[voofie]

I am new to this forum, having found it while searching for answers/help. I am a 60 year old Vietnam era Army veteran with totally service connected functional quadriplegia, meaning I can ambulate with leg braces and use my arms/hands but everything is weak and not completely non-functional. Most people think of quads or paras as being totally non-functional, but there are many leves of spinal cord damage.

I presented to my local VA Medical Center just over two years ago with recurrent UTI because they had stopped supplying sterile urinary catheters for intermittant catheterization four times daily. A new physician with no SCI training/experience told me to wash a single catheter with soap and water, hang it to air dry and reuse four times daily until it became deteriorated and required replacement. I balked, but had no recourse....

Almost immediately I presented to the clinic with UTI and soon found that several different bacteria cultured, requiring powerful antibiotics. CT, KUB X-Ray, and ultrasound all showed a 6mm X 9mm calcium Oxalate stone in the lower pole of the left kidney (left flank pain and fever presented with each UTI). After more than a year of suffering I finally was scheduled for Lithotripsy, which did very little to break up the stone. I was then scheduled for ureteroscopy with laser, but when I came to in recovery in great pain thinking the stone was gone I learned that the laser could not make the bend and blast the stone so a ureteral stent had been placed, but the stone remained. Three days later I was again subjected to Lithotripsy and was told the result was that the stone was broken up and the largest fragment was 4mm. When nothing seemed to flush out after a month and UTI with left flank pain and nausea continued recurring, I was told there is nothing more that can be done because the stone frags are in the lower pole and could not be evacuated. I had read in my online research about Mechanical Percussive Inversion, but when I ask about it I was told "There a lot of unfounded hoax on the Internet and this VA does not subscribe to MPI, for which there has been no reliable research results."

I was sent home with a PICC line in my arm and told to return to ER when UTI recurs. At a special meeting of VA Urologists and Infectious disease specialists, among others, my son and I were told that there is nothing more this VA SCI Center can do for me beyond treating infections with I.V. antibiotics until the bacterium develop insensitivity and cause my death.

I and those who love me are flabberghasted and frightened beyond words. I have no insurance and since I am service connected and rated total and permanent I never needed to pay for Medicare Part B, or so I was always told, so I cannot even seek non-VA medical attention. So here I am feeling helpless and hopeless with a new wife of one year on June 28th. Can anyone suggest anything? Is there any hope for me? I have always been in great health prior to this and totally independant. I am frightened and saddend beyond words for myself and my leved ones!

Ron