I was medically discharged from the navy for fracturing my pubic bone and I developed chronic pain and was unresponsive to physical therapy. When I got through the barriers to VA medical care in San Antonio . I was raped and then exploited by a now-retired doctor. I did the memory blocking typical to PTSD sufferers, but eventually I began to remember what I’d’ been through.

A number of years later, I took my whole saga to the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners. They investigated, held a hearing where he was represented by an attorney, and they suspended his license to practice for 5 years and ordered him into treatment. He was so old that he just dropped his membership in the Texas Medical Association. The VA will not let me have inpatient treatment because they say my assault didn’t happen while I was on active duty. That system does carry PTSD as one of my diagnoses on its computers, but there is a compensation benefit under Sec. 1151, 38 U.S.C. that says if you develop a disability as a result of VA medical treatment, it must be rated as s/c.

Like most MST claims, this has been mishandled, and no matter how much proof I have provided, the claims system says that they aren’t related. I have worked on Capitol Hill and been on the staff of four federal political campaigns, and yet I can’t get the system to work for me. I have lived through twenty-five years of flashbacks and isolation. My mother even said when the medical license action was underway, “well you’d just better see to it that this stays out of the newspapers so that I don’t have to be embarrassed in front of my friends.”

This is about MY life being in peril because the PTSD symptoms are so pervasive. Will you all please write your Senators and ask them to support H.B. 2074? Thanks everyone.