Sunday, March 11, 2007
For War’s Gravely Injured, Challenge to Find Care - N.Y. Times
Former Specialist Evan Mettie was initially declared “killed in action” only to be saved. His mother, Denise, agreed to a medical retirement for him that left him dependent on the veterans’ health care system. He now faces transfer to a nursing home.
...
Ms. Behee, a sunny Californian who was just completing a degree in interior design, possessed a keen faith in her husband’s potential to be rehabilitated from a severe brain injury. She refused to accept what she perceived to be the more limited expectations of the Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto, Calif.
“The hospital continually told me that Jarod was not making adequate progress and that the next step was a nursing home,” Ms. Behee said. “I just felt that it was unfair for them to throw in the towel on him. I said, ‘We’re out of here.’ ”
...
Three months later, Sergeant Behee was walking unassisted and abandoned his government-provided wheelchair. Now 28, he works as a volunteer in the center’s outpatient gym, wiping down equipment and handing out towels. It is not the police job that he aspired to; his cognitive impairments are serious. But it is not a nursing home, either.
Like the spouses of many other soldiers with severe brain injury, Ms. Behee, also 28, transformed herself into a kind of warrior wife to get her husband the care she thought he deserved.
...
Edgar Edmundson's ... son, Sgt. Eric Edmundson, sustained serious blast injuries in northern Iraq in the fall of 2005.
Mr. Edmundson was aggressive, abandoning his job and home to care for his son, calling on his representatives in Washington for help, “saying no a lot.” But even he did not come to understand his son’s health care options quickly enough to ensure that his son was not “shortchanged” in the critical first year after his injury.
Two days before Sergeant Edmundson was wounded near the Syrian border, he visited with his father on the telephone. Mr. Edmundson urged his son, then 25 with a young wife and a baby daughter, to “stay safe.”
In an interview last week, Mr. Edmundson’s voice cracked as he recalled his son’s response: “He said, ‘Don’t worry, because if anything happens, the Army will take care of me.’ ”
While awaiting transport to Germany after initial surgery, Sergeant Edmundson suffered a heart attack. As doctors worked to revive him, he lost oxygen to his brain for half an hour, with devastating consequences.
...
Mr. Edmundson chose instead to care for his son himself, quitting his job at a ConAgra plant. For almost eight months, Sergeant Edmundson, who was awake but unable to walk, talk or control his body, received nothing but a few hours of maintenance therapy weekly at a local hospital.
...
Sergeant Edmundson’s hips, knees and ankles are frozen “in the position of someone sitting in a hallway in a chair.” They are working to straighten out his joints so that he can eventually stand, she said. They have taught him to express his basic needs using a communication board, and they hope to loosen his vocal cords so he can start speaking. He is also learning to chew and swallow.
“He has a profound cognitive disability,” Dr. Smith said. “But he can communicate, albeit not verbally, and can express emotions, including humor and even sarcasm.”
...
When Sergeant Behee arrived from the V.A. in Palo Alto, he was in severe condition, essentially nonresponsive, said Dr. Loverso, a speech pathologist. Casa Colina, which now has two other soldier patients and also provides their families housing, first worked to “wake him up,” weaning him from medications he no longer needed. He quickly started getting therapy bedside, making relatively steady progress and then quite rapid progress after a cranioplasty that repaired his skull.
Because of his impairment, Ms. Behee said, her husband, who still has his old Superman tattoo on his calf, does not agonize over his situation. “He wakes up every morning with a smile on his face,” she said.
Lance Cpl. Steven Schulz, on the other hand, is just cognitively rehabilitated enough to experience anguish, his mother, Debra Schulz, said. Occasionally, Lance Corporal Schulz gets angry at his situation or feels guilty toward his mother, who describes herself as an “Old South yellow dog Democrat” who was not pleased when her son enlisted.
“He has told me that he needed to apologize to me for ever joining the Marines,” Ms. Schulz said. “I say, ‘Son, we can’t look back.’ ”
Former Specialist Evan Mettie was initially declared “killed in action” only to be saved. His mother, Denise, agreed to a medical retirement for him that left him dependent on the veterans’ health care system. He now faces transfer to a nursing home.
...
Ms. Behee, a sunny Californian who was just completing a degree in interior design, possessed a keen faith in her husband’s potential to be rehabilitated from a severe brain injury. She refused to accept what she perceived to be the more limited expectations of the Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto, Calif.
“The hospital continually told me that Jarod was not making adequate progress and that the next step was a nursing home,” Ms. Behee said. “I just felt that it was unfair for them to throw in the towel on him. I said, ‘We’re out of here.’ ”
...
Three months later, Sergeant Behee was walking unassisted and abandoned his government-provided wheelchair. Now 28, he works as a volunteer in the center’s outpatient gym, wiping down equipment and handing out towels. It is not the police job that he aspired to; his cognitive impairments are serious. But it is not a nursing home, either.
Like the spouses of many other soldiers with severe brain injury, Ms. Behee, also 28, transformed herself into a kind of warrior wife to get her husband the care she thought he deserved.
...
Edgar Edmundson's ... son, Sgt. Eric Edmundson, sustained serious blast injuries in northern Iraq in the fall of 2005.
Mr. Edmundson was aggressive, abandoning his job and home to care for his son, calling on his representatives in Washington for help, “saying no a lot.” But even he did not come to understand his son’s health care options quickly enough to ensure that his son was not “shortchanged” in the critical first year after his injury.
Two days before Sergeant Edmundson was wounded near the Syrian border, he visited with his father on the telephone. Mr. Edmundson urged his son, then 25 with a young wife and a baby daughter, to “stay safe.”
In an interview last week, Mr. Edmundson’s voice cracked as he recalled his son’s response: “He said, ‘Don’t worry, because if anything happens, the Army will take care of me.’ ”
While awaiting transport to Germany after initial surgery, Sergeant Edmundson suffered a heart attack. As doctors worked to revive him, he lost oxygen to his brain for half an hour, with devastating consequences.
...
Mr. Edmundson chose instead to care for his son himself, quitting his job at a ConAgra plant. For almost eight months, Sergeant Edmundson, who was awake but unable to walk, talk or control his body, received nothing but a few hours of maintenance therapy weekly at a local hospital.
...
Sergeant Edmundson’s hips, knees and ankles are frozen “in the position of someone sitting in a hallway in a chair.” They are working to straighten out his joints so that he can eventually stand, she said. They have taught him to express his basic needs using a communication board, and they hope to loosen his vocal cords so he can start speaking. He is also learning to chew and swallow.
“He has a profound cognitive disability,” Dr. Smith said. “But he can communicate, albeit not verbally, and can express emotions, including humor and even sarcasm.”
...
When Sergeant Behee arrived from the V.A. in Palo Alto, he was in severe condition, essentially nonresponsive, said Dr. Loverso, a speech pathologist. Casa Colina, which now has two other soldier patients and also provides their families housing, first worked to “wake him up,” weaning him from medications he no longer needed. He quickly started getting therapy bedside, making relatively steady progress and then quite rapid progress after a cranioplasty that repaired his skull.
Because of his impairment, Ms. Behee said, her husband, who still has his old Superman tattoo on his calf, does not agonize over his situation. “He wakes up every morning with a smile on his face,” she said.
Lance Cpl. Steven Schulz, on the other hand, is just cognitively rehabilitated enough to experience anguish, his mother, Debra Schulz, said. Occasionally, Lance Corporal Schulz gets angry at his situation or feels guilty toward his mother, who describes herself as an “Old South yellow dog Democrat” who was not pleased when her son enlisted.
“He has told me that he needed to apologize to me for ever joining the Marines,” Ms. Schulz said. “I say, ‘Son, we can’t look back.’ ”
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