VA fix-it funds help modify home for Vietnam veteran

VA fix-it funds help modify home for Vietnam veteran
By Anita Creamer
Modesto Bee
Wednesday, Jul. 18, 2012

When he was 20, Otis Dorsey served a year installing communications lines in Vietnam, a world away from the tiny Alabama town where he was raised. After completing his stint in the Army, he came home unhurt, or so he thought for the next few decades.

"I remember them spraying Agent Orange," said Dorsey, now 66, who lives in south Sacramento and is retired from a 25-year career with the federal government. "We were out there working while they were spraying.

"We got damp from it, but they told us it wasn't nothing that would kill you. It would kill the vegetation."

Today, he suffers from type 2 diabetes, diagnosed in 1990 when he was only 44, and Parkinson's disease, diagnosed eight years ago. Both diseases are among the ailments the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs links with Agent Orange exposure.

Diabetic complications led to the amputation of Dorsey's right leg, and he has cellulitis in his left leg. He also developed kidney problems as well as congestive heart failure.

"Gosh, what else have you had?" said his wife, Diane Jones Dorsey, 59, a retired state analyst.

"I'm still up and moving," her husband replied. "I try to keep a positive attitude."

To help him keep moving, and to help make the rest of the world accessible to him, a $63,780 Veterans Affairs grant last year renovated the Dorseys' home, which they bought in 1984, and adapted it to his mobility and medical needs.
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