t have his boots on the ground in combat. So he was stationed in Pearl Harbor, HI., worked the NTPO which is the Naval Post Office. His CO had him picking up containers of Agent Orange from storage at Schofield Barracks and bringing them back to his post and loading these containers onto ships heading over to either Vietnam or Guam. He wasn’t sprayed with AO like the majority of the guys, he was drenched in it. He got out of the Navy the hard way, got busted with about 12 other guys who were going off base and smoking pot. One of the guys who was smoking pot with them, turned them all in. Travis got off with a General Discharge but under Honorable conditions. He remembers all too well with a doctor he was seeing at the CBOC Bakersfield, CA. VA Clinic, when this doctor said to Travis “Yeah, you and about 100,000 other guys were all smoking pot during Vietnam”. Didn’t matter, he still enlisted, he wasn’t drafted. He served in Pearl from 1969 to 1970, got out and moved on with his life. 8 years later, he had a small stroke in which he didn’t even know it. He went in for a physical while applying for a job and was told that he had the insides of a old man, in his 30’s no doubt. He got married, had a son who was born with birth defects due to his exposure. They divorced and that’s when I came to meet up with him in the end of 1994. From the first day we met, I have slowly watched Travis deteriorate, his health begin to decline. We both became truck drivers in the year of 1996, and before long Travis was badly injured when freight came crashing down and broke his neck. The doctor said he would have been alright, but due to already having degenerative spine disease, is what caused his vertebrae’s in his upper neck to be crushed like egg shells. The surgery to replace the broken neck, and 3 carpal tunnel surgeries because the doctors believe it was carpal tunnel when in fact it was due to nerve damage and his nerves were severed. It didn’t stop there, his health got worse and then ended up having a cyst develop on his testicles about the size of a grapefruit. Of course surgery needed to be done to remove that. He was seeing a private doctor at the time, and this doctor asked him how long he had diabetes? Travis didn’t even know he had it. Doctor said there was already damage to his kidneys. That’s when I decided to get him sign up with the VA. He got a monthly pension only because he was unable to work due to all his ailing health problems. He was also able to get free health care through the VA. Who knew that it would turn out to be the biggest nightmare of our lives. Travis had his first heart attack in 2005. I called 911 and had him transported to our nearest hospital 7 miles away. Once he arrived, they got him stable. The ER doctor had called the VA and requested transport via ambulance from Lake Isabella, CA. to the Los Angeles VA, 200 miles away. I remember all too well that phone call the ER doctor made to the VA, and I have never seen such anger on that mans face. He even turned to me and said “Please excuse me for becoming upset” as the VA told this ER doctor over the phone, and I quote “ We are not paying for the ambulance bill to have him transported, so have his wife, friend or whomever drive him down to Los Angeles” I never heard a doctor cuss until that night in the ER. Of course he apologized for his language, as I said No Problems Doctor...I feel the same way about them!. So that night, the doctor called a ambulance to transport my husband down to Bakersfield Heart Hospital, and he said to me “If the VA refuses to pay the bill for the ambulance and the hospital bill, you just let me know...I know of a damn good lawyer I will refer you too”.  The VA paid every single dime of it all, only because I threaten to sue them. The NP Nurse Practitioner that he only got to see at the clinic and never a actual doctor, she blew his kidneys! when she had him on a double dose of Metformin for his diabetes. Travis remembers the visit with her when all she could say was “OOPS” I damaged your kidneys and I have to take you off the Metformin. After the heart attack, I got sick of the crap of the VA Clinic in Bakersfield, and decided it was time for a change. We moved to Arizona where there was a VA doctor just down the street, instead of having to drive 80 miles round trip, and the VA hospital in Phoenix was only 90 miles away instead of 200 miles. I would later learn that was the biggest mistake of our lives. As I had no clue that the lid was about to be blown off for the biggest VA scandal in history! Where veterans were placed on “waiting lists” and placed on “Death Panels” several veterans had died while waiting for care, for as much as 2 years waiting for appointments or longer. I had no idea that my husband would become one of those veterans. On a routine eye exam one day at the Phoenix VA, the examiner told him that his right eye had blood flow blocked which meant he had blocked arteries in his neck. She was going to make the necessary calls to the right departments to have that checked. Those appointments never came until they got busted and the scandal began. My phone started ringing off the hook with VA staff wanting him to come down for all kinds of tests. There was one vascular surgeon who was very good, her name was Vivian. We were please to have her work on Travis. The tests were done, the surgery date was set and it was done. However, there was one small thing the vascular team seemed to over look, the fact the there was no pulse in his right leg, indicating there was restricted blood flow in the right leg. I guess it wasn’t a concern to them as he was never called back in to have that taken care of. It became a race to save his right leg, and I applied for temporary Medicaid for him. Took him to see a private doctor in town, and the doctor made an appointment for Travis to see his vascular surgeon. They worked quickly to get this all bouncing because the leg pain was intense from no blood flow. The surgery date came and the procedure was done at Banner Baywood Hospital in Mesa, AZ. Most of all what made me so mad is that his doctor who was doing the surgery had called over to the Phoenix VA to request Travis’ medical file and the Phoenix VA flat out refused to give any outside doctor any medical records. The only reason the doctor was requesting these records is so that he wouldn’t have to do any testing all over again, he could go by old medical files. That’s when a light went off in my head and I went to a Target Store and bought a flash drive and downloaded his entire VA medical file to the flash and gave it to the doctor. Sure saved time and money! The procedure was done but not without complications, evidently his right leg was so blocked that they couldn’t even get a camera down inside the artery, had to pull back out and perform a complete bypass going from the hip to his knee. But they were able to save the leg without facing amputation.

This is a story about my husbands long journey and I will continue with his story. But I bring sad news as Agent Orange has claimed another life. My husband Travis passed away November 06, 2018 @ 8:30 am while in hospice. He was only 68 years old, and that’s about the life expectancy for Veterans exposed to this deadly Dioxin. If they make it past 68, then they are fighting to stay alive.

I have much thanks to the doctors in the private sector that were able to save his leg, as I know for a fact if we had waited any longer for the VA to take care of this matter, the leg would have faced amputation for sure. Since veterans were being placed on “waiting lists” and some veterans facing waits times up to 2 years or more, I know for a fact that my husband would have lost his leg. It took applying for Medicaid to get anything done. While Travis still had Medicaid, we decided to take advantage of it while he had it and got everything we could get done. One day, Travis had a routine doctors appointment, and the doctor sent him over to have labs drawn, routine blood work. Of course to check his blood sugar levels, etc. Everything came back as the usual norm. But then about 1 month later, Travis started to feel sick, nausea, pain in his upper right side under his ribcage. So I called the doctors office once again to see if I could get him check. It took a couple of weeks, but we finally got him in to see the doctor. He had sent Travis again back over for more blood work. Now the way this doctor works is, if you have nothing unusual with your labs, he won’t call you. But if your labs come back with something not right, he calls or his staff calls you immediately and to have you come back in to be seen. The lab results came in, and the phone call came for Travis and I to return to see the doctor. The doctor walked into the exam room and I remember all to well the look on his face, the look of confusion as he sat down on his stool and proceeded to tell us that Travis’ liver was in total shut down. Now we had labs done about 2 months prior to these labs and everything came back ok, not perfect, but manageable. There was absolutely no sign of liver failure on his last labs as his enzymes were fine. Travis said to the doctor “What happen to stages 1, 2 & 3?” Why straight to the final stage? No warning? No signs? Just End Stage Liver failure. The shock was something we couldn’t swallow, brush off. It explained why his abdomen was swollen, as we were told it was called Ascites. It’s when the liver is unable to process and blood flow is constricted, and instead it secrets Ascites, a fluid into the abdomen around the other organs. I’m not a doctor, but I try to explain it the best way I can. Travis was sent over to the hospital for his first procedure called a Paracentesis. This is where they perform a Ultrasound on the side of his abdomen to find a open area to puncture the abdomen with a drain tube and drain all the Ascites from inside. This procedure turned out to be weekly for the next 2 years of his life. Sometimes the Ascites would be so bad that he couldn’t breath or eat, couldn’t sleep because as soon as he laid down the Ascites would press up against his lungs. There would be times I would have to take him into the emergency room to get tapped because he couldn’t wait for the next appointment.

Then the day came and my husband turned 65, and the Medicaid got cut off. They said he was now old enough to apply for his social security and get Medicare. We refused the Medicare because we couldn’t afford it. The monthly premiums, deductibles and out of pocket expenses. The VA would not allow my husband to exceed $1,400 a month in disability payments. So we lived below the poverty level. The reason for all of this, he was NOT Service Connected and the VA sent him a check only because he was unable to work because of all his diseases and illnesses. So we tried to stay with VA medical as long as we could. But this  forced us to return to the VA for his care (If you can even call it care) Once the Social Security kicked in and he started receiving a check from social security, the VA made damn good and sure to deduct $880 from his VA pension and gave him the remaining amount that would still keep us at $1,400 a month. The nightmare returned. But since we lived more than 40 miles from Phoenix which was actually 90 miles, the VA placed him on the Choice Program where he could be seen by the VA doctor in our town and get as much as possible done locally. The Choice Program turned out to be the biggest headache imaginable, constantly on the phone with them to get authorizations for every single doctors visit, procedures, X Rays, Lab Work, you name it! All had to have authorizations before you could even get anything done. I fought like a wild banshee with these guys and the VA. I finally became accustom to how Choice worked and would get the Consults placed by the doctor months in advance just so the authorizations could be placed like 1 day before the prior authorization was about to expire. Sometimes they wouldn’t get the paperwork done in time and I was forced to take my husband to the emergency room just to get his Paracentesis done because they didn’t get the authorizations faxed in time. As luck would have it, we got stuck paying all those emergency room bills because those visits were not authorized. Was it our fault? Absolutely not! It was VA and Choice that were at fault. I put in for the consult months in advance, and his VA doctor was right on it every time. It was Choice and VA that stalled and screwed things up. In May of 2017 Travis had another heart attack, we got him to our local hospital and they got him stable and needed to transport him down to Phoenix to Good Sam Hospital. Once he arrived, they worked on him immediately to find the cause of the heart attack. Now being already in stage 3 of Renal failure (kidney) I was very concerned about them using Contrast on him to perform a angiography to get in there and look around. The doctor made a statement to me that I will never forget, as he said to me “Don’t worry about the contrast, there’s always Dialysis” Excuse me?! But what part of Dialysis don’t you understand? Dialysis is the end of the road, the point of no return! Not concerned with how I felt, he went on with the procedure anyways. I figured this procedure was going to take some time, and I met a guy who was there at the hospital as well waiting for his wife to be discharged and sent home, and he too like me was staying there until that time. I was sleeping in the waiting room putting two chairs together to try and get some sleep. This guy was sleeping in his truck. So we met outside to talk and have a cigarette, come to find out he and his wife also lived in Payson where we lived. While sitting out on the bench having a cigarette with him and waiting for my husband to be done so I could go back up and be with him. The doctor comes walking out and up to me with his wonderful bedside manners and says to me “Yeah, I thought I would find you out here!” and took me to the side to also say “You better get upstairs because your husband might not make it through the night” It wasn’t that Travis was failing due to his medical condition, it was the fault of the doctors and Anesthesiologist who didn’t take into consideration his size and weight and didn’t administer enough anesthesia to completely knock him out and he woke up half way during the procedure. When this happen he inhaled with tubes down his throat and they ripped the breathing tube out and his lungs took on fluid. I wouldn’t have know this if it wasn’t for the Nurse just outside his room in ICU. She said to me that she is not allowed to tell me, but she did because she felt it was wrong about that happen to him. Only two days in ICU until he was able to breathe on his own without the use to the respirator. Then he was moved to a regular room and his total stay was 20 days. Keeping close watch on his kidneys since they used contrast on him, and that he had a heart attack.

Travis’ troubles are far from over as his problems are just beginning. We were told by the doctor that getting inside of his heart and cleaning out the valve only made it weak and he would eventually need to have a TAVR procedure done which is a heart valve replacement. If he didn’t, then his life expectancy would be around 1 year and he could end up with another heart attack he wouldn’t recover from or kill him. Travis and I had discussions over this, as he was so tired and worn out from all the hospitals, medical problems and a number of things where he was just sick of it all. I mean, really, who could blame the man, I would have thrown in the towel a long time ago and just gave up. Besides...I wouldn’t let him give up, I told him to fight for his right to live. But the time came and we made sure to get second opinions from our other doctors about how they felt about him having this procedure. They all agreed that things would get better for Travis and possibly improved the blood flow and circulation to the rest of his body. Maybe even heal the liver and kidneys. But we also made sure to cover all bases just incase things went wrong. Like doing up our Advance Directives, talking about Hospice, etc. I got the VA to approve the procedure since at the time the VA didn’t have the proper facilities nor the qualified doctors to perform the procedure at the Phoenix VA hospital, so it was contracted out by the Choice Program. We were able to chose the doctor and the hospital. So we went with the same doctor who did the angioplasty when he had his heart attack and Arizona Heart Hospital in Phoenix. Took a while getting all the paperwork and everything approved from VA, and God knows those are some serious hurdles to jump through just to get the VA to play fair with you. After dealing with the VA for so many years, I became a mental case myself. There’s something you have to understand, VA’s main goal is to get the Veteran so frustrated and upset to the point they want the veteran to walk away and quit, basically go off somewhere and just die. But in my case being the veteran’s wife, I’m the one who took the punches and gave them right back just as hard or worse. They realized this old gal wasn’t going to quit that easy and especially without a good fight. I never let Travis call the VA or even have them call to talk with him. I handled everything, I even had Travis sign a piece of paper from the VA giving me permission to speak on his behalf, just so he wasn’t the one to deal with all the stress, and I got the gray hairs to prove it.

So the day came, April 23, 2018 down to Phoenix Arizona Heart Hospital for the procedure. But to our surprise, they were doing another angioplasty on him to get in there and clean out the rest of the valves and anything blocked before they put in the new valve. So with that, the doctor once again used Contrast. Of course I was not happy at all, quite upset to say the least. Oh, but he promised me he was only going to use just a little this time, and try not to damage the kidneys anymore. He came out of that procedure with a smile and very hungry and wanted to eat something. So the nurse snuck him in a tray with a hamburger. So after his recovery from that procedure, they took him upstairs to ICU to keep close watch on him but had him scheduled for the TAVR the next day.

April 24th. the next day. The hospital staff came in and got him all prepped for the TAVR procedure. Travis and I had high hopes that everything would work out fine, but also scared that things could go terribly wrong, which is expected with every surgery. I gave him a kissed and told him I would be waiting for him after he got out and back up to ICU. Several hours later the procedure was over, but not without complications. His heart went into “Heart Block” Heart block is a problem that occurs with the heart's electrical system. This system controls the rate and rhythm of heartbeats. ("Rate" refers to the number of times your heart beats per minute. "Rhythm" refers to the pattern of regular or irregular pulses produced as the heart beats.) Heart block occurs if the electrical signal is slowed or disrupted as it moves through the heart. One thing is they were able to get rid of the heart murmur, but he gained two new problems, A Fibrillation is the rapid, irregular, and unsynchronized contraction of muscle fibers, and PVC’s which is Premature Ventricular Contractions which are extra heartbeats that begin in one of your heart's two lower pumping chambers (ventricles). These extra beats disrupt your regular heart rhythm, sometimes causing you to feel a fluttering or a skipped beat in your chest. So basically I was told that the heart rejected the new valve, didn’t know how to act with the new device. They brought him back up to the ICU and it took about an hour before I could see him. When they finally allowed me back, I walked into his room to find him hooked up to so many machines that he looked like the Bionic Man. There was a hole in his body that didn’t have a tube or hose in it. The IV stand looked like a Christmas tree with 12 different IV’s going into his body, including a temporary pacemaker to keep his heart beating. He was placed in a chemically induced coma as they didn’t want him waking up and start ripping tubes out of him.

Before I go any further, I just want everyone to understand that I am not here to exploit my husband nor bring any shame to him. You have to understand that this was his last dying wish. He exact words were to me...”Get Them Bastards!” “Don’t let them get away with this!” From the beginning of this journey I was set out to document as much as I possibly could, to show the effects of Agent Orange and what it does to the human body. How the VA tried to take him down by denying his medical care, and over medicating him. This was absolutely what Travis wanted me to do. So please understand it was his last wish and I made that promise to him.

To continue with his story, he was in ICU and placed in a Chemically induced coma. The next 9 days he would remain in this coma, until they could eventually start weening him off the drugs. On the second day in ICU, they took him back down to surgery to place a pacemaker in his chest to help his heart beat right. His blood pressure was critically low and in the danger zone since his heart wasn’t beating right. The job I had was one of most difficulty as I was his power of attorney and had to make some very tough decisions to keep this man alive. I had to everything in my power to make sure no doctors were making the wrong decisions as well. Which if I had not been there, God knows what would have taken place. The pacemaker was placed and he was brought back to ICU still in a coma. They had taken more blood tests on him and that’s when the bad news came, that his kidneys were failing from the contrast. I was given the bad news that they needed to start dialysis as soon as possible to try and save the kidneys. I had no choice but to sign the papers giving authorization for it to be done. Of course the doctors were sure that this would only be temporary and his kidneys should return with the dialysis treatment. The machine was brought in and dialysis was started and for 8 hours at a time while he was in a coma. Thank God! I said, because if he wakes up and sees this dialysis machine hooked up to him, hell will be unleased. They started waking him up for a few minutes a day to see if he would respond to my voice, which was the highlight of my day when I would get the chance to see those beautiful blue eyes looking at me, and he would respond to my voice. Then they would put him back under. Then more bad news came when he developed a lower GI bleed while under the coma. He had this dark black runny stool and was pouring out of him. We must of changed the sheets and cleaned him up 7 times in one day. His kidney doctor wanted to do a upper GI exam by sticking a scope down his throat to see where Travis was bleeding. I told this doctor which made me think where the hell he got his license from and his medical schooling because I became very concerned when he said the GI bleed was from the upper part of his body when it wasn’t. The bleed was from the lower GI. I’m not a doctor, but I called that one just right. I remember his primary doctor telling us to watch out for these Probe Jocky. The doctors who want to just stick cameras and probes in you to make some extra money. I refused to sign the paperwork and didn’t authorize the procedure. Doctor wasn’t too happy about it, but I was also praised by other doctors in saying that was a good call. With medicine, we got the bleeding to stop. On the 8th day, they started to bring him out of the coma to see if he could breathe on his own without the use of the machine. But when he came out of that coma and seen that dialysis machine, that’s when shit hit the fan! OMG! I will never forget the anger he displayed, which in all honesty I don’t blame him. We both knew this was going to happen because you cannot take someone with Stage 3 renal failure and inject contrast into them without consequences. I had told his cardiologist that anymore contrast would kill him, and he kept promising me that he would only use a little bit, and it shouldn’t hurt him and they could flush it out and save the kidneys. With him getting dialysis 8 hours at a time seemed to help and his GFR was coming back up around 14, sometimes around 17. That’s still not good and still in the failure stage, but it’s better than total failure, and that number we could work with. Things were looking up and we thought he would be just fine that his kidneys were in shock from the procedure and he would pull through. We finally got him out of ICU and transferred him to a regular room as he was getting ready to be discharged. But the dialysis continued. That’s when I faced my own war zone with the VA. The doctors said Travis would have to go through 30 days of rehab, to learn how to walk again, talk again, and to function. The coma basically shut his brain down and he had to learn how to eat, walk and function all over again. So him getting out of rehab was impossible, he had no choice. Not only that but he had to remain on dialysis as well. I wanted him close to home for his rehab and dialysis and we just happen to have a place in Payson, AZ. that had a good rehab facility and dialysis center. The fight I had with the VA was no joke! as I was on my cell phone constantly with them for several days. Now, the only cell phone I had was a cheap TracFone where you have to buy a card to get minutes. I had over 3,000 minutes on my phone that I gained over several months, because I hardly use my phone and only use it for emergencies or when Travis is in the hospital so I can call family and friends. The VA not only used up all my minutes, but I had to buy 3 more minute cards to add more minutes. What was happening is, when I would call to speak to one person in a certain department to get authorizations to transfer him, they would put me on hold. Not just for a couple of minutes but more like 30 minutes at a time. Then when I think they transferred me to the right department, it wasn’t. I got transferred to yet another person and placed on hold again. By the time I got to speak to the right person (though I thought) a argument ensued and the battle began! I had people in the lobby getting up and walking away from me, I had lost my cool and wasn’t happy with anything I was hearing from the VA. Here’s what happen, they refused to pay for his dialysis. They would cover his rehab, but not the dialysis. There it was right there! they found the perfect opportunity to take him out! People don’t listen to me when I say the VA has only been trying to kill him for a very long time. What a better way to kill him as to deny him dialysis. The hospital was ready to either place me in a straight jacket or have me arrested for making a scene in the lobby. I would not under any circumstances let Travis see me fighting with the VA, because when I got upset, he got upset and raised his blood pressure. So I took my fights outside to where he wouldn’t see it or hear it. I was so upset, even I have a racing heart and chest pains. It took 5 days beyond the discharge date to fight with the VA, they just wouldn’t give and cover the dialysis. But, my husband also had Medicare and I finally told the hospital to put it under his Medicare and forget the damn VA!! They finally released him and he was on his way home. The Rehab Center sent the van to come down to Phoenix to pick him up and we headed home. The VA is a joke!! senseless, useless, and dealing with a bunch of idiots who either don’t know how to do their job or don’t care.

We arrived in Payson and took him straight to Rim Country Health, the rehab center. Got him checked in and into his room. The first day of being there, the dialysis started, didn’t want to him to miss his dialysis as we didn’t need his levels dropping. The dialysis center was just across the parking lot and made it easy for us. But not only that, I was a stones throw from the rehab center as we lived just around the corner, so if something were to happen to him they could call me and I would be there in 2 minutes or less. I could see he was becoming frustrated and tired of not only being in rehab, but tired of dialysis as well. I was able to get him discharged from rehab after 3 weeks and bring him home and I would care for him. But I had to take him in to dialysis 3 days a week for 4 hours each time. I never stopped my fight with the VA as I felt they were responsible for his care, they owed that to him, he was a veteran. The VA finally came forth after endless phone calls and fights and being hung up on, that they agreed to pay for his dialysis.

Now the dialysis center, which I am not afraid to speak my mind about. They deserve it after what they did to Travis. DaVita Dialysis is the name, big company, big dialysis center and all over the United States. These girls swear they are professionals when it comes to dialysis. I beg to differ. The hospital placed Travis’ HD Cath in his chest, while in rehab he ripped it out of his chest, and he had to go back to Arizona Heart Hospital to have a new Cath put back in so he could continue his dialysis. That took a few more days of being in the hospital, but the problem was, instead of putting it back in his chest, they put it in his right upper leg near his groan. Bad place to put it as it faces serious infection from being in that area. Ok, so it’s up to the dialysis center to make sure that the Cath is cleaned properly each time after dialysis, which they didn’t. I became worried about how dirty the Cath appeared and would clean it myself. But I got chewed out for doing that and was told not to touch it. Ok, I told them and said to clean it right because it was nasty and looked terrible. They didn’t and he got a severe infection and ended up with Sepsis. I called that one when I got him home, checked the Cath sight which was red and hot to the touch and he had a fever. I took him to the emergency room. Good call! Because he did have a infection and it was Sepsis from the dirty uncleaned Cath. But, they took him back to the hospital in Phoenix where he spent 5 days being pumped with antibiotics and dialysis. Then we got him home, and back to DaVita Dialysis to continue his treatment. I even had doctors calling over there to let those girls know they need to clean the Cath real good. Did this happen? No, they sure didn’t because a couple of weeks later he was sent back to Phoenix again with yet another infection of Sepsis, spent another 5 days in the hospital, thank God I got him discharged on his birthday, June 4. I could tell he was getting tired of dialysis, and those girls who were constantly telling him he can’t eat this or that. He brought some green grapes in to eat while on dialysis, and the girls jumped him for eating grapes! Oh man was he pissed! Travis had enough of the dialysis and was about to the end of him rope. Dialysis didn’t do any good, because his kidneys went into complete failure, they weren’t coming back. Dialysis wasn’t working anyways. I remember the doctor who worked with the patients in dialysis talking to us about now looking into a kidney transplant, because his kidneys continued to fail. I said to him, it’s impossible for Travis to get a transplant because he also has Heart failure and liver failure and he’s a diabetic, so what are his chances of getting a new kidney? Very slim. Doctor said, yeah your right, they won’t. DUH!

The day came and Travis knew there was no chance of survival, no chance of his kidneys ever returning to stage 3 let alone normal. He was done. So we both had several talks and I wanted him to make sure he knew what he was doing if he pulled the plug. It’s what Travis wanted to do. He said, No more dialysis, no more needles, hospitals, surgeries, nothing. He wanted it all to stop, but by doing so, he knew his life was about to come to an end. So he stopped dialysis. He didn’t want to be stuck to a machine for the rest of his life, enduring 3 days a week, 4 hours a day, he was done. We made an appointment for him to see his primary VA doctor, and to let his doctor know of his decision and to place him on hospice. They only gave him 2 weeks to live after dialysis coming to an end, and he didn’t care. But you could see it in his eyes and his heart that he was crushed that his life was ending and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it. Hospice started and his only request was that he die at home with his wife and family by his side. I took care of him non-stop 24 hours a day 7 days a week. He has a hospice nurse coming in to see him to check his vitals, prescribe medications and what ever we needed. Then he had another hospice nurse come in to bathe him and help change his clothes and such. But I did the majority of that for him. Lifting him out of bed to his wheelchair and to the bathroom and back to bed again. All he did was sleep, not wanting to think about it. In the final weeks of his life, his toes started turning black, he started to swell with Edema in both of his legs. Nausea, vomiting, couldn’t eat. His Paracentesis appointments continued to give him comfort by draining the Ascites from his abdomen from the liver failure. On the last 5 days he fell really ill, he couldn’t keep anything down, not even water to take a pill. Vomiting constantly. I called the hospice nurse and both nurses came over to our home. They talked Travis into going into the hospice center to get the vomiting under control and they would let him go home. Travis agreed and we took him in. But he became very weak. On the third day I found out that the VA wasn’t covering his hospice care neither, even after his primary VA doctor put in the consult to have it covered. I found this out when they were not going to let him go home, but transfer Travis back to the rehab center. I got on the horn with his doctor and told him that the VA wasn’t paying for anything, they were not covering anything. He wasn’t happy at all and made a few phone calls and gave the VA a piece of his mind. The day before he was to be transferred, I got the news that the VA stepped forward and would pay for him being sent to Rim Country, but that day would never come. I was woken up at 4:00 am in the morning since I was sleeping on a fold out bed in his room. The nurse woke me to say Travis was now actively dying and they wouldn’t be transferring him. I jumped up and went to his bedside, and his lungs were filling up with fluid. I called the kids and told them to get their coffee and head over as soon as they could. Travis passed away November 06, 2018 at 8:30 am that morning. He didn’t die alone as he had all of us by his side holding him. As he took his last and final breath, it was the most horrible thing anyone could witness. I don’t wish it on anyone to see someone you have loved and cherished for 24 years of your life come to an end. He lasted way beyond what the doctors predicted, he lasted 54 days from the day he pulled the plug on dialysis. But he beat the odds, as doctors said he should have been dead years ago. I wouldn’t let him die, I told him to fight for his right to live. I fought right along with him, never once allowing him to falter, to never give up, and most of all...don’t give the VA the satisfaction in letting them think they won. I just want all of you to know, Travis was and always will be the bravest man I have ever had to the chance to know and love. I am honored to have spent 24 years of my life with this most loving man. I was blessed and I thank God for giving me the opportunity to have him all those years.

My fight with the VA is not over, not at all. As now I continue to fight to get the VA to pay for endless medical bills dating as far back as 2005, ranging in the 6 figures worth of medical bills. Most of those bills were emergency room bills the VA refused to pay which was their fault when they wouldn’t send the authorizations on time and I was forced to take him to the ER. Even for most of his Paracentesis visits I am still fighting to get those bills paid, and I have the authorizations to prove it, and they were suppose to pay for them. I am also fighting to get Travis service connected, in which he should be. All because they say he didn’t have his boots on the ground in Vietnam that they won’t give him service connected. I won’t stop, my war is just beginning, and I have a long way to go. I am standing by my word, I made the promise to him that I would not give up. No matter how much the VA frustrates me, they will not hear the last of me, and they will know the name very well...Travis S. Owen

RIP My Love....your ship has finally come ashore, mine is about to set sail.