Penscola-What we know and what we don't

 So as many of my readers already know The Marine and I went down to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Flordia for a 6 month review of his limited duty status pending his med review board for his lupus. We had gone down last August (with the kids as a mini vacation) and they had put him on limited duty then for 6 months and wanted a follow up so we had gone back (without the kids). Here is what we do know right now:

1. He is back on another 6 months of limited duty
2. the Navy doctor there needs all records from Nashville, and for some reason they were not put in his medical files even though they were faxed down from Nashville so the Navy doctor could not review lap work from 6 months ago until now...which she wanted to do.
3. The Navy doctor was very pleased to see such an imporvement in the skin rash
4. Navy doc did tell us that if The Marine is required to me on any Immunosuppressives type of drugs than he will de deemed non-deployable and that status means he cannot deploy to where he is needed for his job, she said is a huge thing they look at and would most likely be kicked out for that reason.
5. The Marine's Nashville doctor has already told him before she wants him to be on immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of his life....
6. The Marine is currently NOT taking any drugs at all and his doctors are unaware of this...he has only improved since he stopped taking any meds vastly
7. We have another appointment in Nashville the beginning of March when we will talk about the need for meds or not. As of now his skin rash is almost totally gone without being on meds...so maybe he doesn't needs them but thats why we are going back up to talk.
8. He has to go back to Pensacola in another 6 months as a final review. From there his medical packet will or won't be turned over the Washington DC. If it is then he faces great chances (about a 99% chance) of being discharged, depending. If it isn't sent to DC then he just has these notes in his records and will have time to time reviews of his healthy status.
9. If it goes to DC and they say yep discharge him because he is not fit for duty then we don't know what happens. The Navy doctor said based on time of service he might get so little as a thank you for your service...no benefits nothing...but we have heard from other people that if you get an illness like this while in service it's a medical retiremenmt meanings benefits....
10. we WANT to stay in the Marines....don't want to get out, benefits/pay/healthcare is what we want for our family... without the Marine Corps we have no plan   

   ok and here is what we do NOT know:

1.  if he will be just discharged or medically retired. I supposed we could go to base legal or jag and see what exactly his rights are and how this works...
2. if he gets a retirement what kkind of benefits we will get....if any. there is a chance they could just cut a check and say thanks.
3. what his Nashville doctors are going to say about him not being on any meds....
4. what is going to happen at all in the future.

  OK that is the recap.... basically when we walked out of the Naval Hospital we felt like we really need to prepare for the worst as it seems like things are leaning towards a discharge with or without benefits. Things do not looks good. We will know more after we go to Nashville and talk there....

Now for a Nurse Gloom story:
 while getting checked in and waiting on the doctor to be ready we sat in the nurses room waiting. She made a little small talk asking why he was here and The Marine explained a little about it to which she says "oh they medically discharged my nephew last year and he became so depressed he shot himself in the head a few months later" WTF nurse doom and gloom? yep, she went on to tell us how he was injured in Iraq and when they discharged him they loaded him up on so many pills and he shot himself in the head outside a VA hospital last year.... well thank you very much for the upbeat positive stories about how life will be after they kick you out Nurse FuckFace....ugh!!!!