The title of this post sounds like a bad children's book, lol. Anyway, for those of you who have been following Marshall's situation and the craziness that has found its way into our lives, I have an update for you!
To recap for a reminder if needed, and very briefly: Marshall started breaking out in hives after we moved here. It's been going on for a year and a half. After a year, they ("they" being Air Force peeps) decided to send him to a Physical Evaluation Board (aka Med Board) because they think hives are the devil for some odd reason, and that Marshall cannot possibly function on a day to day basis with his job if he breaks out in hives every so often. His first board came back with the shittiest judgement possible: discharge with severence pay and a 10% disability rating. Basically, they pooped on us. So, we decided to appeal to the formal board, meaning Marshall had to leave Feb. 2 to go to Texas to meet with this new board, in hopes that they would not poop on us and see how stupid it is to remove an excellent Airman from his duties because of stupid hives. (Whew, that was a giant rambling mouthful!)
Well, I'm really starting to think God is trying to tell us something with this. First off, my husband arrives with no problems on last Wednesday. Thursday, he meets with his attorney, who tells him that with Marshall's awesome APRs and the letters he had from supervisors saying he's #1 and how awesome he is, it should be no problem to get him returned to duty. Marshall calls me and tells me this, and we get excited and joyfully talk about how our lives can finally go back to normal after this. Woo hoo! Or at least as normal as they can be while adjusting to parenthood. His attorney was supposed to call him that afternoon and tell him when his hearing would be, but for some reason, Marshall never hears from him. We assume he'll call the next day.
Friday, Texas gets a freak snow storm of one inch of snow. The base shuts down. Marshall still doesn't know when his hearing is, and everything is closed. Saturday, I call Marshall's room for the first time. When he answers the phone, there's 30 seconds or so of nothingness before a tentative hello. Turns out, his room phone ringer doesn't work. A little light blinks to indicate a phone call, but no ring. He just happened to be sitting right next to the phone and catch the blinking when I called. So if anyone was trying to get a hold of him, they couldn't. A work order was placed for a new phone, which as of today he still has yet to receive.
Anyway, Monday morning he stops into the attorney's office first thing, and finds out his hearing was in half an hour. Score one for him for finding out just in time. Of course, they had been trying to call him, but since his phone doesn't ring he had no idea.
Marshall called me after his hearing feeling pretty confident. After all, his attorney was confident he would be returned to duty, and Marshall said they asked him questions such as "If you end up being in the 1% of people this doesn't go away for in a few years, what will you do?" We would be receiving an email in our home email with the results.
I checked the email like a hawk. A few hours later, we got the results. Discharge with severance and a 10% disability rating. The same thing as the first board. So apparently, hives really are the devil to the Air Force. We had just heard that someone just came back with a heart condition they were born with and they were returned to duty. Hives, apparently, are worse than a heart condition. Big exasperated sigh of confusion!
There's another board. This is a big one. He'll have a JAG officer as his attorney. Last night, he told me he's going to appeal this, too. So, we're back in medical limbo. This time, it'll be at least 6 months before he goes to this board (right now there's a 7 month backlog). He's got a really good plan for how we're going to spend this time waiting.
Okay, baby's up now, so that's all for now!
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