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'Small victory' for sick Marine

Aug 9, 2007 | JAMES MCGINNIS | Bucks County Courier Times

The government has upgraded a retired U.S. Marine to 100 percent disability status but will not pay for his old medical bills or future experimental treatments for a rare nerve disorder.

Moke Kahalehoe of Falls called the recent upgrade by the Veterans Administration a "small victory." He believes he only got a second look from Veterans Affairs after Bucks County Congressman Patrick Murphy and U.S. Sens. Arlen Specter and Elizabeth Dole stepped in to fight for him.

"Congressman Murphy's office has really been helping us on a regular basis and I know that they are pushing the VA," Kahalehoe said. "Elizabeth Dole has also sent us many letters promising to help."

Kahalehoe has suffered a painful and debilitating neurological disorder since breaking his left ankle and tearing a deltoid ligament in late 2005 in a martial arts training exercise during basic training at Parris Island, S.C.

He spends nearly every minute in bed or in a wheelchair. A vacuum machine that sucks out infection and injects oxygen is attached to his injured leg as he shuttles between hospitals and doctors' offices. The pain of reflex sympathetic dystrophy, or RSD, is stifled slightly by daily doses of five different painkillers and muscle and nerve relaxers, including OxyContin and Valium.

Kahalehoe has nearly $1 million in medical debts. The cost to travel to and seek treatment in Germany could cost more than $50,000. A special medical treatment unavailable in the United States involves pumping high doses of ketamine into Kahalehoe's body. The VA won't pay for that treatment, Kahalehoe said.

The VA declined to comment, citing privacy laws.

If Kahalehoe is able to make the trip to Germany, he'll be injected with doses of ketamine in amounts not allowed in the U.S. The injections will induce a five- to seven-day coma that hopefully will calm down Kahalehoe's nervous system and allow it to "reboot."

Before the injury, Kahalehoe, a 1999 Pennsbury High School graduate, was looking forward to making the Marines his career. He said his military specialty was going to be intelligence, and he likely would have served in Iraq conducting interrogations of captured insurgents.

"It's unbelievable that the government is putting a price tag on my life, when I would have sacrificed everything in the service of my country," he said.

Since published reports about his condition appeared in the Courier Times, Kahalehoe said he has received about $30,000 in donations. "It's amazing to me that so many people from all over the country care. We're getting letters from Virginia and Maryland."