It's Saturday about 4:30am. I am still here, still struggling to keep up with daily activities. That's not a side effect of my condition unfortunately. Woke up an hour ago stuffed up having a hard time breathing so I finally got up to put down some of the thoughts running around in my head. Last time I did this, earlier in the week, I wrote down all the fire department response protocols we have been unable to get done because we captains are not great communicators.
Yesterday I received a letter from the State Insurance Fund through my attorney. They have scheduled an "independent" examination in Boise on the 8th of December. I haven't got to talk to the attorney about why they would do this yet. I missed the window when he was in the office with time to talk to me. I suppose the SIF realizes our "expert" is going to come up with evidence to refute their evidence so another opinion is warranted. It got my mind running wondering what the exam will include. If the doctor listens much to my side of the story he won't exactly be independent anymore. I suppose we are hoping he will look at all the tests, my opinion as to how I managed to be in this situation, the probabilities from his perspective that I contracted this as a result of work exposure and come down on our side.
There is no "proof" that I contracted lung cancer at or from work. There is no singular incident or situation that I can point to and say this is where it began. My contention is that as a result of long term working conditions, beyond my total control, I received a chronic exposure to enough carcinogenic toxins over a period of time that cells were caused to mutate and the body was unable to control the development or spread. There are two areas where this exposure could have taken place. First is respiratory protection at structure fire responses. Second is diesel exhaust in the engine bay and through the station. Respiratory protection has always been available during my career. When I began in the mid 80's the "leather lungers" were pretty much gone. Leather lungers were the era the did not have any respiratory protection and besides real men didn't need it.
Eating smoke was just part of the job. I came in at the end of a transitional period where not only were the materials being burned different than before the science behind the risks and dangers was moving rapidly ahead too. There is nasty chemicals in everything and when burned they became even nastier. The idea that you didn't need any respiratory protection was gone but it had not been fully replaced with the full protection all the time model. Even today we are just coming around to the knowledge that even after the fire is out toxic gases are being produced for several hours. The respiratory protection although much lighter than it used to be is still cumbersome and extremely difficult to communicate through. The fire gear is hot and adds to fatigue. Maintaining full protection especially during cleanup and overhaul is challenging. A continual shortage of manpower produces the incentive to get back in and help the crews.
So could the Fire Administration have dictated the levels of protection that would insure all Firefighters were protected? The obvious answer from their side would be that they did. Policies were / are in place for the use of respiratory protection. Were the policies rigidly enforced? No they were not. Does that burden fall exclusively on the Fire Administration? Again not likely, Each individual is ultimately responsible for their personal protection. But has there been a disposition on the part of Administration to wink at or ignore the protective elements we have come to see as essential. It is not correct to judge someones actions ten or fifteen years ago on today's knowledge. But there was enough information available then to have dictated stronger enforcement of standards. Administration has consistently not required airway protection until recently. Only with in the last three years has there been a push for respiratory protection during overhaul. Only two years ago was a grant obtained for exhaust systems in both stations.
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