Wednesday, March 14, 2007
A river of generosity for injured soldier - San Jose Mercury News
... Frank fell and broke his leg in October and is not yet walking again. But good things are happening, too.
A San Diego-area dentist offered to give him a tooth implant for free. (Before the blast, Frank had been wearing a temporary front tooth.)
Then there are the donations. Ricky said that later this year - after Frank undergoes more surgery in Palo Alto to restore his skull to its normal shape - the family plans to use those funds as the down payment for a home.
"This has all been so uplifting to us," Ricky said. "We've always felt that Frankie is very inspirational. I'm thankful other people realize that, too. Whether they support the war or are against it, people all support the troops."
Michelle said she was reading out loud some of the letters to Frank last Sunday, and she noticed that he was beginning to get teary-eyed.
"I asked him what he thought about all this," Michelle said, "and he said he just feels honored."
***
[Original story: Struggle and hope
...Frank could sit up in his wheelchair for only a few minutes. He couldn't feel or control much of his left side. His speech was nearly unintelligible.
And there was the more obvious evidence of his terrible wound: The right side of his head was sunken like a deflated basketball.
Frank now was a face of the modern war casualty. He had suffered a traumatic brain injury - the emblematic wound of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. These devastating injuries have forever altered the lives of hundreds of U.S. soldiers and Marines, leaving their futures uncertain.
Like Frank's.
It wasn't his physical impairments that upset her most, a tearful Michelle told Harriet Zeiner, a VA neuropsychologist. It was that Frankie seemed not to remember who he really was.
...
Nothing came easily. A simple tongue exercise - sucking on a LifeSaver that Kapolnek attached to a string to prevent choking - left Frank exhausted. Even basic memory drills, such as reciting the alphabet and counting backward from 20, inevitably resulted in a headache because just thinking drained his limited energy.]
... Frank fell and broke his leg in October and is not yet walking again. But good things are happening, too.
A San Diego-area dentist offered to give him a tooth implant for free. (Before the blast, Frank had been wearing a temporary front tooth.)
Then there are the donations. Ricky said that later this year - after Frank undergoes more surgery in Palo Alto to restore his skull to its normal shape - the family plans to use those funds as the down payment for a home.
"This has all been so uplifting to us," Ricky said. "We've always felt that Frankie is very inspirational. I'm thankful other people realize that, too. Whether they support the war or are against it, people all support the troops."
Michelle said she was reading out loud some of the letters to Frank last Sunday, and she noticed that he was beginning to get teary-eyed.
"I asked him what he thought about all this," Michelle said, "and he said he just feels honored."
***
[Original story: Struggle and hope
...Frank could sit up in his wheelchair for only a few minutes. He couldn't feel or control much of his left side. His speech was nearly unintelligible.
And there was the more obvious evidence of his terrible wound: The right side of his head was sunken like a deflated basketball.
Frank now was a face of the modern war casualty. He had suffered a traumatic brain injury - the emblematic wound of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. These devastating injuries have forever altered the lives of hundreds of U.S. soldiers and Marines, leaving their futures uncertain.
Like Frank's.
It wasn't his physical impairments that upset her most, a tearful Michelle told Harriet Zeiner, a VA neuropsychologist. It was that Frankie seemed not to remember who he really was.
...
Nothing came easily. A simple tongue exercise - sucking on a LifeSaver that Kapolnek attached to a string to prevent choking - left Frank exhausted. Even basic memory drills, such as reciting the alphabet and counting backward from 20, inevitably resulted in a headache because just thinking drained his limited energy.]
Labels: compassionate people, war
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