I met with Gulf War veteran Scott Merk on Thursday at a local coffee shop. Six years ago, he was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease affecting the lumbar and sacral veterbrae in his spine, his knees, his wrists and his shoulders. Scott is unable to work; I saw that he moved deliberately with the help of a cane. He looked like he was in pain.
The Merks spend about $750 a month on health care that isn’t covered by the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS). They’ve explored other options, but he and his family find themselves in one of those “holes” in which they make too much to receive some benefits, and too little to receive others. His wife, Brenda, makes between $800 and $1,100 a month taking reservations for an airline.
“There’s a certain class of American citizen that can be completely told, ‘We can’t help you,'” Scott said. “I thought no matter how bad things got, there’d always be something there.”
He said they’ve drained their savings and retirement accounts and sold most of their belongings to make ends meet. They’ve also tried to shield their son from the gravity of the situation. Come Tuesday, however, they’re going to be evicted from their home. The Merks have packed the few things they have remaining in preparation for that day, Scott said. He broke down in tears while telling me that he has tried to make lodging arrangements for his son while he and his wife are on the street.
Desperate and seeing no other options, Scott and Brenda set up a Web page asking for donations. You may not agree with this approach (and indeed, Scott says they’ve gotten plenty of “cruel” hate mail from people), but it’s worth a visit. You might feel motivated to donate some money or offer some other form of help.
The Weekly will run the coffee shop interview with Scott in the T Q&A section of the Aug. 17 issue, two days after the family stands to be evicted.
This article appears in Aug 10-16, 2006.
It’s despicable that one of the richest nations in the world treats its citizens, its veterans with such disregard. Why can’t the V.A. absorb his medical costs and provide treatment? The Merks need a long term solution. I hope they find a miracle in the 11th hour.
Thanks for covering this important aspect of the war — what happens to the soldiers with the gov’t is through with them. The upcoming issue of Clamor Magazine (http://www.clamormagazine.org) features an in-depth look at Iraq War amputees returning home and the challenges they face.
SB, I hope that you pushed Scott to call the Army out on this crap. He really needs to make some noise with more of the local media, not just the TW. He has to pull out all of the stops and really make the bastards squirm a bit – that’s what it’s going to take. From reading the blog it doesn’t look like he had a pre-separation class that was worth a crap and didn’t copy his med records before being shipped out. It’s just rotten to see this and much more happening to vets, heck the same thing could happen to me.
Just a quick update.
First – thanks for all your help and encouragement. It’s means a lot to us that others even care what happens to families like ours.
Know this, you are all appreciated even if all of us don’t mention it very often!
Second –
I had to go to a Congressman to try and get results on my medical record search. It has been almost 6 months since we have been really pushing to get my ARMY records.
1st we heard that they had to be moved due to security.
then we heard that because of the laptop incident they were moved again.
then we were told that a number of Gulf War/Desert Storm medical records were being “reviewed” and that they were not in storage.
Finally when we threatened to go to Congress or the Senate – We heard nothing.
Nothing? They aren’t even acknowledging my requests anymore.
I love my country. I would have died to protect its’ freedoms and its’ values. But I don’t understand this at all.
Sorry to butt in but I thought you would want to know.
Thanks again
Scott
Scott, Did anyone intervene in the 11th hour? Are you and Brenda out on the street? What happened to your son? I made a small contribution to your paypal account but you need a long term solution.
I went to John McCain’s site and left a message asking them to read Saxon’s article and to contact Saxon who can hopefully contact you to start getting some help. I know it’s a shot in the dark but I urge more people to do it. Let’s bombard John McCain’s website –
http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Contact.Home and try to get help for Scott and his family — you know like from one veteran to another. Be professional about it though.
Today I heard Bush’s speech about rebuilding Lebanon and I thought, what about fixing what’s broken in the United States first.
Read their blog very carefully before you get all teary-eyed and ready to help as you will be enabling an Oxycontin addict.
Isn’t there a comment policy about calling someone an addict?
Americans should be grateful that we aren’t back in the stone ages. And that there are still Dr.s out there who are willing to use the tools they have been given rather than falling by the wayside with the overblown stories about Opiate pain relief. It’s hard to believe that there are still those out there who still believe the hype about Oxy.
It’s too bad that addicts and the ignorant like Nordica Ljus still have to put a stigma on this highly effective pain management tool.
You have no idea the pain that comes from Deg. Disc Disease. It is sometimes said to be worse than bone cancer, because the major nerves are also affected. I know, I had to suffer for years because of that kind of ignorance and fear.
Millions of Americans still don’t receive the pain therapy they need.
“The odds of your getting good pain management are, at best, 50-50,” says UC Davis BioEthicist Ben Rich.
Pain specialists recognize the value of pain therapy and see Oxycontin making an important difference in the lives of patients who depend on opiates to even function normally – to get out of bed, tend to household chores, and even care for themselves.
But because of ignorance and a few stories about addicts abusing yet another in a long line of drugs, in one short year, OxyContin has become the dastardly villain, even though its’ effectiveness in alleviating the painful symptoms of Degenerative Disc Disease, Bone Cancer and even Terminal patients is not only medically proven but has been supported by over a decade of successful treatment.
I suffered from DDD, even contemplated suicide because the pain was so unbearable. Until a doctor was finally brave enough to prescribe exactly what my condition warranted. I can now get out of bed by myself, I can sit and stand and I can live my life free of pain or suffering. I got some form of normalcy back.
The previous medications they tried were destroying my life and my internal organs. Seizures, blackouts and other negative side effects were added to the fact that they weren’t helping with the pain but were eating away my liver and kidneys.
Opioids occur naturally in the body, and are not harmful to any organ system.
They are the only ones that can be taken safely for a lifetime, if necessary.
Anti-inflammatory non-opioid medications, on the other hand, kill over 16,500 patients each year through bleeding from the stomach, and are toxic to the liver and kidneys
But because of such ignorance and misinformation, many people still have to suffer and die, when the most effective tool is clearly available.
“I’ve had prominent physicians call me up and say, ‘I have patients doing well, taking opioids for otherwise treatable pain, but I’m going to stop writing prescriptions because I don’t want the DEA coming into my office and putting handcuffs on me,’ ” says James Campbell, a neurosurgeon at JOHNs HOPKINs UNIVERSITY. “Five years ago, we were actually doing a better job at handling pain patients. Now we’ve seen a backslide, and patients are definitely the victims. They are suffering.”
Experts agree that tens of millions of Americans suffer from under-treated or untreated pain … According to one survey, just one in four pain patients received treatment adequate to alleviate suffering. Which means 75% will continue to suffer because of the ignorance and unwarranted fear so prevalent today.
Some of the greatest harm caused by this senseless hysteria and overblown media reports was to the patients with chronic pain who were being successfully treated with OxyContin and then forced to switch to another medication.
In true form, Nordica has done what so many other zealots have done by stigmatizing Legitimate Patients and treating them like addicts. It is because of this stigma and ignorance that far too many Americans are made to suffer.
Patients for whom OxyContin may have been the optimal medication refused to try it, others who were being treated were told by their doctors that their prescriptions could no longer be renewed because of increased fears of scrutiny.
Dr. S. Passik, of the MCC in Lexington wrote for the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management with his observation of this OxyContin crisis:
“It is my sense that, once again, in the absence of real data, the pendulum is swinging away from the use of opioids. Even their reasonable use is being abandoned by practitioners due to societal and regulatory pressures.”
The Result is that MILLIONS of people are being made to suffer needlessly, while Nordica Ljus and other members of society cause these patients even more pain by labeling them for wanting to be pain free.
And yet, It is clear that millions of people are going untreated or under-treated.
Many in the pain-management field, however, say narcotic painkillers are often the best and sometimes the ONLY way to relieve chronic acute pain.
Pain Specialists say that the fear of public opinion or a DEA investigation is keeping some worried physicians from writing appropriate prescriptions, and patients are suffering needlessly as a result.
Pain-management experts have responded with dismay, saying that the current atmosphere in the US is resulting in the denial of pain relief to millions of sufferers.
So I asked – Why wouldn’t my doctor prescribe enough medicine to control my pain?
He was too scared. As part of the War on Drugs, law enforcement is conducting a witch-hunt against pain doctors who prescribe opioids compassionately and appropriately.
Most physicians won’t even prescribe what they know is appropriate because of the risk being targeted by law enforcement. As a result, chronic pain sufferers have become the victims of a troubling and all-too-common medical practice:
the undertreatment of significant and debilitating pain.
Because of the pervasive fear and stigmatism of these drugs in this country there is an unfortunate effect of reducing access to patients who need them. And this insanity has become even more pervasive with some state officials.
What’s worse, the media hype is also creating a panic that makes doctors and legitimate users needlessly afraid of utilizing an important advance in the treatment of pain.
Two leading professional groups have declared opioids “an essential part of a pain-management plan.” The DEA and 21 health organizations agreed that opioids are often “the most effective way to treat acute pain and often the only treatment option that provides significant relief for chronic sufferers.”
And yet, Gov. Howard Dean said his state welfare program would STOP paying for prescriptions for the painkiller OxyContin for any patient, regardless of the level of pain.
An estimated 75 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, according to the American Medical Association, and numerous studies have shown that patients often don’t receive the medication that could provide relief and greatly improve their quality of life.
In America, Undertreatment is as high as 50 percent among cancer patients and 85 percent among other Americans living in chronic, long-term, acute pain.
The sad truth is that Much of this suffering is preventable.
Experts do know how to reduce pain safely. In particular, physicians now know that opioid analgesics—medicines such as morphine and oxycontin—provide relief for a wide spectrum of pain problems. The biggest asset being that they have relatively few side effects with almost no damage to the body’s internal organs.
The same can NOT be said for the other harmful analgesics.
Those Americans who live each day in pain, just want a life free from this terrible prison their own bodies have created. “We can’t cure everybody who is in pain, but we can make almost everyone feel better,” says Scott Fishman, chief of the division of pain medicine at the University of California, Davis, and president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. “Becoming a prisoner of pain is not an inevitability.”
Popular media play up addiction—be it on the TV series ER, where Noah Wyle portrayed a young physician addicted to prescription painkillers, or in tabloid newspapers, which devoted voluminous ink to Rush Limbaugh’s struggle with pain pills in late 2003.
Indeed, Limbaugh’s alleged drug of choice, OxyContin has become a target in the media and in law-enforcement.
In reality, for those using opioids as prescribed, the likelihood of addiction is extremely low, according to research. “It’s really an unwarranted fear,” says Christine Miaskowski, former president of the American Pain Society.
The DEA’s renewed war on pain doctors has frightened many physicians out of pain management altogether, exacerbating an already serious health crisis –
– the widespread under-treatment of intractable pain.”
The sad result, according to experts, is an environment that scares doctors away from practicing good medicine and patients have to suffer unimaginably painful lives, accordingly.
Hailed by pain management specialists as a wonder drug, Oxycontin was considered a major advance in the medical profession’s expanding effort to battle the debilitating effects of severe, chronic pain.
Oxy was said to be enjoying “a groundswell of international support” at the annual meeting of the International Association for the Study of Pain, as members touted it as “an excellent opiod for moderate to severe pain.”
Pain specialists recognize the value of pain therapy and see Oxycontin making an important difference in the lives of patients who depend on opiates to even function normally – to get out of bed, tend to household chores, and even care for themselves.
The result of this negative environment and the sadistic attitudes of people like Nordica Ljus is the unfortunately reality that not only stalled progress in pain management, but has sent the treatment of chronic pain reeling backwards into ignorance and fear.