Vietnam: for victims of Agent Orange, the war isn't over

I suppose this post is here because I went back into Chemo treatment yesterday.  This current round of the cancer fight is approaching three years now.   Am I pissed off, you bet, but that will not change my condition, life is precious, so you keep up the fight.

My treatment went well, I am experiencing some shortness of breath and will have an Echo Doppler of my heart today in an attempt to find the cause.  I have had no ill effects from the treatment so far…. 

What the hell were they thinking, this crap would kill a tree that was a 100 years old, and they did not consider the effect it would have on the human body. 

Studies of veterans who served in South Vietnam during the war have increased rates of cancer, nerve, digestive, skin and respiratory disorders. Veterans from the south had higher rates of throat cancer, acute/chronic leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, prostate cancer, lung cancer, soft tissue sarcoma and liver cancer. Other than liver cancer, these are the same conditions the US Veteran's Administration has found to be associated with exposure to Agent Orange/dioxin, and are on the list of conditions eligible for compensation and treatment.

While in Vietnam, the veterans were told not to worry, and were persuaded the chemical was harmless. After returning home, Vietnam veterans began to suspect their ill health or the instances of their wives having miscarriages or children born with birth defects may be related to Agent Orange and the other toxic herbicides to which they were exposed in Vietnam.

NOT TO WORRY, IT IS HARMLESS………

The following are list of health issues I have suffered, all related to Agent Orange.

• Acute and Subacute Peripheral Neuropathy
  A nervous system condition that causes numbness, tingling, and motor weakness.

Neuropathy in both feet since 2005, live with it.

• Diabetes Mellitus (Type 2)
  A disease characterized by high blood sugar levels resulting from the body’s inability to respond properly to the hormone insulin.

Medicated since 2004.

• Ischemic Heart Disease
  A disease characterized by a reduced supply of blood to the heart, that leads to chest pain.

Pacemaker implanted in 2001.

• Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
  A group of cancers that affect the lymph glands and other lymphatic tissue.

R-Chop Chemo in 2009, followed by 15 radiation treatments

• Prostate Cancer
  Cancer of the prostate; one of the most common cancers among men.

My prostate was removed in 2001.  Followed with 36 radiation treatments.

• Respiratory Cancers
  Cancers of the lung, larynx, trachea, and bronchus. 

Respiratory cancer resulted in the removal of the upper right lobe of my lung.  This cancer is now in the bone in my back and that is why I am presently being treated.  

Other than that it has proven to be harmless to me personally.

Air Force records show at least 6,542 spraying missions took place over the course of Operation Ranch Hand. By 1971, 12 percent of the total area of South Vietnam had been sprayed with defoliating chemicals, at an average concentration of 13 times the recommended USDA application rate for domestic use.  In South Vietnam alone, an estimated 10 million hectares of agricultural land were ultimately destroyed. In some areas, TCDD concentrations in soil and water were hundreds of times greater than the levels considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Hey folks, we got to come home, what about the Vietnamese people, they live there, they were at home…..

40 years after it was sprayed, Agent Orange continues to cause deaths, cancers, leukemia and birth defects. The Vietnamese Red Cross estimates that there are one million victims.