Sharpening the Blade

After we watched the segment this morning on our recent robbery, Karl said, "Ok, now where's the one where you call me useless?"

He is referring to the last time we were on the news, two years ago. So I looked up the video for him.

I didn't realize at the time that I was calling Karl useless. I was trying to (not very eloquently) explain what Karl can explain much more eloquently than I. Karl likens his military training and service to a blade being sharpened.

I didn't know anything about blades or sharpening blades before Karl explained these things to me. I assumed, as probably most people with the same knowledge of blades, that you sharpen a blade when it is dull. It then, I suppose, is sharper and better suited to the task at hand.

However, you can, apparently, over-sharpen a sword.

If a blade is ground too thin, it can break. If a blade is sharpened to too fine a point, the edge can roll, making the sword useless.

I am only using the word "useless" to rile Karl. For the past two years, he has teased me about calling him useless on the news. I'm sure he is going to continue to tease me about it for as long as we both shall live. He knows that I meant he, and many others like him, no longer fit easily into our society and he agrees with this assessment. He does not agree that he is useless. Neither do I.

I do agree that he has been sharpened to a point that has weakened his structural integrity.

Being robbed is no good for someone with PTSD. It further sharpens his blade. Every time the dog barks, he has to investigate. Every time he sees something out of the corner of his eye, he stops what he is doing to check it out. His hyper-vigilance has ramped up, even though he and the Sheriff's department both agree this was a crime of opportunity and probably wouldn't have occurred if we were home.

I have been trying to convince Karl that the world is safe. He disagrees. He has seen too much hate. I believe people are generally good. I believe people are doing the best they can. I cannot fathom why someone would take Karl's things but I know there are more people in the world who wouldn't take his things than people who would. I have been trying to convince Karl for over six years that we live in a safe place and he can calm down. I have been telling him he could relax because we don't need him to guard against invisible threats.

I am wondering now if he thinks I lied.

Not only did Karl lose his most sentimental possessions, but now he feels guilty for not being hyper-vigilant enough. So he will sharpen his blade to make himself battle ready and give up a little more of himself for it.

This is the Signature of the Person Who Stole My Husband's History

This is the signature of the person who broke into our garage, stole my husband's bicycle, the only duffle bag of Army issue he had left, a painting my husband made in high school and left a note in Sharpie on our garage door thanking him for his service.

If you are unaware, my husband is an Operation Iraqi Freedom Army infantry veteran with a degenerative Traumatic Brain Injury. We live in Pierce County, Washington. Yesterday we returned home from picking our children up from school to find that someone had gone into our detached garage and stolen things that actually mean something to my husband.

He is often apathetic about life and especially material possessions. He has gotten rid of most of his army gear, only keeping what he wore in his first and second tours in Iraq. One of the uniforms he saved was a prototype - what later became ACUs (Army Combat Uniforms), the uniform the Army uses now. That uniform was an ACU in Desert Camo. It was only issued to my husband's unit. It was not issued to other units. It is rare, but probably not worth a lot of money. It means something to Karl though. It means he belonged to a special group at a special time. It is symbolic of him having been amazing. Now when he cannot remember why he is where he is or where he is going, it is proof that Karl was not just capable, but one of the best.

The other most important thing that was taken is a rainbow painting of Stevie Ray Vaughan. In high school Karl used a projector to trace a picture of Stevie Ray Vaughan onto a canvas. He then painted outside the outlines. I cannot accurately describe it, but the picture was gorgeous and people have offered to buy it from Karl numerous times. It is the only painting we had that Karl made in high school. It was not only gorgeous, but a reminder that Karl was an artist before he was a soldier. He is no longer a soldier, but he is still an artist and it is important for him to remember that despite all he has lost, there are pieces of himself still intact.

The thief then wrote a note on our garage door, thanking Karl for his service... and his possessions. The sheriff's department thinks it was a crime of opportunity and that unless they stumble upon the Stevie Ray Vaughan picture in a homeless camp, they are unlikely to retrieve the goods. I would appreciate it if you could pass this on. Maybe someone will recognize the signature and we can get my husband's Desert Camo ACUs and his Stevie Ray Vaughan picture back in time for Christmas. Most of the stuff was just stuff, but these things mean something.

you're welcome

"The decision on this issue is considered a total grant of the benefit sought on appeal. As such, your pending appeal is now resolved."

If those aren't the sweetest words in the English language, they are second only to my husband saying, "You did it. It is because of you we have this money."

I know I did it. I'm the one who sent the VA memory journals of everything my, then 28 year old, husband forgot for a month. I'm the one who wrote out the reasons for our appeal and then asked Karl to sign it. I'm the one who dragged him to meet with Texas Veteran Commission representatives and harassed him into calling to check on the status of our appeal. I'm the one who kept track of every appeal deadline.

"The decision on this issue is considered a total grant of the benefit sought on appeal. As such, your pending appeal is now resolved."

I was once told by a mean girl that I was doing it wrong. According to her, it is people like me that drive up the VA backlog. According to her, we were never going to get the ratings we sought because my husband's TBI and PTSD ratings were combined. I have been told by nice girls that I should just accept the rating and file later, for an increase. I have even been told by someone who works for the amazing Wounded Warrior Project that I was doing it wrong. He worked on claims for a living and he didn't believe my appeal would ever be granted. I would have better luck, he said, if I accepted that we would never see retro pay. I would be better off waiting and filing for an increase later.

If I was a better person, I wouldn't feel quite so smug, but I do. I feel smug and righteous.

"The decision on this issue is considered a total grant of the benefit sought on appeal. As such, your pending appeal is now resolved."

There is no one right way. I know this. We all have to fight our own battles in our own way. My way worked. My husband was finally, five years after he filed his first claim with the VA, deemed totally and permanently disabled.

My pending appeal is resolved.

I am done.

We have a life-changing amount of money. We have moved into a different income bracket. We will never be on food stamps again. Our children qualify for VA insurance. I am calling on Monday to switch my children to ChampVA instead of Medicaid. I am so tired of the looks we get for having Medicaid. No more. Our children will get a stipend for college. Hell, I'll get a stipend for college! On Monday I'll be calling colleges for myself because some colleges waive all tuition and fees for spouses of permanently and totally disabled veterans. I cannot wait to go back to college, probably next fall.

Our lives have changed. I have been climbing and climbing and I have reached the summit. I can relax now. I am done. I am relieved. I have been heard and Karl has been acknowledged.

More importantly, Karl is acknowledging me. My husband, for whom words are so difficult, has thanked me repeatedly in the past 48 hours for fighting for him and for us.

I am so thankful to have finally been victorious so I can say, "you're welcome."

falling and winning

Sometimes when you are pushing and pushing against a barricade, it disappears. Then you fall because all of your momentum is propelling you forward.

Tonight I checked our bank account to see if Karl's Christmas presents had been debited from our account yet. Our balance was way too high. Our balance was absurdly high. I scrolled down to verify that what I was seeing was our balance. It was.

This morning we received an absurdly high retro payment from the VA. We received three years worth of a higher payment.

I am sitting on the ground, bewildered at my fall, looking back were the obstacle was.

I am regrouping.

Is it enough that Karl be labeled unemployable? Or do his ratings need to accurately reflect his impairments?

If I decide to stop fighting..... can I? I want to. I want to say, "this is enough," and stop fighting the VA. I want to relax into financial security and let the VA label him however they want... but that isn't what I have been fighting for, nor is it fair. I have been fighting for Karl to receive adequate compensation from the VA, but more importantly, accurate recognition.

Karl went to buy me a bottle of champagne. My fight is not over but it looks like we will win... expect, you know, even winning and getting the recognition Karl deserves from the VA will never ever restore him to who he was. We won't ever really win.

Things I like about Karl

He is always warm when I am cold
and he lets me put my cold hands in his armpits
or my cold feet between his legs
and he lets me sap his warmth until he is cold too and I am maybe lukewarm.

I like that he will say a word
that he knows
will make me stop what I am doing
and break into song.
Literally.
I serenade him a lot with classics from the 80s.

I like that he does not whistle
anymore
around me,
because whistling grates on my eardrums.

I like that he whistles when I am not around
and that he has found a way to compromise his wants with my needs.

I like that he wants this place to be better than it is
because that's what he was fighting for:
a better place.

I like that words mean nothing to him
and he will not care
that I am writing him a love poem
because he would rather
I put my cold hands
on his belly
to tell him I love him.

He says that I am wrong.
He would rather have poetry
than cold hands,
but I know
he will let me put my cold hands on him anyway.

TBI pamphlet for medical professionals

Here is Long-term Effects of Concussion and mTBI. It is a pamphlet I compiled for medical professionals. Of the 10 research studies quoted in this pamphlet, eight were done within the past three years. It is so important to get solid new information to healthcare providers and I hope this pamphlet will do that. If anyone needs this pamphlet for their providers and cannot afford to print them, please contact me and I will make sure you get copies.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/24u49emryo0gxy5/TBIpamph.doc

Next I will be compiling a TBI pamphlet for the average person. It will include more answers to commonly asked questions and less medical jargon!

TBI for Dummies, the research pt 2

Traumatic brain injury, neuroimaging, and neurodegeneration. 2013
Bigler ED
"The first phase of neural degeneration is explainable by the primary acute and secondary neuropathological effects initiated by the injury; however, neuroimaging studies demonstrate a prolonged period of pathological changes that progressively occur even during the chronic phase."
Departments of Exercise and Sport Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 27599, USA
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23964217

Chronic neuropathological and neurobehavioral changes in a repetitive mTBI model. 2013
Mouzon BC, Bachmeier C, Ferro A, Ojo JO, Crynen G, Acker CM, Davies P, Mullan M, Stewart W, Crawford F.
"Importantly, these data provide evidence that, whilst a single mTBI produces a clinical syndrome and pathology which remain static in the period following injury, repetitive injuries produce behavioral and pathological changes which continue to evolve many months after the initial injuries."
Roskamp Institute, Sarasota, Florida, 34243, USA; James A. Haley Veterans Administration Medical Center, Tampa, Florida, 33612, USA; The Open University, Department of Life Sciences, Milton Keynes, MK, 7 6AA, UK
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24243523

New perspectives on central and peripheral immune responses to acute traumatic brain injury. 2012
Das M, Mohapatra S, Mohapatra SS.
"TBI of any form can cause cognitive, behavioral and immunologic changes in later life, which underscores the problem of underdiagnosis of mild TBI that can cause long-term neurological deficits."
Nanomedicine Research Center, University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, 12901 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Tampa, FL 33612, USA.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23061919

Traumatic brain injury: a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. 2012
Sivanandam TM, Thakur MK.
"Traumatic brain injury (TBI) constitutes a major global health and socio-economic problem with neurobehavioral sequelae contributing to long-term disability. It causes brain swelling, axonal injury and hypoxia, disrupts blood brain barrier function and increases inflammatory responses, oxidative stress, neurodegeneration and leads to cognitive impairment."
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Laboratory, Department of Zoology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22390915

Axonal pathology in traumatic brain injury. 2013
Johnson VE, Stewart W, Smith DH.
"Diffuse axonal injury (DAI) has been found in all severities of TBI and may represent a key pathologic substrate of mild TBI (concussion). [...] In addition, recent evidence suggests that TBI may induce long-term neurodegenerative processes, such as insidiously progressive axonal pathology. Indeed, axonal degeneration has been found to continue even years after injury in humans, and appears to play a role in the development of Alzheimer's disease-like pathological changes."
Penn Center for Brain Injury and Repair and Department of Neurosurgery, University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22285252

Traumatic brain injury: an overview of pathobiology with emphasis on military populations. 2010
Cernak I, Noble-Haeusslein LJ.
"This review considers the pathobiology of non-impact blast-induced neurotrauma (BINT). The pathobiology of traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been historically studied in experimental models mimicking features seen in the civilian population. These brain injuries are characterized by primary damage to both gray and white matter and subsequent evolution of secondary pathogenic events at the cellular, biochemical, and molecular levels, which collectively mediate widespread neurodegeneration."
National Security Technology Department, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland 20723, USA
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19809467

Whole-brain proton MR spectroscopic imaging of mild-to-moderate traumatic brain injury and correlation with neuropsychological deficits. 2010
Govind V, Gold S, Kaliannan K, Saigal G, Falcone S, Arheart KL, Harris L, Jagid J, Maudsley AA.
"These results demonstrate that significant and widespread alterations of brain metabolites occur as a result of mild-to-moderate TBI, and that these measures correlate with measures of cognitive performance."
where
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20201668

Understanding the neuroinflammatory response following concussion to develop treatment strategies. 2012
Patterson ZR, Holahan MR.
"Mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) have been associated with long-term cognitive deficits relating to trauma-induced neurodegeneration. These long-term deficits include impaired memory and attention, changes in executive function, emotional instability, and sensorimotor deficits. Furthermore, individuals with concussions show a high co-morbidity with a host of psychiatric illnesses (e.g., depression, anxiety, addiction) and dementia. The neurological damage seen in mTBI patients is the result of the impact forces and mechanical injury, followed by a delayed neuroimmune response that can last hours, days, and even months after the injury."
Department of Neuroscience, Carleton University Ottawa, ON, Canada.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23248582

TBI for Dummies, the research pt 1

Multiple concussions can cause cumulative damage

Cumulative effects associated with recurrent concussion in collegiate football players: the NCAA Concussion Study. 2003
Guskiewicz KM, McCrea M, Marshall SW, Cantu RC, Randolph C, Barr W, Onate JA, Kelly JP.
"Our study suggests that players with a history of previous concussions are more likely to have future concussive injuries than those with no history; 1 in 15 players with a concussion may have additional concussions in the same playing season; and previous concussions may be associated with slower recovery of neurological function."
Departments of Exercise and Sport Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 27599, USA
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14625331

Cumulative effects of concussion in amateur athletes. 2004
Iverson GL, Gaetz M, Lovell MR, Collins MW.
"There were differences between groups in symptom reporting and memory performance. At baseline (i.e. preseason), athletes with multiple concussions reported more symptoms than athletes with no history of concussion. At approximately 2 days post-injury, athletes with multiple concussions scored significantly lower on memory testing than athletes with a single concussion. Athletes with multiple concussions were 7.7 times more likely to demonstrate a major drop in memory perfomance than athletes with no previous concussions."
Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15195792



TBI can be degenerative

Inflammation and white matter degeneration persist for years after a single traumatic brain injury. 2013
Johnson VE, Stewart JE, Begbie FD, Trojanowski JQ, Smith DH, Stewart W.
"These data present striking evidence of persistent inflammation and ongoing white matter degeneration for many years after just a single traumatic brain injury in humans. "
Penn Centre for Brain Injury and Repair and Department of Neurosurgery, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23365092

Grace

I have no words to a mother who lost her son. She reached out to me today and sent me a message asking me to hug my husband. Four years ago today my husband was speaking at her son's funeral. I have written about her son before. We called him Ice. He was a sweet kid who survived Iraq until he brought it home with him and it killed him.

His mom is part of our family. Families are funny things. You don't choose them and they are constantly evolving and devolving and shape-shifting. Joining the Army is like marrying into a very large, very dysfunctional family. Marrying someone in the military is like marrying someone who has been married before and still has a relationship with their ex. It is very convoluted: confusing trying to keep everyone straight - aunts, uncles, cousins, first sergeants, privates, veterans, in-laws. Meeting other veterans and their spouses is like meeting distant cousins, third cousins thrice removed, etc.

I don't like all of them. I certainly don't love all of them. I actually don't even know all of them, but they are tied to me. I am tied to them. I am indebted to them. I owe them my attention, my resources, my research, my stories. We are all in this together.

We are all in this together, but their losses are not my losses. I have not lost my husband or my son. When the men came home, I got my moment, my perfect moment. When my husband has struggled, he has come back. He brought the war home with him, but we are still living it. He is still fighting, but he is still here.

I recently saw the phrase "You can't take the War out of the Warrior." I love that. Because while the war is with us, every day, so is the warrior. I am grateful for that. I believe grateful is different than happy, because while happy is something you can work on, gratitude is for grace. I have gratitude for the small moments of grace, like finding a dollar in the road, and the much much larger moments of grace, like my husband coming home, scarred but alive. I am so saddened for the losses of those around me and I am grateful to have been spared, momentarily.

I am lucky and I do not know what to say to those who are not as lucky as me. None of us is deserving of heartbreak or golden moments.

"There but for the grace of God, go I."

#veteransdayis

#VeteransDayIs a social media hashtag campaign, promoted by Wounded Warrior Project.

#VeteransDayIs November 11. 11/11. #VeteransDayIs easy to remember.

#VeteransDayIs easy to forget. It's just another day off work or school. Columbus Day in October, Veterans Day in November, Presidents Day in February. #VeteransDayIs just another reason to get 10% off at the mall. #VeteransDayIs a good time to buy a new mattress, judging by the commercials.

#VeteransDayIs not as widely celebrated as Memorial Day, because Memorial Day is timed better for barbeques and beer. #VeteransDayIs to celebrate everyone who served, not just those who died. It is okay with me if you say "Happy Veterans Day," but please don't ever say "Happy Memorial Day."

#VeteransDayIs sometimes called "Pinch the Veteran Day" in my house. Pinching Karl usually devolves into everyone tickling each other in a big pile. "Pinch the Veteran Day" is often celebrated on other days as well.

#VeteransDayIs something we celebrate. One year we went to a Japanese steak house. Karl wore a Hawaiian shirt and a trench coat. I wore a dress. Most years we go from one restaurant to another, ordering a free meal to go. #VeteransDayIs a time when numerous chain restaurants offer a free meal to veterans. The restaurants are often full to the brim all day with veterans and their families waiting for a free meal. I know several veterans who have never gone for their free meal because the idea of being immersed in the crowd is too daunting for them. Every year I call around and find out whose meals are available dine in or to go and then we get take out for free. I appreciate the restaurants that do free meals dine in only, but we won't be going there.

This year, #VeteransDayIs the day that I finally got free coffee from the Starbucks my husband and I got married in. Starbucks is giving a free tall coffee to not just veterans but also their spouses.

#VeteransDayIs the day I accompany my husband to our children's schools for an assembly. Last year he wore his Class As. This year he did not. This year the assembly included remarks from a veteran. He thanked the spouses, describing our time during deployments sitting by the phone, hopeful and terrified, and I teared up.

#VeteransDayIs often followed by a sleepless night for my husband, who fitfully dozes on the couch while watching war documentaries.

#VeteransDayIs every day in my home.

fall.

Fall is gorgeous here in Washington. Fall in Texas is temperamental and drives me to look for tickets to places with color-changing leaves. This is the first time in years I have gotten to witness trees changing from green to yellow, hot pink, orange and purple. When I pick my son up from Kindergarten, I kick the piles of leaves and jump in them. I take pictures of trees. I am infatuated with autumn.

As I drove my kids to school this morning under the gray skies, through the rain, over the dead leaves, I thought of how much my mother would hate being in Washington right now. I can see that the gray is silver, the rain is glitter. I love watching the leaves whirl away from their stems in the wind. I don't mind the limited light, which is good as our days are just going to get shorter. I am hoping to arrange our Christmas travel to allow myself to be here on the shortest day of the year, which will be shorter here than in Texas. I love watching the Earth go into hibernation. My favorite fall days though are the ones with blue skies, when I can see the mountain 30 miles away, glittering white with snow. The sun is so bright it hurts, making 50 degrees feel like 70. The hot pink leaves against the bright blue sky look surreal, like everything you see has already been sharpened and filtered on Instagram.

November is also nice for me because of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving wasn't very important in my family growing up, but I love holidays. I love to cook and I love to plan. Thanksgiving, more than any other holiday, requires planning. What time does the turkey go in the oven? What else cooks at the same temperature as the green bean casserole? How much time does there need to be between dinner and dessert? Do I have enough plates, silverware, chairs? I have ethical qualms about Thanksgiving and Native Americans and I like the fourth Thursday in November anyway.

November also includes Veteran's Day and November 14, the day Ken died. So, while I watch the Earth give up the last of its harvest and I admire the leaves and their myriad of colors, I also acknowledge the sacrifices made by people I have known. Much like the gunmetal skies do not ruin fall for me, my grief for what my husband has lost does not ruin November for me. Veterans Day is somber for us, especially as three days later is the anniversary of Ken's death and I can never think of one without the other. Veterans Day is also for everyone who has served. We jokingly call it Karl's Holiday and last year I referred to it as "pinch a veteran day," which is now any day we are feeling especially silly.

Unfortunately, just as my mother would be unable to see the glitter because of all the darkness, Karl is unable to be thankful because of all the death. Every year, the first two weeks of November are trying for me. Karl is snappier than usual, thoughtless in his comments and his reactions. This is the time of year, more than ever, that I need to referee between him and the kids. I start staying up until one in the morning to have a little peace. The holidays are not hard for Karl, Christmas is fine, although he grumbles about consumerism. The fortnight between Dia de los Muertos and the day after Ken died are Karl's shortest days. They are the days when there is more dark than light. I know that the days will gradually get longer again and there will be more light. We just have to wait for it.

ESFJ vs. INTJ vs. MARRIAGE

Last night, Karl turned to me while we were watching TV and said "I don't know why we're married."

The day before yesterday I took an abbreviated Myers Briggs personality test*. I came up as an ESFJ. I read several websites describing ESFJs and found myself nodding along. Yes, I talk about my feelings ad nauseam. Yes, I am controlling. Yes, I want to be told that people like me... a lot.

When Karl got home, I asked him to take the same test. He came up as an INTJ. INTJs do not like to talk about feelings. INTJs do like being micro-managed. INTJs are often seen as "cold" and "logical." INTJs are not, probably, a good match for ESFJs. Karl read a lot of information about both of our personality types yesterday. Wikipedia provides a more in depth description than the Myers Briggs website, but he read several other sites too.

According to all of these sites, Karl and I shouldn't work. One of his pet peeves is, indeed, talking about his feelings. However, we talk about feelings a lot. We talk about how I feel a lot and why I feel that way. Then I want to know how he feels and why he feels that way. It drives him crazy. Karl doesn't like being micro-managed, as his Myers Briggs profile indicates, but I micro-manage him a lot because of his brain injury and my controlling nature. Karl doesn't like being viewed as incompetent, also right in line with an INTJ profile, and we struggle with this because he is incompetent in several ways.

I know why we're married though. We do work. Whether because my "practical" side compliments his "logical" side or in spite of our personalities, we work. Last night I started crying because, out of nowhere, my husband told me he didn't know why we're married. It makes no sense to him that we work despite all the psychology that says we shouldn't. The psychology acknowledges that a logical thinker will inevitably tell a sensitive feeler "I don't understand why we are together" and the sensitive feeler will be hurt. However, being a practical sensitive feeler, I know that it's okay. We don't make sense. Feelings don't make sense, but we have them anyway. Being a logical thinker, Karl kept trying to figure out what he was trying to say, which was that it doesn't make sense, but he loves me. That's all I really needed to hear anyway.



*A Myers Briggs type test may be taken at either of the following links:
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
http://www.16personalities.com/

something is wrong with him

"Florence, this is my husband, Karl. Karl, this is Florence. She was at game night."

"Oh, yes," Florence says, "I recognize you."

Unfortunately, that's what I thought. At game night at our church, I told a group of women that my husband had a degenerative brain injury. I showed them pictures of my kids. Florence said she thought she knew my husband.

"He brings the kids downstairs for class? You can kind of tell about him?" Florence said.

Yes, apparently now you can kind of tell that Karl has some cognitive impairments. Until now, I found the phrase "he seems normal" painful. It was painful to have to defend Karl by explaining that he has brain damage. Only now that I see the phrase "he seems normal" slipping away, do I realize what the alternative is. The alternative to "he seems normal" is "something is wrong with him."

Today Karl had an appointment with neuro-psych. He was again told that concussions can't cause long term damage. I did not go to the doctor's appointment and I regret it now. Karl will not argue with doctors when they give outdated information. He just rolls his eyes. I will fight. I also regret not finishing the TBI for Dummies handout yet. I am going to make it a priority this weekend.

At his appointment he was given referrals for chiropractic and acupuncture, both of whom will contact him, and a doctor to give him knee braces, whom he must contact. He was also given a referral to speech pathology, who will presumably contact him, he was a little hazy on that. I am confused by this last referral. Speech pathology is the department that handles TBI. If he doesn't have TBI, just "depression" or "anxiety," then why are they sending him to the department that handles TBI?

Karl also brought me home a metaphorical gold star from the VA. Another one. Routinely when he talks to doctors, he comes home and tells me the doctors are happy with what we're doing. Today the neuro-psychologist was happy about our ways of managing Karl's pain. Instead of narcotics, he uses medical marijuana. However, he is still getting a referral for knee braces, chiropractic and acupuncture... because he is still in constant pain. I don't think narcotics would help, plus they bring their own side effects and pitfalls. Hopefully chiropractic, acupuncture and knee braces will help.

I am glad that we're moving forward with pain management. I am furious that we're moving backwards with brain health. I would say we're at a standstill, but it's more like everyone else is standing still watching Karl careen wildly down a hill in a car with no brakes. I have tons of metaphors for the absolute inaction of everyone else while Karl is sliding downhill. I am the one trying to flag down the train or get a trampoline under a window of a burning building he is trapped inside or find an extra lifeboat. I am the one trying to save Karl while all the doctors stand around slack-jawed, unaware that there is a train heading towards a cliff or a building on fire or a ship sinking. Sometimes I feel like I must be going crazy because I am the only one who sees the crashing train, burning building, sinking ship. Maybe they do not exist.

I am a five time college drop out. I have left community colleges for good reasons and I have left notable universities on a whim. I have finished the semester before leaving and I have withdrawn from all my classes after a week or half the semester. Once I quit Baylor University because I wanted to enjoy my summer. Once I quit McLennan Community College because my roommates moved out and left me in a lurch and I needed to get a job to pay my bills. Once I quit the University of Louisiana, Lafayette to move to California on a greyhound bus for fun. Once I quit McLennan Community College because I was pregnant. Last year I quit Austin Community College because there were no classes that I liked that would work with the time I had available.

I don't think a college education is necessarily an indication that people are smarter than me. Some people with degrees are smarter than me and some are not. That is not the point. The point is, if a five time college dropout can figure out, by googling, that concussions can be cumulative and that a single concussion can cause permanent degenerative brain damage, why can't doctors whose area of expertise is the brain? I am discouraged by the repeated suggestion that I know best and that I am doing better than a doctor at treating my husband. I am furious that a five time college drop out with a laptop is more knowledgeable than someone who spent over a decade in college to become a brain doctor. Those doctors should be furious too. They should be furious that their education left them unequipped to help people who desperately need their help.

And they should learn how to google.

day after day

Everyday I wake up and take my metabolism in a pill. Then, Monday through Friday, I tell the kids to get dressed and eat breakfast. Karl makes coffee. I tell my oldest to pack their lunch. I get the kids' backpacks and make sure their folders are in them. I start my car to warm it up. The kids and I say goodbye to Karl and I drive them to their schools. I come home. There are papers and mail and clutter everywhere - our kitchen counter, our kitchen table, our coffee table. I pour myself a cup of coffee and ignore the clutter. I turn on my laptop, my TV, Netflix and sit on my couch.

Two hours later, I get up and go pick up my daughter from her half-day kindergarten. Some days I remember to bring her a snack, some days I forget. When we get home, she does 20 minutes of math practice online and then plays 20 minutes of Stack the States, Angry Birds or Where's my Water. Then she throws a fit about not getting to spend more time on my iPad.

Then Karl calls and tells me he's on the way home. He's had an art class and then an exercise class.

After Karl gets home, I leave to go pick up my eldest. When we get home, they do their homework. I either run errands or play games on my phone. Then I make dinner for the kids. After dinner, time speeds up. The kids need to take vitamins, brush teeth, put on jammies (every other night take a bath or shower), then they may read. Then it is time for hugs and kisses. Our eldest reads for another hour or so and our daughter listens to a playlist on my iPad. On Tuesday evenings Karl goes to a sword fighting group. On Thursday evenings, he goes to yoga and then choir at our church.

After the kids go to bed, I eat dinner, with Karl if he's home. Then I watch TV. Then I go to bed.

On Saturday and Sunday, I sleep later. I don't have to take the kids to school.

My life revolves around my ten hours alone a week. Yesterday I called a researcher from the University of Wisconsin. He studies, among other subjects, neuro and behavioral genetics. While looking for studies to include in my upcoming TBI for Dummies guide, I found an article wherein this man was quoted as calling TBI "neuro-degenerative." So I called him to ask where he got that information. He was, it turns out, primarily referencing CTE, which is a form of TBI.

My life revolves around my ten hours alone and my ten hours alone revolve around brain injuries. Karl goes to school and creates. He sings and exercises and plays with swords. I take vacations with friends or alone. I cut out at bedtime some evenings, driving aimlessly or talking for hours to friends on the phone. I take breaks from my work, but my life is my work and my work is my life.

TBI for dummies

"Do you think I'm getting worse?"

"I don't know. Do you think you're getting worse?"

How would I know? I don't even have the test results from Karl's neuro-psych testing three years ago. I have a few notes from his appointment for testing, but about halfway through the recording physician started referring to him by someone else's name. The notes indicate that his test results will be attached, but they aren't. Karl is scheduled for new neuro-psych testing but I have no way to compare the results to his previous results.

A year ago, I gave Karl some Alzheimer's assessments. This afternoon I repeated the tests. Yes, he is definitely getting worse. It is such a slow slide that it is hard to tell from day to day how much worse he is, but year to year you can tell. One of the Alzheimer's assessments involves counting how many fruits and animals the patient can name in two minutes. Patients with Alzheimer's typically name between 10 and 15 of each. Neuro-typical adults can name between 20 and 25 of each. I don't know how many of each Karl named last year but I know it was close to 20. This year, Karl named 11 animals and 13 fruits.

Another test Karl took today was the clock test. Karl has taken the clock test several times. It is a standard dementia test. Karl has taken this test at home and with physicians. Today Karl messed up the clock for the first time. He switched the six and nine on the clock face. There are errors that mean nothing on the clock test and errors that mean something. Any mixing up of numbers is an error that means something.

So, Karl is worse. I know it. He knows it. What I don't know is what to do about it.

"If we can tell, shouldn't someone else be able to tell?"

Well, yes. Someone else, a medical professional, should be able to tell. Unfortunately, Karl continually sees medical professionals who do less brain research than I do. One neurologist told Karl that if he hadn't been in a coma, he couldn't sustain long term damage from a blast. I was aghast and didn't reply. A neuro-psych professional told Karl there is no cumulative effect of multiple blasts. I joked with Karl that I should print some studies for her. Another neuro-psych professional told me that TBI is not degenerative. I provided him with a study tracking the degenerative effects of TBI.

This evening I have been floundering, frustrated with Karl's decline, unsure of what the next steps are. I have been researching when to limit daily living activities of people with dementia and Alzheimer's. There is a lot more advice about caregiving for people with dementia or Alzheimer's than about caregiving for people with degenerative TBIs. I am not sure how to care for someone with a TBI. I am making it up as I go and I feel alone.

Being constantly told by doctors and nurses that I am wrong is isolating. Even though I know that recent brain research backs me up, it is emotionally exhausting to be told that what I'm witnessing is medically impossible. Tonight I realized I can put together a binder of recent brain research. Even if I cannot attend Karl's appointments, he can take the binder with him. I am going to print out every relevant study on TBI I can find and put together a TBI for Dummies guide. If I can educate medical professionals, maybe I can stop other caregivers from feeling so isolated and emotionally exhausted.





Alzheimer's home assessment

Instructions for the fruit/animal assessment

war

Some days I feel like I am trying to consume war and other times I feel like it is consuming me. This morning I awoke to the news that a friend of mine's husband attempted suicide last night. He is a veteran, of course. Tonight he is in inpatient care at the VA. I am relieved for him and his wife. He has needed inpatient care for a long time. When he was ready for treatment before, the VA wouldn't admit him. When the VA was willing to admit him, he was unwilling to go. Now, finally, he is getting the help he desperately needs.

I hope it helps.

I was raised liberal and anti-war. I am still, generally, anti-war, but I understand there are more shades of gray than I could possibly see and I am glad I am not in charge of making decisions about war. So it is bewildering that my life revolves around war. It is exhausting that my life revolves around war.

MY BIRTHDAY MONTH!

My favorite holiday is my birthday. It always has been. A few years ago for my birthday, I woke up early to go the gym. When I got home, my husband had planted three rose bushes for me. They had been hidden for days on the side of our house. I was completely surprised. It is the only time Karl has ever gotten me a good present for my birthday.

Typically what happens when my birthday comes around is that Karl has done nothing. I complain or tell Karl exactly what to get me. Karl goes and gets exactly what I said. He has said the reason he does nothing for my birthday is because he is scared of doing the wrong thing. There may be some validity to this. When Karl waits until the last minute and then buys exactly what I told him to, I am disappointed that he didn't put any thought into a gift. I am even more disappointed if he waits until the last minute, I tell him exactly what I want and then he gets a variation of what I wanted instead of exactly what I wanted. I feel like not only was he not willing to put any thought into getting me a gift but then when I told him exactly what to get me, he ignored it.

So, Karl sucks at gift-giving. If you're at all familiar with The 5 Love Languages, you could guess that maybe one of my love languages is gifts. If you're unfamiliar with The 5 Love Languages, it is a book, website, quiz, built around the idea that there are five ways people express their love: gifts, service, words, touch and quality time. My primary "love language" is "words of affirmation" and the one that means the least to me is "physical touch." Karl is the opposite. We're quite a pair. Over the years we have found ways to make things easier on each other.

"I love you, don't touch me!" is one of my catchphrases and I've taught Karl to say "blah blah," if what he really needs is touch. Sometimes when I've done something impressive and Karl comes to hug me to express his admiration, I will stop him and say "speak in my language!" Words are especially difficult for Karl because of his cognitive problems, but he will try because he knows that I need to be told that he likes me and thinks I'm pretty. Luckily for both of us, I have no problem saying "tell me you like me! tell me I'm pretty!"

In fact, every year on my birthday, I tell my Facebook friends to please tell me something they like about me instead of posting 50 "happy birthday" messages. I want words and I want meaningful words. I cannot give up my need for words. I can, and did, give up my need for thoughtful gifts. I decided that for my birthday I would do something for myself. Last year when I turned 30 I went to Vegas with six of my closest friends. I had an amazing time. I fell out of an elevator. I wore false lashes. I took a bath in the biggest tub I've ever been in in my life. I made my friends play Girl Talk. Actually, when I turned 29 I had a sleepover and we played Girl Talk, the original 1980s version complete with zit stickers. This year for my birthday I am going to Texas to spend a weekend with a close friend and her kids. (Maybe I should bring Girl Talk?)

I'm taking my kids to Texas with me. My eldest's birthday is exactly a week after mine and their present is the trip to Texas. My daughter's ticket was bought by my mom instead of her coming to visit us this fall. So my husband gets a weekend home alone. I'm actually a little jealous of him. I love time home alone.

My friend's husband asked why I wasn't bringing my husband. Karl and I spend almost all of our time together. Actually, he just started attending college again. He has been out of school for nine months, which means we're spent 99% of our time together for the past nine months. The other reason I'm not bringing Karl is because Karl doesn't care about going. I bought myself a plane ticket for my birthday and now Karl doesn't need to do anything except tell me Happy Birthday. I'll buy my own tiara (yes, I'm serious) and take myself out to a birthday dinner and get my own cake or cake substitute.

I will have a much better birthday than I would if I was waiting for Karl to get me a meaningful, thoughtful gift. Karl and I will have a much better relationship. I know what I can spend because I do all our banking. He doesn't care what I spend (because I do all our banking!) and he is off the hook. I get to be as above-the-top ridiculous as I want to be because IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

Next year I'm hoping to go to Alaska for my birthday. Maybe I'll even take Karl with me.

Shutdown

If the government shutdown lasts more than two weeks, the VA will not be making benefit payments.

If November 1, we do not receive our VA checks, we cannot pay our mortgage. We will be able to buy food and pay our utilities, just barely, with savings and with Karl's SSDI payment (Social Security Disability Insurance). We do not have much in savings right now because we fixed up this house when we bought it, depleting our savings. If on December 1, we do not receive our VA benefits, we will not be able to pay our mortgage. We will be able to pay our utilities, but I'm not sure if we will be able to afford to feed our children. We will not have any money for Christmas.

Sometimes people ask Karl what his long term plan is. They imply he needs a plan besides collecting the disability income he earned by getting injured in combat. Karl and I laugh about this. He won't be getting better. What is his plan supposed to be? Whenever we talk about this, I say, "if the government has failed to the point it isn't taking care of its veterans, we have bigger things to worry about."

blast waves

Last night Karl and I watched Red Dawn, the 2012 version. During one of the explosions in the movie, Karl said, "Yeah, that sucks. I've been in a lot of blasts like that."

"What? A lot?"

"Yeah, remember how I've told you about when there's a blast and you can watch the dust rising up off the surfaces around you?"

Oh, yes, I do remember this. I somehow did not connect my husband talking about clouds of dust lifting off tables to his head receiving the force of a blast wind. I did not think about how many times his body has absorbed blast winds. Some studies indicate that a single blast wind could cause the degenerative brain condition CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy)*. I prefer the term "blast wave," but the article I'm linking distinguishes between "shock wave" and "blast wind." I don't know the difference.

What I do know is that it is misleading of me to refer to Karl's TBI as coming from that time he drove a Stryker over a pressure plate bomb, even if it is the easiest explanation. It would be more accurate for me to say he has an unidentified degenerative brain condition due to multiple exposures to blasts over a two and a half year span in combat. I'll stick with the misleading, simple version. It is shorter and more attention-grabbing. It makes a better story.

And yes, he still has all his limbs, which is what people really want to know.





*http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-brain-injury-soldiers-exposure-explosion.html

sounds like a jerk to me

My eyelids are swollen. They have been swollen for several days and finally it looks like the swelling is going down. I've spent the past 3 days in a dark room, sleeping excessively and resting my eyes. On Friday, Karl went to a later section of his class so he could pick up a prescription for me. On Saturday, Karl managed the kids all day so I could lay in bed keeping my eyes closed. On Sunday, Karl and the kids went to church and he missed singing in choir so that I could stay home and rest my eyes. Karl has also been getting me food, water and medicine. In short, he has been being a model husband.

I mention this because often when I am trying to explain what Karl's issues are, if my audience includes married women, they say, "sounds like a man to me," then laugh. I have so many problems with this statement, as a feminist and as someone married to a man with brain damage. It is a disservice to men to think they all act like they have brain damage and it is a disservice to my husband with brain damage to dismiss his issues by attributing them to his penis. What I want to tell women who say this is "maybe you're just married to a jerk."

When I read studies about how women still do more housework than men, I pause and take inventory. Karl does dishes. This was part of our marriage agreement, that he would do dishes. Karl usually does the laundry - washes, dries, folds, puts ours away. I get the kids to put theirs away. I typically unclutter because clutter drives me crazy. I grocery shop. I pay the bills. We don't sweep or mop with any regularity, so it's hard to say who does which more. The kids pack their own lunches and clean their own rooms. We have probably mowed an equal number of times. I cook more often for us and we probably cook equally for the kids. Karl feeds the dogs, with help from the kids. Karl feeds the chickens and puts them to bed more often but I spend more time socializing with them. In short, our housework is probably pretty evenly split. I do spend a significant amount of time reminding Karl to do the dishes, but he does them.

Even though I spend a lot of time refereeing between Karl and the kids, he is generally willing to be the "on" parent. If I have lost my patience and just need to run away, I can tell Karl and the kids "bye," and head out with no explanation. Sometimes I just go drive around for half an hour not having to do anything for anyone. This is usually at dinner or bedtime, which follows the same routine every night, so it is the perfect time for me to bail. Routines are much easier for Karl (and the kids) to follow than instructions.

Last night before we went to sleep, Karl said, "I'm sorry I'm a disappointment to you."

"You're not."

He isn't. Primarily because he isn't a jerk. He is an honorable, loving, giving man who happens to have brain damage. He does not use his injuries as an excuse not to parent or partner. In fact, I am the one who steps in to tell the kids not to climb on him because they're going to hurt his leg or his back. I am the one who tells him he can't carry both kids at once because I know he will be limping later if he does.

Karl works very hard at finding ways to minimize the effect his cognitive defects have on our lives. He uses his smart phone for its maps and calendar. He gives himself extra time to get around. He explains to his instructors that he has TBI and how it impacts him. He even occasionally listens to me when I explain things to him. He has problems parenting. He yells at the kids for being kids. He is not consistent with them. He forgets what he is supposed to be doing. Sometimes he takes his frustration about not knowing what he's saying or doing or where he's going out on us. Sometimes he acts like a jerk, but not because of his TBI. Sometimes he acts like a jerk because he's a person, much the same way all people act like jerks sometimes.

Most of the time, he does not act like a jerk. He acts like a fair and hard-working person who has cognitive defects. If you are married to someone who has no cognitive defects and often claims to "forget" things, you might just be married to a jerk.

Our Starbucks Anniversary

Sunday was the six year anniversary of the day my husband and I got married in Starbucks. People laugh when I tell them I got married at Starbucks and I have to stop them to tell them the funny part, which is not that we got married at Starbucks but that we were the second couple that week to get married at that Starbucks.

It is very common in the military to get married without a wedding. There are many benefits to being married in the military, such as higher pay. Once a service member decides to get married, it makes practical sense to do it as soon as possible. I agreed with this, but I didn't want to miss out on a wedding. I knew how easy it was to put off the planning until your ten year anniversary was looming with no wedding in sight. I wanted a dress and I wanted everyone to look at me and talk about how pretty I was. So I told Karl that I would not marry him unless it was less than three months before a wedding we were actively planning. So, by the time we got married at Starbucks, our Save the Date cards had gone out and I was addressing our invitations. Our cake had been ordered and I had bought the first two of my four wedding dresses.

My first wedding dress was a $30 tea length dress from Ross. It was white with lace around the mid-section. It was perfect for the summer wedding I thought we would be having. Then Karl's tour got extended three more months and my wedding became a winter wedding. So I bought another dress. It was $12 on clearance at J.C. Penney. It was floor length and ivory, with a black twist of ribbon.

The day Karl and I got married at Starbucks, I wore a black t-shirt, jeans and a wide black and white striped headband. Karl and I ordered coffee and breakfast sandwiches and bought our minister's coffee. Then we sat at the back table. He asked us if we were related (no) and if we wanted to be married (yes) and we signed our marriage certificate. I took a selfie with my cell phone of us kissing. We joked about how I had trapped him or he had trapped me, saying things like "got ya now!" Our minister didn't seem very amused..

After we finished our coffee, we went home to take a nap. We had been up late the night before at a bar with the guys who had come home on the last flight. In the privacy of our room, we exchanged vows with each other, silly things like Karl promising to do the dishes (which he does, because he promised - I have done the dishes maybe 12 times in the past six years) and us both promising to love each other. That afternoon we went to the fair.

By the time our wedding date arrived, I was pregnant with our daughter. It shouldn't have been a surprise - we were trying, but I started gaining weight immediately and a week before our wedding, I realized my dress didn't fit. I was only about 6 weeks along. I started shopping for another dress and bought one for $100. It was pretty. I wasn't in love with it but I was overwrought and feeling desperate. A few days before our wedding my mom and I went to Goodwill and I saw a gorgeous Alfred Angelo halter dress with intricate beading and a train. It was $85 and my mom encouraged me to try it on. When I did, her eyes filled with tears. I, of course, bought it and wore it. I spent less than $250 on my four wedding dresses combined.

Our ceremony is on a VHS tape. It lasted less than eight minutes and ended with me leaving my husband at the altar to head for the food, which is sort of embarrassing. Luckily, he was already stuck with me. It was a small, casual wedding at my mom's house. People stood for our ceremony. Our food came from Costco, as did our flowers. I forgot our sparkling cider until after everyone had left so we had no toasts. We had no dance. We just hung out and I wore my wedding dress all day. Some of my favorite photos of the day are of me giving my dog (who has since died) her medicine in all my bridal glory and my eldest asleep in my arms as I sit on the floor in my gorgeous gown. We have official wedding photos too, of Karl and I gazing adoringly at each other and kissing.

One of my favorite photos of Karl and I at our wedding shows me rolling my eyes at him with my hand to my forehead in exasperation. I have an almost identical photo we took in a photo booth the day we were married. I am glad we had a wedding. It was fun. I am also glad we got married at Starbucks first. I get two very distinct anniversaries. Every September we go to Starbucks and tell the bored, unimpressed baristas that we got married there. They have never, to my amusement, given us a free coffee. Every December we go on a real date for our wedding anniversary and sometimes give each other gifts. Our marriage and our wedding represent the best of Karl and I: our ease with each other and our ability to laugh at ourselves.

What is a veteran?

Last week there was a shooting at a Navy Yard. A friend of mine posted a link* on facebook about how the shooter was collecting VA benefits. She commented "...so what? why is this relevant?"

While the link leads to USA Today, I would not call the handful of sentences an article. They mention what he was receiving benefits for: tinnitus and "an orthopedic problem," and make note that he was never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. I have no idea whether or not any of this is relevant. The tone of the "article" seems to imply that collecting VA payments is bad and that being deployed is the only thing that could legitimize collecting those payments.

I saw an essay titled "Don't call Navy Yard Gunman Aaron Alexis a Veteran," which also highlights that Alexis was never deployed. While the essay goes on to say that Alexis' status as a veteran isn't necessarily the cause of the shooting and cautions against the stereotypes of veterans as time bombs, I take offense to the title. Alexis is a veteran. His veteran status does not excuse or explain his actions. His disability rating also neither explains nor excuses his actions.

I find it disturbing that the response to Alexis being labeled a ticking time bomb veteran is to disavow his veteran status at all. Veterans are people. Some veterans are assholes and some veterans are noble. Some veterans are ignorant and racist and sexist. Some veterans are intelligent and compassionate. What "veteran" means to me is that a man or woman wrote a blank check to our government. That is a noble thing to do, regardless of the motives. It is noble to volunteer for service, even if it is the only noble action in a lifetime of terrible deeds.

I know a veteran who has some guilt because she collects VA disability because of an injury she suffered in boot camp. She never made it past boot camp. I knew her before she joined the Army. Her plan was to serve her country. She was blind-sided by an injury and a misdiagnosis, followed by mistreatment and lifelong leg pain. She is a veteran and she deserves to be compensated for her injury. She is not a ticking time bomb.

I know veterans who judge other veterans based on their branch of service or their MOS (Military Occupation Code). Whenever I hear an infantry vet complaining that a group of air force veterans won't understand what they're going through, I tell the story of my husband meeting a Air Force dental technician. She told him she had PTSD, and he mentally scoffed, but he asked what her job had been. After she told him she was a dental technician, he scoffed a bit more, but said something non-committal. She then opened up a bit, explaining that her primary job had been to identify dead soldiers by their dental records. It was an eye-opening moment for him and me, reaffirming that you never know what someone else has been through.

I know another veteran who has several issues. He was never deployed. He has PTSD from watching men die in training, TBI from a head injury on a ship and back pain from a fall in training. He feels guilty about collecting disability payments because he never went to war. I know vets who went to war who feel bad they didn't die in combat.

It is not easy being a veteran, not least of all because people stereotype them. Veterans are not ticking time bombs. They are not all burly men either. They are people. Some people are assholes and some people are noble. Some people are ignorant and racist and sexist. Some people are intelligent and compassionate.



*http://www.usatoday.com/story/nation/2013/09/18/navy-yard-shootings-aaron-alexis/2834103/ **http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/18/don-t-call-navy-yard-gunman-aaron-alexis-a-veteran.html

midnight panic

I woke up and immediately rolled over to check for Karl. I do this every time I wake up, regardless of the hour. His side of the bed was empty. I reached for my phone to check the time: 2 a.m. As I sat up, I tried to remember the last moments before I fell asleep. We were watching Futurama and he promised to shut down the iPad when he was done. He put my wrist guards on my wrists for me, as I was nearly asleep by the time I remembered that I need to sleep in them every night or I wake up with my hands painfully asleep.

As I walked to the living room, I tried to sort out whether or not Karl had fallen asleep with me. Sometimes, once I am asleep, he gets up and heads to the living room to spend the night watching war movies. The living room was empty, the tv off. I listened for signs that Karl was in the bathroom as I headed down the hallway opening doors to the library and our children's rooms. I located him in our daughter's bunk bed, snuggled in to the top bunk with our daughter. Our daughter has been having problems sleeping lately, waking us up in the middle of the night and falling fitfully back asleep in our room. Last night she even poked me until I woke up just to tell me she loved me. I don't know if our daughter came to our room and woke Karl up or if she found Karl on the couch before he made it to our room. It doesn't matter. What matters is I now know where Karl is and he is safe.

It is probably about once a week that I wake up alone and slightly panicked about where Karl is. Sometimes I find him awake, engulfed in some movie about the war he fought or one he didn't or maybe just Star Trek. Sometimes I find him asleep on the couch, lights on, tv on, clothes on. Sometimes, like tonight, I find him in one of our children's beds. Sometimes he comes back to bed with me and sometimes he stays up all night or stays where he is, peacefully asleep, as I take his glasses off and turn the lights off.

What am I afraid of in the middle of the night when Karl is gone? I am afraid he has disappeared. I am afraid I will not find him in the living room or our son's bed. I am afraid I will not be able to find him at all. I have heard wives talk about waking up in the middle of the night to find their husbands sleeping in the driveway or the car. I am not the only one searching for my husband at 2 a.m. As I look for him, I often think, maybe Karl wandered off out of some misguided notion that we are better off without him, which I know he sometimes thinks. Maybe he just gave up on society and has finally left to go live in the woods, like he so desperately wants to. Maybe he stepped outside to investigate a noise and wandered off, unable to remember where he is.

Over the years, as I have gotten used to finding Karl, my panic at waking in bed alone has lessened. I wonder how long until my panic increases as the possibility of him wandering off in the middle of the night increases. This is the strangest thing about brain degeneration: we have no idea when it is going to get worse or how bad it is going to get. I have no idea if Karl waking up and wandering off one night is a real possibility or just something my brain made up to panic me, but at least tonight, I know where he is.

This is not about my sex life

I promise I will never write about my sex life. I believe sex is a perfectly normal act. I also want what I write to be accessible to my family and my husband's family and the people we go to church with and the exes I'm friends with. Therefore, you will never read about my sex life. However, I will write about sex. I will write about sex because oftentimes when I am in a group of women who are married to veterans, someone sheepishly brings it up.

"Is he on Gabapentin?" another wife will ask.

"Is that what it is?" the sheepish wife asks.

"It's probably the narcotics, yeah." Everyone around the table nods.

Gone are the days of her airman laughingly bragging about his weekend conquests with his friends. He is 28 and his sex life has evaporated, replaced with narcotics for his leg pain, which causes him to limp self-consciously. Another wife says her husband just doesn't feel sexy anymore. It isn't surprising. He went into the service a young, fit, virile man, but he was medically discharged overweight and aching.

It is hard enough to convince these young men who feel old that they are useful and valuable assets when they can no longer serve or even work. It is nearly impossible to convince them that they are still desirable when they are covered in burn marks or filled with shrapnel. Not only are they embarrassed by their limps, their scars, their bodies and minds failing them, but they have to contend with their masculinity fading. How can a man who used to be so confident admit he just doesn't feel sexy? What if he feels sexy and his body just won't cooperate because of his daily cocktail of pain relief meds? What if he feels sexy, his body is working, but there is too much pain to find a way to comfortably have sex? Who is he supposed to talk to about this?

No one. So his wife comes to a support meeting and sheepishly brings it up. She wants to know how to get their connection back. She wants to know if it is her fault. She wants to know how to show him she wants him, how to combat the morphine, what position will cause the least strain on his tender body. So we talk. We talk about positions and pain. We talk about medication cocktails and side effects. We talk about calling him hot or smacking his butt playfully. Everyone at the table laughs too. We laugh in recognition and, maybe, sometimes, embarrassment. We laugh because we are in a safe space where we can joke about our virile men, aged before their time. One woman I know even demonstrated a particular position on a chair once. Then we really laughed. I don't know if the other women tell their husband about our mirth or our suggestions. Sometimes our suggestions work and sometimes they don't.

Sometimes I feel a bit sad for the men who were told how manly they looked in a uniform, only to come home and take it off, revealing their vulnerability.

the gift of memory

"I'm tired. Not physically tired. I'm just tired of this," said Karl.

I know. I know he is tired.

He is tired of his legs aching when our son sits on his foot to be carried around the house. He is tired of his back hurting when he carries our daughter. He is tired of his body cracking and popping when he gets out of bed. He is tired of feeling like an old man. He is tired of having an old man's mind too.

I am hyper-vigilant about suicidal depression, so when Karl says he is tired, I immediately ask if he is thinking of killing himself.

"No," he says and laughs, "And I'm not going to say I'm a survivor either!"

I stare at him blankly, not getting the reference.

"Like that guy in that movie," Karl reminds me, "he said he was a survivor and you said 'he's going to kill himself.'"

Oh, yeah. I knew it. He was a supporting character in Music Within and a veteran with PTSD. As soon as he said "I'm a survivor," in his I'll-be-fine speech, I knew it and I was right, but why does Karl remember that enough to make an off-hand reference? If questioned, I doubt he would remember the name of the movie, but he could probably give a pretty good plot summary. Maybe it is because Karl identified with the characters who couldn't find their way back to civilian life. Maybe it is because war was a central theme to the movie. Karl often remembers random facts involving war, guns, knives, swords and defenses. I'm not sure where he stores these, but it is not the same place his brain tosses practical information.

I wonder if when Karl forgets where we live, he will remember how a trigger system works. Maybe one day, I will put a card in his wallet with our address and a picture of our house. One of the reasons we chose this house is that it is within walking distance to the library and our children's elementary school, not to mention a variety of stores and restaurants. Not only are they within a one mile radius, but they are on the same street. To get to the library, you walk out our door and turn right. To get to the school, you turn left. You walk until you get there and to get home, you turn around. It is unlikely Karl will have a problem finding the grocery store, the gas station, the medical marijuana dispensary or the library any time soon.

One day he may have a problem navigating our straight road, but not yet. Yesterday he walked a mile with the kids to take them to their school playground so they could spend an hour on the monkey bars. This is a gift. It is a gift that Karl is able to spend so much time with our children while they are young. It is a gift that they will have memories of him, even if he may not retain memories of them.

grasping at straws

I recently saw a gif of a girl who lost 88 pounds in a year. I am not really into body shaming or diets, so I'm not sure how I ended up reading an article about her, but it mentioned she had gone on a ketogenic diet. I had never heard of that, so I googled. I found a lot of conflicting information about the effects of high fat diets on the body and a lot of conclusive studies about the effects of high fat diets on the brain.* Ketogenic diets are prescribed by some doctors for children with epilepsy, some percentage of whom are later able to go off their anti-convulsants.

After I saw the phrase "neuro-protective," I started typing in the search terms "ketogenic diet TBI." If there is one thing I look for, as someone who loves someone with TBI, it is the phrase neuro-protective. I have exhaustively searched "marijuana neuro-protective," as we live in a state where medical marijuana is legal. I have repeatedly searched for "neuro-protective vitamins," before putting my husband on a vitamin regimen. Nothing piques my interest more than the phrase "neuro-protective" because I am witnessing my husband's brain fail and I would do anything to slow the process. Needless to say, my husband and I are now on a ketogenic diet. If I want my husband to stick to a diet that could help his brain, I must follow it too. I can't just assign him a diet because he can't even always rely on himself to follow a gluten-free diet, which he must be on because he has celiac disease.

As I read studies about TBI and ketogenic diets, I wondered why no one had mentioned ketogenic diets to me. I wonder why no one ever mentioned studies about the neuro-protective properties of marijuana to me. I wonder why no one has ever mentioned brain boosting vitamins to me. I wonder why I am the only one trying to save my husband's brain. I am the one who asks questions about the use of Alzheimer's medications in TBI patients. I am the one who asks for MRIs and referrals. I am the only one fighting for my husband. That is not to say I don't have allies. There are other women who have been fighting this battle since before I was born and women who have been fighting as long as I have. There are men fighting this battle for their women.

When we had my husband's intake appointment at the VA here, to establish patient care, his new primary care physician looked shocked when Karl mentioned he has TBI. Then our appointment was over. Hopefully the nurse we spoke with got a referral in for more neuro-psych testing, which she mentioned. Apparently the VA here does not communicate enough with the VA in Texas to use his testing from there. I am not opposed to him having another round of neuro-psych testing. In fact, it might be helpful to have some new benchmarks. If no one from the VA arranges an appointment for him, I will be going back in with him, to ask for referrals. Next week my husband will see a psychologist - a therapist with the VA who is a woman with no military experience - and hopefully get set up with a psychiatrist.

I don't expect any of these people to help. I don't actually expect anything to help. Every few weeks, Karl and I have another tearful conversation about him getting worse. Sometimes I feel like I am standing helplessly by, watching a freight train heading towards the end of the line. I am the only one trying to place tracks in front of it. I have no idea how to lay tracks. I don't know if I'm using the right pieces. I have no idea if the train is going to derail regardless of what I do, but I have to try to stop it.







*http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3321471/ for further reading

football's more dangerous cousin, war

I'm a nerdy girl. I'm not a full on nerd. There are only a few comic books I like (Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise; Neil Gaiman's Sandman and Endless series). I never got into Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the tv series; the movie was 1990s movie gold) or Doctor Who. However, I did get a letter jacket in high school for Mock Trial, which is pretty nerdy. I read a lot. When I was told my daughter probably should not play sports because she was born with a solitary kidney, I wasn't too concerned. My husband, who owns way more comic books than me, lettered in marching band in high school. It is unlikely the two of us would somehow produce an athlete.

Our daughter was born in 2008. All I knew about football then was that it involved throwing a ball and tackling people, weird dances when your ball went were it was supposed to and eating lots of queso every January or February. In 2008 I knew even less about brain injuries than football, despite my husband having driven over a bomb the year before. I had no idea that my husband had a life-changing TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) or that his injury was relatively common in football players.

I now know more about TBI than at least one neurologist I've encountered in the VA (Veterans Affairs) health care system. I still don't know anything about football except that football season just started and that brain damage is very common in football players. This year when I watched the Super Bowl I was the life of the party. Whenever big burly men would slam into or pile on top of each other I would exclaim, "ooooo that's a TBI!" My knowledge of TBI and its sneakier, scarier cousin CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) have led me to care about football players, if not the sport itself.

I have read several articles about whether or not watching football is a moral issue and I have asked others that myself. What concerns me though isn't the moral character of football fans. What concerns me is the visibility of football players with CTE. When I see a Sports Illustrated cover with a football wife proudly standing next to her husband, I feel compelled to read about her fears that one day he will not know who she is. I share her fears, but no one cares about me or my husband. He is not as marketable a story as a football hero. After all, he was only a soldier. He never earned millions chasing a ball down a field. He instead spent his time chasing men who were trying to kill him. He did not earn a single champion ring. Instead, he earned a CIB (Combat Infantry Badge). We don't have the money to see the best doctors money can buy. Instead we see whomever the VA gives us or whoever will take Medicare.

Sometimes those doctors listen to us. More often, they pass the buck, asking us why speech pathology or a neurologist hasn't taken care of us yet. A speech pathologist at the VA said my husband was lucky he was smart enough to make accommodations for himself. He also gave Karl a list of websites with games that may help improve his memory and processing time if he plays them often enough. In Karl's only appointment at that clinic, they told him they were so busy with men who were worse off than him that it was unlikely they would see him again and they haven't. Another time, a psychiatrist ordered my husband a battery of neuro-psych testing. The results of his testing showed delayed processing and short term memory loss, but no one had followed up with us. When we went back to the psychiatrist a year later, I sat in her office and cried. She sent us to a neurologist who denied my husband could have any long-term effects from driving over a bomb.

"He's just depressed," the man told me as I looked at him with a befuddled expression on my face.

In the past decade, there has been significant research proving that even a single blast-wave can cause permanent, life-altering damage to a brain.

Unfortunately, we are at the mercy of the system. When there is only one neurologist in your area at the VA, you will see that neurologist, whether or not he understands the constantly evolving field of brain research. When the VA's speech pathology clinic in your area is inundated with other veterans who also have TBI, you will not get another appointment unless you are a severe case. We have had slightly better luck with doctors whose offices accept Medicare, but they have extraordinarily long waiting lists. Consequently, when people ask if my husband will get better, I have no answer.

Clinically speaking, each TBI is different. There is no way to predict whether or not a brain will find ways to reroute its information. Furthermore, CTE is only detectable post-mortem. This means, in the simplest terms possible, that if a football player or a mere mortal starts exhibiting signs of dementia or memory loss following a head trauma, no one knows what exactly is going on or what is going to happen next. Some neurologists are now saying that even TBI is degenerative.

I hope the football players are getting better care and more answers than we are. I hope they do not let the NFL or anyone else pay them off and sweep them under the rug. My husband is at the mercy of an overwhelmed system, but men with money, power and a public face are not. They can use their notoriety to call attention to brain injuries. As we learn more about their brains, we are learning more about the brains of men and women who suffer head trauma in war.

I still do not understand football. I know only that it involves a ball, some dancing, a Bowl, some queso and there are over a thousand professional football players every year at risk for brain injuries. Men whose names are known, men who are considered heroes, men who are visibly and vocally suffering through the "signature wound" of the wars our country has been fighting for over a decade now. These men have the ability to help further brain research for another kind of hero.

war consumes me

"Were you there?" I ask, leaning forward, "would you write me a letter for his purple heart?"

My husband does not have a Purple Heart. He never applied for one. His incident was in the midst of several other more devastating incidents and wasn't recorded well. When no one gave him a Purple Heart, he didn't ask for one. In the years since, we have talked about applying for a Purple Heart, especially as the military has expanded their requirements for Purple Hearts to include TBI. Karl will not ask his friends for letters corroborating the incident, but I will.

"Yeah," Dozer tells me, "I was there when he drove over that pressure plate."

"Or whatever it was... I never looked," Karl says.

"No, man, it was a pressure plate."

"You saw it?"

"Yeah, man, there was a square shaped hole. I remember we came around the corner and no one was hurt. The wheel blew off, right? No one was hurt and then I saw you."

For six years, I have referred to the incident as my husband driving over an IED or a bomb. Now I have a new phrase to add to my lexicon. My husband drove over a pressure plate. It sounds innocuous to me. A pressure plate. I have seen pressure plate explosions on tv shows. When I google "pressure plate," video game references come up. Pressure plates are completely outside my reality.... except they aren't. Pressure plates exist in my world. When I google "pressure plate IED," I find pictures, videos and references to Afghanistan. Apparently a pressure plate IED is a home-made bomb activated when enough weight (pressure) presses onto it. It is also a "victim-activated" device, which means it is set off by the person it hurts. The good thing about victim-activated devices is that they are less likely to be followed by an ambush than devices that require someone else to wait for the victim to be on top of the IED. Victim-activated devices don't need their creator to babysit them. They may not even have an intended target. They are just there for whomever is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I wonder occasionally about who created the bomb that changed my life. Was it a man or a child? Did he have children? Was he nice? That sounds like a silly question, but I mean it. Would he help a neighbor in trouble? Did he create a bomb to protect or to attack? Is he still alive? Does he have PTSD? Does he ever wonder if his bomb went off? How long was it there before my husband drove over it?

I could listen to the retelling of his war all day every day. More details eek out every time he tells me about Okada's foot being destroyed or Elliot being hit by friendly fire or flames engulfing him when he drove over the IED. I could write every word he says and rework the stories every time he retells them. There are paintings and drawings in our garage of men with their heads blown off or laying bloody on the ground after their car was decimated by Karl's Stryker. I never remember the details when I show these amazing pieces to our friends. I cannot absorb the full weight of Karl's 27 months in the desert.

I will never know the answers to my questions. If it is ever safe to travel to Iraq, I would like to go. I would like to walk the dusty streets my husband still wanders sometimes. I would like to go with other men he served with and listen to their stories. I want to know everything. I am selfish in this when we hang out with the guys. I want to consume their war as it has consumed them.

This is my voice

"This is my mommy voice," my five year old daughter said in falsetto.

"This is my daddy voice. Whatever." I intoned deeply.

"This is my daddy voice. Uh... I forgot," our seven year old said.

We laughed. Karl and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes.

"This is my daddy voice. My name is I forgot my name!" our five year old exclaimed.

We did not laugh. I thought of my daughter's play therapist with gratitude. Karl and I did not meet each other's eyes.

"Ok, that's enough voices. Finish eating," I told the kids.

The kids do not know that our biggest fears involve my husband forgetting who we are or who he is. Actually, maybe they do know. We don't hide Karl's brain damage. We talk openly about why he forgets things and, while he and I talk quietly about what will happen when he cannot recognize me, we do talk about it.

Our kids are kids. I know that many adults have trouble finding the line between dark humor and cruel mocking. I do not expect our kids to know the difference, especially not our five year old who was born to play to an audience. There is no blueprint for a happy family. We have no rules about how we may or may not come to terms with Karl's injuries. We just come to terms with them. As we feel our way forward together, we learn how far is too far.

stories

As I was driving to get frozen yogurt with a friend today I remembered what I forgot yesterday.

Yesterday my daughter was playing Angry Birds and somehow we started talking about standing on piggies. We are nothing around here if not silly.

"You're standing on piggies!" I said to Karl.

"Twenty of them!"

Twenty? My husband is not a mutant. He has ten piggies like the rest of us.

Tonight he was pouring a slush from Sonic and he complained because he accidentally poured Frosty on his hand. Slushes and frosties are vastly different.

Documenting these little skips reminds me of the summer I kept a log of everything my husband forgot. I believe if I did the same exercise today my log would be a lot longer. Maybe I should... but it was depressing. It is depressing to reduce my husband to his lapses. That is not what I'm doing here, because this is a love story, not a clinical log. This is not for the VA. These words are not to prove how impaired my husband is for the sake of compensation. These words are to chronicle the love story between a 14 year old girl from a dysfunctional family and a boy she had a crush on. I make many jokes about how my husband had gorgeous thick long hair when we met and now he is bald. I also joke about how we met the only year he attended my high school. Then he switched to a Catholic high school. He looked so cute in those little skirts. He is tired of this joke, because he has heard me tell it so many times.

That's the point.

The point of our story is not my husband's brain damage or his joint pain. The point is that we have a story.

We have a story because of a chance meeting between a boy and a girl 16 years ago. We have a story because we had friends in common, most notably a flaky girl who brought us together time and again. We have a story because technology in military vehicles has gotten good enough that a man can drive over a bomb and live and because when Karl was driving that vehicle over a bomb, he had the hatch open because that vehicle's thermal camera was broken. We have a story today because a piece of equipment was broken. This is what I believe. I believe that having the hatch open provided somewhere for the explosive force to go. I am making this up. It is what I believe and I made it up. Having the hatch open let flames come in. This is true. I am not making it up. This is what my husband envisions when he is driving down the road and sees debris. Sometimes it is unconscious and he shivers. Sometimes he purposely draws up images of flames engulfing him.

This is part of our story. His twenty piggies are part of our story, but they are not a major plot line. Our story is populated by bit characters: the woman whom I met today in line registering my daughter for kindergarten, who said "aww" when I told her my husband was a disabled veteran (I said, "don't do that," laughing to take the edge off my words); a man in line to register his child for school had scars on one side of his face and the posture of a service member; two women in line were in uniform, one of whom had the same deployment patch as my husband; another woman was eavesdropping on my casual recitation of my husband's status as a disabled veteran. None of these people are central to our lives but they are there on the periphery, as are all the other men and women who have served our country. Not only do their lives contribute to statistics that correlate to our lives, but they are part of the seven percent of veterans in this country.

I am, obviously, not a veteran. When I was 18, I wasn't filled with enough conviction (or honor) to make a long term commitment to my country. In fact, I spent a lot of time feeling vaguely disgruntled with people who signed up to fight war. I was anti-war and I thought that being anti-soldier was the same thing as being anti-war. I still feel guilty over this mistake. My love of my husband, my compassion for him and my understanding of his motives were the keys in my being able to separate the soldier from the war. I went from thinking that soldiers joined the Army because they believed in war to believing that a variety of people join the military for a variety of reasons. Some of them come from generations of service members and honor their family and their legacy by enlisting. Some of them don't know what to do with their lives and think that earning some scholarship money will help them figure it out. Some of them want to earn their citizenship. Some of them are poor and see the military as their only lifeline. Some of them believe in war.

I wish that I had been able to separate the soldier from the war much much sooner. I wish someone had humanized the faceless men and women in uniforms for me when I was a seven year old parroting "peace in the middle east!" I am very sure that the reason I want to thank veterans and view them as kin is not just because I love my husband, but because I wish I had shown more compassion sooner. I want the veterans I encounter to know that I know they are people who deserve respect and compassion. They are not heroes to be held apart, separated into us and them. They are us. It is possible to recognize someone's honor and sacrifice in a way that does not express a mixture of pity and admiration. It is possible to recognize someone's humanity in their honor and sacrifice.

Karl is the most honorable person I know. If you ask him who the most honorable person he knows is, he'll name another man he served with. I bet if you ask that man, which I have not done yet, who the most honorable person he knows is, I'm sure he would name a third. Karl and his friend do not want to be treated as if they are heroes, not least because they know individuals more honorable than themselves. Karl and his friend want to be treated like people. This is the story of everything Karl forgets and everything I remember for him because I love him. This is also the story of Karl being sick of my jokes that are old to him and new to everyone we meet. This is the story of Karl and I being people.

blip

"1 - 2 - 3 - 4," he counts as he moves his marker.

"Babe, what did you roll?"

"Four plus two. Six."

"And you went...."

"Four."

"Babe, four plus two."

"Oh!" He moves his marker two more spaces.

We are playing Sum Swamp, a simple addition and subtraction game that includes three dice - two with numbers and one with pluses and minuses. Our seven year old and five year old don't notice when their father misses the simple math. I look at him with what I feel is a trademark expression of shock. It is not pity and I hope Karl doesn't think it is. It is simply what I look like when I am absolutely mystified by what his brain is doing.

As I am typing he wonders aloud if he fed the dogs. I don't know. He checks their empty bowls as I pause Top Shot. He did not feed them. I don't know why I need to keep track of these moments. Actually, that's a lie. I need to keep track of these moments because sometimes he is so utterly normal that people ask me what we're getting paid for. Sometimes he is so utterly normal that I feel like I must be going mad.

Yesterday as we were driving to the lake, he told me he hopes that when it comes down to it, I have enough money to hire someone to care for him.

"Luckily," I said, "you'll probably still remember how to wipe your butt. I can do everything else."

Today another little brain blip happened. I don't even remember what is was he forgot, but I said "brain damage" and he rolled his eyes.

"You know, I have to... I'm sorry. If you don't laugh, you cry." I told him.

"It's okay to cry," he said. Then he started singing "It's All Right to Cry" from Free to Be You and Me, which, of course, made me laugh.

the guys

I wake up Thursday to a facebook message from one of the guys.

"I'd like to come visit you guys some time! I've been thinking about you and your husband for a minute and I've missed you!"

"Ok, come visit us," I type, "You can come over tonight if you want, dude. You have our address? Or you can come over tomorrow night, or Saturday during the day, or Sunday anytime after we get home from church, or anytime next week, lol."

After all, he lives maybe 20 minutes away.

"Hahahahahaha! I'm actually stuck at the SeaTac airport right now. I've missed Hot Karl!"

Wait. He's at the airport? A few messages later and he finally lets me know he has moved out of state and is in town for National Guard duty, which he reports for in 48 hours.

"Oh," I type, "so where are you staying until then?"

"I stayed last night at the USO in the Airport. They have these amazing little tuna fish sandwich things!"

"Ok, we'll come pick you up and you can stay with us and Karl agrees about the sandwiches."

"haha! As he should. They're pretty delightful. I would love to enjoy your hospitality!"

"Dummy, of course you would. We'll be there in 30 minutes."

I tell my husband to hurry up and get dressed so we can go pick up Mulligan. Then I read him the messages.

"Did you really call him a dummy?" My husband laughs.

Yes! Of course I called Mulligan a dummy. Why didn't he just ask if he could stay with us? Later, when I ask him, he tells me it is because if I offered instead of him asking, he would feel less like he was imposing on us. He wasn't imposing on us of course.

It's funny though because one of the things I least expected about marrying my husband was the amount of men who were about to become my family. I know other wives go through this too. I have heard numerous stories about the husband's combat buddy who moved in after the deployment. He was the husband's best friend and neither guy wanted to be alone so the single soldier just moved in with the married one. Some of those arrangements work out okay for years. Some of them last only months before the single soldier is just too much of a burden. The wife feels guilty but with the care her husband needs, she just cannot shoulder the emotional burden of another wounded soldier. No one moved in with us but I know that it is just circumstance. There could easily come a day when one of the guys needs a place to stay and we have a place to stay.

When a combat buddy of my husband's calls or texts or facebook messages with a need, I know I will do my best to meet that need. The guys are family. In fact, sometimes, they are better than family because they have stood by my husband in the scariest moments of his life. They have shared his fear. They know things about Karl I can only guess when I wake up alone and he is watching war movies at three in the morning. More than that, I owe these guys. I owe them a debt I can never repay because they had my husband's back. They helped him survive to come home to me. They covered him. They made him laugh. They sheltered his body and his soul and I will never be able to thank them properly for all the parts of my husband that came home to me.