Perseverance paid off

[djmatte, ADN, MSN, RN, NP]

I was going to add this to the Air Force 2021 thread, but felt it warranted it’s own thread given the length.  I felt inclined to tell me own story and also encourage people who think they were misdiagnosed  with something keeping you from military service to research and try your best to get that cleared up.  

Well I finally got word my medical clearance finally went through and they are finally working on my orders!  This has been the craziest ride I’ve ever had. Lots of points I could have given up. 

Here’s some background on this crazy ride and the hoops. When I previously served, the Air Force diagnosed me with a kidney disease clinically (biopsy didn’t have the right tissue to definitively diagnose). Two years ago I decided to go into the navy as a NP.  Navy was fine with the diagnosis and cleared my meps physical. Then the navy stopped recruiting NPs. I waited until the new fiscal year in hopes that would change and nothing happened. So I moved to Air Force. 
 

Recruiter sees a good meps and focuses on boards. He drags his knuckles and doesn’t get a ton done. Finally a second recruiter comes in, realized how long we’ve been working on this and gets things moving within weeks.  By last Summer I was board selected in my first go. I had a tentative class date of January.  Then they realized my meps eval runs out 2 weeks after board selection and we need to extend it. Air Force SG though looks at the renal diagnosis and permanently disqualified me. 

Looking at that, I went to my nephrologist who wrote a lengthy letter outlining his belief the diagnosis was inaccurate due to the fact the original biopsy was inadequate and the occurrences only happened s/p surgery and in the presence of an  infection. Also that in 12 years I saw no change in renal function which was uncharacteristic of the diagnosis. SG still disqualified. 
 

Finally I made the call to get another biopsy to know for sure this was or was not a real diagnosis. Biopsy 1 had some tissue to run some tests EF and IF studies, but not immunofluorescence which was the last definitive test. It strongly indicated against the diagnosis.   We submitted to in hopes that would be enough.  Not so much.
 

So we had to do a second biopsy which my nephrologist wasn’t really a fan of. This time we literally had a pathologist at the bed side hand counting glomeruli under a microscope as they were acquiring samples to make sure they could run the immunofluorescence.  Results were a complete rule out and SG finally approved my meps physical repeat. 

I passed meps two weeks ago and finally got SG clearance. I am awaiting orders. I and my wife are ecstatic and are looking forward to the changes.  Super stoked and hope others can take this story end motivate to keep trying for the things they want.