The Climb

  Almost to the top of what most likely will result in a pyrrhic victory. For two years the path embarked on met with many rejections. I don't like being denied any more than anyone else, even when the rejection is couched in civil language with offers of assistance for any future endeavors, just not this one.
   With each denial, I would harbor the thought of giving up, but always tried again, after the wounds healed a little. What was to be the final rejection took place about a year ago, on a cold March day. All sources had firmly suggested that I would need legal help  to proceed with any hope of success. There are scores, if not hundreds,  of law firms who exist just for this purpose, but I was finding that most of those I sought out specialized in the trendier claims, and those of more recent origin, especially those which have a proven rate of success:  Agent Orange exposure, PTSD, and sexual assault. Attorneys have their staffs set up, with specialists in each area. They are averse to digging ground for more arcane and less known incidences.
  No one encouraged  me to initiate the process, so all the rejections fell on me.  Sob, sob.  As it came to be, the final rejection gave me the most encouragement. I had filled out countless applications for consideration. I say countless only because I didn't keep track of the number, but there were a lot.
     On this particular cold March day, one of the attorneys I'd contacted, this one located in South Carolina,  called  me in person, not via the usual email, if a response came at all. First he told me he was sorry, but the claim was not in his area of expertise. I said OK, thanks. A while later he called me back again, and said he would think about it. OK, thanks. Later that evening he called me again. (I pictured him sitting in front of a fireplace, sipping wine.)  He was rather intrigued, he said, but felt it would be a difficult and time-consuming case. His initial reluctance was because he took only the cases he felt strongly he could win. I knew this was true of most of the law firms. He said he felt bad if he had totally discouraged me and would try to help.We chatted for a while and he took it upon himself to tell me that the medical opinion I had gotten was worthless. He said that Dr. B. knew nothing, that he charged too much and took every case that came along. He said he'd appeared in court with him and that Dr. B. made it difficult for everybody there. He said Dr. B. had no proficiency in either the law or medicine, and that I knew more than he did. If I weren't the modest sort, I would have agreed, because I'd already pretty much found that out for myself.  He advised me to procure another medical opinion, preferably from one of the veteran's personal physicians.  He was leaving town on business, and would get back to me later, and after he'd  received the additional medical opinion.
    This never happened; I never heard from him again.  I had already tried the personal physician route, and found  that personal physicians shy away from this type of involvement  as if it were the plague. Definitely not in their wheelhouse. I did take the suggestion to  search for another  medical nexus opinion, and eventually found, a few months later, the remarkable Dr. Remington Nevin, and within six weeks, the claim was approved.
   Even though the South Carolina lawyer  in essence  turned the case down, or at least deferred it, this rejection encouraged me to keep trying. His was the only human touch throughout the entire process. And he called me three times in one evening and spoke kind words. Solitude makes for strange potential attorney-client relationships.