How Did I Become One of Those?

I went and put the first one out there, and now the second must follow. A fallacy? You bet, many a movie sequel attests to the fact that sometimes it is better to stop with the first and leave the second alone. However, practice brings proficiency and I think that applies to a blog better than any fear of Halloween III or some phantom menacing a bunch of clones before the Sith has his revenge. Before someone finds me and beats me with a plastic light saber, what is the question that begs an answer this morning? Right, how did I become one of those old veterans suffering from phantom terrors in a peaceful life? Glad I asked!

First of all, there are many sufferers of PTSD who are not veterans. This disease of the mind is not exclusive to us. Fortunately for those of you in this other group, I am with you as well. If any bridge must needs be built between veterans of wars with PTSD and those who suffer having never served in the military, let it be me. As a veteran of Grenada and Lebanon with the Marines, I am a combat veteran, but I came out of that without suffering flashbacks, at least other than the one of Mike Suits holding up a Playboy centerfold for my educational benefit. No, the card that brought the house tumbling down happened when I drove my Dodge pickup into the side of a much larger truck. A semi tractor-trailer that was supposed to stop at a particular stop sign before getting in my way. Those commercials where the car dodges around the boulder or whatever to prove the car or tires are the thing to buy amuse me. Let's see one where the vehicle dodges, pun intended, around 72' of stop-sign runnin' semi truck, that's the vehicle to have!

The combat of the highways here at home caused me far more damage, mental and physical, than my service in the Marines ever did. Although I saw the heaped ruins of the Beirut bombing where more than 200 of my fellow Marines perished, death and mayhem became personal to me at a highway intersection in Iowa about 15 years later. I lost a good friend in that accident, and I felt the sting of failure in that I should have returned him home to his wife and three children. I felt responsible in that way though everyone I know gives me a pass on that. Why? Well, the accident broke me. I mean 3 out of 4 limbs broke kind of broken, plus all of the associated blunt force trauma as Dr. Ducky might name it. Sorry, had to put in a weak reference to a show I enjoy. Left wrist broken, both long bones about an inch above the joint, right elbow smashed, and my right femur broken in two. I knew about my femur first because I was playing with the bone ends while still trapped in the wreckage. I do not to this day know why that seemed to be the thing to do at the time, but praise God I didn't sever an artery with the bone ends.

All of that, and I still didn't get a helicopter ride to the hospital. Fog they say, but you would think a butcher's bill like that would get me a chopper ride with a lovely flight nurse. I have no idea if the physical appearance of the nurse in the ground ambulance would be considered attractive, I don't think I looked at her or anyone else until late that night after the first surgery. In fact, most of the time I kept my eyes closed and just kind of passed out... until that fellow shoved a catheter up my little buddy in the second emergency room. I figure him for a Navy veteran. The words I used I will take the blame for, though I maintain that I was calling on the Lord for help and not using His name in vain. Phew! Decades of medical research and all I got was a fake sounding, "I know it hurts" for my trouble. I guess there's no money in less painful catheters or perhaps less entertainment value for the ER staff. I still wince and that was more than fourteen years ago now.

A bit of a pause here to collect my wits, they tend to scatter when I recall the accident, as much as I can remember that is, and the aftershocks in the hospitals. The big rabbit that hangs around our neighborhood stopped by to visit my garden, I had to run out for some photos. That is what Marine veterans do of course, we drop the important stuff to run out and snap bunny photos. I also fed the kitty, so there! I guess one good thing that comes from earning the title and claiming the PTSD is that I don't much care what people think of me anymore. I'll pet the doggies, skritch the kitties, and talk about my malady without feeling the need to prove my manhood. Of course, maybe that is proving...aw, never mind.

The stay in two hospitals would total 36 days before I 'got out' as they say. Do you have a worse than story? Sure you do, I heard many of them starting with the guy who rolled his ATV over on himself and was awarded eight weeks in the hospital for breaking his pelvis. We'll get to the worse than stories on another day. For now, I want to give you some idea of how PTSD seems to sneak up on a person as a part of my revelation of how I became one of those. The recovery from three weeks of bed rest went quickly, though not without great pain. I remember the day that rehab began quite clearly. I felt confident and pain-free. The tubes stuck all about my body had gradually disappeared and the morphine dreams faded into the past. Just one of the Vicodin today, nurse, I'm doing well! I said something cocky like that, just before she did that thing wherein someone with education and experience on their side tells you with subtle head shaking and soft comments that you are about to be awakened to a new reality. Twelve pain pills would not have sufficed for that first day of rehab! Give me the morphine back, I'll take the nightmares; save me from the first day of rehab, it was wonderful! The first time you walk again after so many injuries and bed rest is a day not easily forgotten, but along with the celebration comes the return of serious pain. Did that or the surgeries help to start the ball rolling? I may never know. It is quite likely that everything to do with combat, the accident, the recovery and even other little things such as 9/11 had a little or a lot to do with the onset of what would become PTSD.

The first signs came from what a doctor person might call non-specific complaints. Chest discomforts, not serious enough to be called pains, but yet serious enough to have a friend take me to the emergency room one time. Vague feelings of illness coming on at odd times. For me it happened often in restaurants and church service, places I once enjoyed. Waiting in lines might cause these anxious moments, or having others waiting in line for my services(I worked in information technology for many years). At first, I did what most anyone would do, I went to my family physician. More tests and finally they popped my gall bladder out. Each test or surgery increased the symptoms ahead of the procedure, then seemed to provide some relief, but never for very long. Finally, the doctors and surgeons began hinting that it might all be in my head. I did what I tend to do when I need more information, I grabbed for books.

Books on the aftermath of auto accidents run the gamut from the high-brow scholarly that contain so much jargon a person cannot understand the text to books that are actually quite useful. In one (see note 1), I found a test. I took the test and then took the marked up book into my doctor. Where some questions didn't mean much to me, Dr. Cutright (his real name too, he should have been a surgeon, but I'm glad he stayed in family practice.) read through the list and said things about my state of mental health. "This one means you're not schizophrenic, this one here means you're not paranoid," and so on until making the diagnosis that I had a serious anxiety problem going on. By the way, every anxiety problem that produces physical effects enough to send you to the doctor's office is serious. The doc had his office set me up with a therapist who in time diagnosed an anxiety disorder, but not PTSD yet. I say this to let you know that seldom does PTSD just jump out overnight like it does in novels and movies. I suspect that like me, most sufferers do not know for some time that the name or initials apply to him or her. "Surely I don't have that! The cause must be something in my body that can be yanked out if we just do the right surgery?" Unfortunately, too many of us will join the ranks of 'those', the people who 'just need to get over it' as the ignorant say.

The second session of therapy began after I was called up for jury duty. I don't often 'win' lotteries, prize drawings, and odds-related things like that, so you just know that of the hundred or so people gathered for the call-up I would be among the twelve selected. The case involved an auto accident, of course it would, and I knew trouble was on the way. The judge began her questioning and arrived at me. "Tell me about it" she commanded from the bench. When I knew the date and other specifics years later, I still remember her compassion from the bench as I began to tighten up in my seat. I was dismissed from the jury in that case, and when my town did not re-elect her to the bench a few years down the road, I feel that we lost something that day. This was Kristine Cecava who made the national news over not sending a convicted man to the state prison because he was too short. Before this went down however, I sat out in the hallway of the county courthouse trying to 'get it together', I made an appointment to start seeing a therapist again that very day.

The stigma of seeking professional help in my years of PTSD has not affected me in the way that others struggle in this area. I suppose that having drill instructors get in my face and call me 'worthless maggot' and other terms of affection may have prepared me to not worry overmuch about what slimey, twinkle-toed civilians might think. So I bought a house across the street from an elementary school! Think I'm crazy? You should see how your kids act every day. Bwaa ha ha!

God's love and blessing to you on this fine day,
Bucky

Note 1: If you suspect problems in this area, try this one: Crash Course: A self-healing guide to auto accident trauma & recovery. Heller and Heller(2001)North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA.