Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 1440

Hello Everybody,


Today is just a lazy day here in Walter Reed. On Friday the physical therapist asked David if he wanted to schedule PT for the weekend and he said, "NOPE!" I think a weekend off was a great decision.


On Saturday we decided to see the area a little so he worked his way into his wheelchair and we headed for the Medical Museum. The cracks in the sidewalk caused quite a bit more concern than we thought they would. The jarring from the cracks really caused some pain in his right hand with the pins and the fixator. We did reach the museum but only spent a minute or two and headed back. That extra dose of pain wore him out and he slept for almost 5 hours.


Today we may try the museum again. Up to now it has just been relaxing. It's easy for me to say relaxing because I'm not the one having Phantom Pains. David is really having a bunch of phantom pains and they really really hurt. He has tried to describe them on several occasions, one description was that someone had his ankle and was slowly twisting it like a slow and deliberate serious sprain. Another description was that someone was just smashing his toes. It is very disturbing to him . Sometimes there are phantom legs and the other times there are phantom pains. They obviously present totally different sensations, some understandable and some painful.


Earlier this week I was able to attend a banquet that honored young 12 and 13 year old kids that had written essays about the effect that violence has had in their life. It is a fantastic program and I wish every school in America would incorporate the program called Do The Right Thing. While at the meeting I met a a gentleman named Jerry Castro, and his wife Katherine - we talked for quite some time and gained a bit of a friendship. They are a great couple with 8 children, 1 of those children was born prematurely at 1 lb. and has medical challenges that will prevent him from every seeing or walking. Jerry came to the hospital a few days ago and visited. Yesterday he returned and brought David some movies to watch and he brought two of his children. David was absolutely wonderful with them. They asked him very pointed questions about his military experience, about his injuries, about his fears, and about his future. David was fantastic and freely answered every question. He showed them his wounds and his X-fix locations. He told them about all kinds of situations that he had never told us.


Jerry's son, and I sincerely apologize for not remembering his name, asked David if he was scared when he took care of his first bomb. David said, in a very animated way, "I was terrified!" He disarmed his first bomb using a robot and then got out to take a look at the bomb and check for others. He told of how he got out and took a metal detector that he had never used before. He couldn't seem to get it working right. My guess is that he just smacked it a few times - that's how us real men get things running right. When it finally started working, he put it to the ground and it sounded like it was detecting something he really hoped he wouldn't find, David thought something was wrong so he kept trying it and the same alarm kept sounding. He quickly realized that there was a pressure plate to another bomb directly between his legs. Jerry's son's eyes got really big and he asked what David did. David said, with his eyes really wide: "I didn't move, I can tell you that!" A few inches either way would have been disaster. David told how he composed himself and slowly backed off far enough to set a detonation cord with a C4 charge. He lit the det cord and backed off to a safe distance as the bomb blew up.


They had a great time visiting and it was a pleasure to watch. They are bringing some other children tomorrow night and have told David that he can order a steak of his choice or any seafood he would like. They are great people. We have truly met many wonderful people out here.

I started writing this blog much earlier in the day and now it's 2332. We did end up going back to the medical museum and it was probably the best museum I had ever been to. The reason it was so great was because David was my guide through much of it. He was able to explain many of the different uses for Clotting Packets and showed me the type of tourniquet that was used on his arm and both legs. Much of the museum dealt with the injuries of War - it was very humbling to stand next to a slab of cement that they had taken from a medical field hospital that was used, I believe in Vietnam, when I was a boy. There were actual photographs of the exact same slab of cement that was being cleaned up after a surgery - the photo showed a great deal of fresh blood. There were still stains on the cement from the many surgeries that had been preformed on that very surface. The museum was very graphic but gave an incredible look at the advancements of medicine.

David was a bit uncomfortable this morning because he had an itch that would not go away. He kept trying and trying not to scratch it because he thought it was just a wound site that was in the process of healing. He decided on one more scratch and found a piece of wood. He explained that some of the IEDs in Afghanistan would have wooden components to help disguise them. I guess the one he stepped on had some wood because he certainly brought some it home with him.

This experience has been very good for me because it has given me a much greater understanding of who this son of mine really is. David is teaching me a great deal about myself. There are some drawbacks to that because I have discovered some of the lasting feelings that remain after some of my very immature parenting when I was much younger and much more stupid than I am now. This parenting without a manual can be a very disheartening experience. I wish so bad that I could go back and start this whole process over. I regret so many of the things I did as a young parent, the inequalities I showed between children, the angry words, the lack of understanding I showed. Now that I look back on things through David's eyes, I see that I should have been the person I was trying to force my children to be. I need one of those pens that was used in the movie MEN IN BLACK. I could have all my children and my wife look at the pen and then I could zap their memories of that past, idiot dad, right out of their minds. I'm glad this life isn't over just yet because I've got so much more to learn and I think I need a fair amount of time to try to erase those earlier parenting mistakes.

Now that the true confessions are over and it is, once again, past midnight, I'm going to say goodnight. I hope every one of my family know how much I love them and how much they mean to me. I know this blog is suppose to be about David, but David is why all of this is being realized and I love him even more for giving me these realizations.

Think of the best person you know, the kindest, the most gentle, the most charitable, the most patient, the most loving, etc, etc, etc, and be try to be like that person.

All My Love,

Gordon