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The coming of a New Year means something different to just about everyone. Dave Appleby and his family are hoping 2011 is an opportunity to get things back on-track, and that they will have an impact on improving a veterans' healthcare system they say failed them.

The fresh start stretching out before them in this New Year is especially promising because Dave attempted suicide in late November.

Literally, things can only get better.

Dave believes he survived what should have been a mortal wound, to call attention to the roadblocks and prolonged series of missed opportunities and inadequate treatment he says he got at the VA.

The crushing weight of helplessness piled on top of him a few weeks ago, but divine intervention using the family dog no-less, won out on November 29. Dave told his son Ben, 19, and wife, Deb, he was taking a walk.

He found himself standing at the table saw in the detached garage.

He had already decided to take his life. But as he lay on the garage floor bleeding heavily, he tells a reporter, "The Lord told me if I didn't get up I was gonna die."

He dragged himself about 25 feet and leaned against a wall of the house; he had just enough energy left to bang his body against it a couple times to get someone's attention.

Melfina, the Appleby's brindle-colored shepherd mix, was in the kitchen with Deb and grew agitated. She's a good sized dog and can make a commotion. She coaxed Deb to look outside and there was Dave. Deb says she'd thought the muffled sound was a bird striking the side of the house.

Ben ran to the end of the driveway to flag down the ambulance and their neighbor Mary, spotted him, and came to help. The helicopter carrying Dave, lifted off from a landing zone cleared on County Road 20, and surgeons at North Memorial took over.

Dave's left arm, which in his attempted suicide was basically amputated, has been re-attached and the prognosis is good. The wrist bone won't ever rotate again, but he should be able to grip objects.

Most times that's about as far as a story like this goes.

But Dave and Deb believe that if their multitude of bad experiences at the Twin Cities Veterans' Administration facility in the months before, had gone differently, it wouldn't have come to this.

They are determined that their frustrating encounters with the VA will not go undocumented and un-responded to.

Dave explains maybe he's just getting older, and you start to be more aware that you "receive what you give." He is determined to make something good come out of all this.

Senator Amy Klobuchar's staff are looking into many issues and possible solutions to improve the process of providing care at the VA, all ideas Dave and Deb have brought forward.

They want anybody reading this, who has had problems with the VA, to get involved. You can contact them, 651-269-0267 as well as Klobuchar's office, and share their stories. Also the Appleby's e-mail is at [email protected].

Dave served in the Army from 1973 to 1987.

He was diagnosed 20 years ago with depression and has used prescribed medications like lorazapan for years. He and Deb have been involved in organizations promoting a communitywide mental health dialogue, and are easily able to talk with anybody about depression.

Dave was doing well until his gall bladder acted up last summer.

The pain from what was ultimately diagnosed as a large gall stone, threw Dave off his routine mentally and physically.

From July to October, he went through revolving doors, from local emergency rooms to the Twin Cities Veterans Administration facility... then back home, not getting successful treatment. Because he lacked private insurance he would be stabilized or assessed, and handed-off to the VA.

Dave became anxious about the extreme pain and he explains that the pain and even the worry about having pain was stronger than his sensitivity to his mental balance. He could no longer even tell if the anti-depressive prescriptions were working.

Anxiety over-rode all the tools he'd developed to deal with depression. A counselor that had been very successful working with Dave was available, but at a costly hourly rate, which would not be covered by the veterans' plan.

Dave's prescription was abruptly taken away, which Deb feels was about "the dumbest thing" the care givers could have done, and then came withdrawal symptoms.

Deb can't even count the 9-1-1 calls to their place north of Center City; as Dave was desperate to get somebody "official" on his side and resolve his issues.

He went into a couple of 72-hour law enforcement holds for his own protection but was let go and told he wasn't right for the program (mental health) or in the case of a premature discharge from the VA, that "...he didn't meet their criteria," said Deb.

For a time it was so out of control Deb said she forgot what normal was. Local authorities were very professional and even caring, she said, but there was just no resolution in sight.

Deb is convinced that if Dave had received care for the gall stone from the start, which she said was grossly mishandled-- and if the VA had allowed an "outside" counseling claim, all this use of public services would have been avoided.

She is now filing for legal guardianship of Dave, to control his care in the future, because she doesn't want a repeat of decisions she feels were forced on him.

They are working now to see to it that; first of all any issues like theirs are brought to the attention of Congress.

They'd like to see people who have VA complaints band together and work on this.

"The whole point is God allowed me to live, I don't know for what reason," Dave remarked, "but I feel I have to make a difference in other lives through this...it would be sweet if others didn't go through what I did."

If you see Deb or Dave, ask how he's doing and how their VA advocacy is going. He knows most people are uncomfortable dealing with the topic of suicide but ignoring it is even worse.

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