Hi Mary ~
I guess there are a lot of us out there :-(
My husband was in the Navy from 1980 to 1993. He served in the first Gulf War.
The IVIG treatments were aweful; within 1 week of the end of the treatment, Mike's fasciculations intensified substantially. He had terrible, unbearable headaches afterwards which the doctor called drug-induced menigitis. The headache lasted for 3 days and then started easing up. He was miserable. I felt so sorry for him.
We too completed the paperwork for the VA benefits and earlier this month was approved at 30%. It took us 5 days to receive the first payment after the initial disability rating. That was a relief. The evaluation he had earlier this week is to hopefully increase his percentage to100%. He's not working anymore but was when we originally filed. Things change so fast. We applied for Social Security two weeks ago, but haven't heard anything from them yet.