Milofibrosis

My father (and best friend), was in Vietnam, on the DMZ for two tours in 1968-9. He was a cheif in the navy seabees, and it was his job to drive from base to base in an open jeep, and check for safe building practices.

When he came home, we were all so greatfull that he made it back, alive. Then within the next year, he was diagnosed with Myelofibrosis (bone marrow). He was a very healthy and active man, and extremely stoic. He never showed his pain or other emotions of someone with such a deadly disease.

In 1990, he and my mother drove cross country from California to Casper, WY. to help take care of my grandparents house, since they had both died. He arrived and he and my mother, checked into a motel, and withing hours he was having a very hard time breathing. He was taken to the Casper Medical Center, and after about a week, the doctors were confounded by his declining condition. My sister and I drove him back to California, on Oxygen, in his own van.

I stayed with him overnight, at his house, thinking that the sea-level altitude of the California coast (at near sea level), would make it easier for him to breath. It didn't. The following morning, I got him to the van, and took him to the local Regional Medical Center. He was tested for every virus, bacteria and problem that could be conceived of. They could find nothing, other than the Myelofibrosis. He continued on his downhill journey and was finally taken to UCLA Medical Center, in LA. After over a week there, the doctors (pulmonary and cardiologists) could not find anything out of line... but was having very difficult breathing, and was put on higher and higher doses of Morphine Sulfate drip.

Finally the day came when the doctors told us that no more could be done for him, and that he would probably be more emotionally better off, back in the Oxnard Regional Medical Center, closer to family. After several months, he finally succumed to his long (3 month) ordeal, which was just as hard on us, his family. He died on Thanksgiving Eve, and it was devestating.

After his funeral, I began researching any connection between agent orange and Vietnam. The government claimed that AO had no connection to Myelofibrosis. I am convinced it is. I got the Army spray maps for Operation Ranch Hand (the spraying of AO), as I suspected, the time frame he was there was almost solid spray coverage by the Army. This was due to the fact that this was TET and the hottest time of the war.

I swore when he died, that I would keep searching for the connection, to get his name on the Vietnam Memorial in D.C. I still haven't succeded. But I won't stop until I succeed or die. That is the least I can do for the man that was the best father one could ever have.

Looking at this site, I see many similar cases. Don't give up hope... someday the U.S. Government will admit what they probably already know.