Homeless Navy Veteran Feels Love from Community and Return of Elvis

Community helps homeless veteran locate missing medical alert dog
FOX7 News
Jennifer Kendall
May 27, 2017

When people in a Northwest Austin community found out a homeless veteran's medical alert dog was missing, they jumped into action. Within an hour they had posted fliers and put together a reward.

Doug Ferguson and his 7-year-old Golden retriever Elvis have quite a following in the area of Loop 360 and 2222. Doug said a series of events led him into a life on the street.

Three years after he started living out of his car, he got attacked and was left epileptic.

Doug applied for a medical alert dog through a Navy program and has spent every day for the last six years with Elvis. Until he woke up from a nap on Wednesday and his pup was nowhere to be found.

Thanks to the community who cares so much about the duo, word quickly spread on social media and a young girl, whose brother thought he had brought home a stray, returned the dog.
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Moron Left Female Disabled Veteran Nasty Note On Car

Nasty note left for disabled veteran
WCMH NBC News
By NBC4 Staff
Published: September 27, 201

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO (WCMH) — A trip to a Colorado Springs Lowe’s culminated with a nasty note left on the windshield of a disabled veteran. Catherine Rodriquez suffers from debilitating seizures after an incident four years ago while she was serving in the military.

“I ended up with anaphylactic shock, and the lack of oxygen caused me to have epilepsy that cannot be controlled with medication,” Rodriguez told KKTV. After several brain surgeries, Rodriguez now has a service dog and a parking placard so she can use parking spots for people with disabilities.

“I can be very difficult to get to the vehicle and I sometimes do not remember where we are parked,” she said. “I get lost in stores and stuff sometimes.”

After Rodriguez and her husband finished their shopping trip in Lowe’s, they returned to his truck and found a note stuck to the accessible parking sign.

“Sure don’t look or ‘act’ handicap! Don’t care what you think!” the note read.
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PTSD and TBI veterans high prevalence of Epilepsy and other disorders

Studies expose high prevalence of epilepsy and other neurological disorders in US Veterans
Medical Net
Published on December 10, 2013

Three studies coming out of the American Epilepsy Society's 67th Annual Meeting in Washington DC expose the high prevalence of epilepsy and other neurological disorders in US Veterans who served in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn.

The research conducted from these studies indicate that veterans are at a particularly high risk for traumatic brain injury (TBI), post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychological non-epileptic seizures (PNES) and epileptic seizure diagnoses.

A study by the Southeast Epilepsy Centers of Excellence and Duke University Medical Center found that 87,377 Veterans with seizures diagnoses were managed within the Veterans Health Administration during the 2011 Fiscal Year (Platform 2.263 / Abstract 1735443). The prevalence rate was 15.5 per 1,000 and incidence was 148.2 per 100,000. Higher incidence of diagnoses was found in young veterans under the age of 46.

"Appropriately diagnosing and treating Veterans with TBI and PTSD is notoriously difficult," said Tung T. Tran, MD. "It involves a multidisciplinary approach to include both epilepsy and mental health specialists."

Another study from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas reviewed the results of video-EEG (VEEG) monitoring data for veterans of OEF/OIF from the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center from January 2008 to May 2013 (Poster 2.042 / Abstract 1748542). The study uncovered a comparatively higher prevalence for psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) among OEF/OIF veterans who completed the VEEG monitoring. Among patients with a definitive diagnosis of PNES, 63% of the subjects had PTSD alone, 50% had mTBI alone, and 41.3% had a combination of the two. Alarmingly 90.6% of subjects with PTSD who received definitive VEEG diagnoses also had PNES.

"Our research identified the presence of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and PTSD," said Shirish Satpute, DO. "Both were common morbidities in this population, and appear to be independently predictive of subsequent VEEG confirmation of PNES."
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Congress created VA epilepsy centers to help 66,000 patients a year

War veterans face epilepsy as side effect of head trauma
The Olympian
Adam Ashton Staff Writer
Published: October 24, 2013

Congress created VA epilepsy centers to help 66,000 patients a year

As a single mom and combat-wounded Navy corpsman, Holly Crabtree has too much on her mind to stress about the next time she might black out. She’d rather think about her daughter’s busy schedule packed with things such as dance classes and Girl Scouts.

But Crabtree’s been getting seizures every week or two since she was shot in the head while serving on a Special Operations mission in western Iraq three years ago. The bullet led to two strokes, partial paralysis and epilepsy.

She doesn’t feel the seizures coming and she can’t prepare for them.

“They surprise me,” said Crabtree, 33.

Epilepsy is a common side effect veterans experience after suffering head trauma at war. It’s debilitating for parents such as Crabtree who worry about passing out in front of their children, and damaging for other veterans who can’t drive or hold down jobs because of their occasional seizures.
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