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The problem that led to my current disability started to occur about 40 years after the event I described in my first post on this subject. At first if I stood for very long or even if I tried walking a few blocks, my back felt very “tired” to me. Then I started experience what felt like electric shocks going down the back of my legs. Sometimes they were strong enough to make me fall. I thought it was all a normal part of aging – everybody has back problems. On Thanksgiving Eve 2007, I found out differently. We were living in a two-story home and I was home alone and I remember I was upstairs and then I remember waking up on the kitchen floor downstairs. I attempted to stand but couldn’t. My left foot was pointed backwards and my tibia and fibula, the two bones in the lower part of your leg, were sticking out through a hole in my skin. I had apparently fallen on the stairs and caught my foot in the baluster leading to the break. To keep things short, that was repaired and later I commented to my orthopedic surgeon that my back was bothering me. He took an x-ray and asked me if I had ever injured my back and only then did I remember what had happened at Fort Sill. He said I needed to see a neurosurgeon. Instead of going directly to a neurosurgeon, I went to the VA since initial injury it happened in the Army. The VA has been very good to me. The only thing they ever questioned me about was why I had not completed my physical therapy at Fort Sill. I pointed out I had gotten orders for Vietnam and that was the reason. They made heroic attempts to have my back fixed. When they decided I needed something more than their hospitals could provide, they had me go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. After four surgeries and over 46 hours on the operating table, I remain disabled. Not because anything the neurosurgeons or the VA did or didn’t do, but because my body is rejecting the screws needed to hold the repairs together in my spine. Obviously, the repairs to my broken ankle show this same rejection by my body. I will explain what this means to my health in another post as this one is gotten long. Any questions?