I’m Okay with the Pain: Life as a Disabled Vet
One morning in December, while visiting my in-laws, I had a morning from hell.
I woke up (that’s a good start) and couldn’t put my feet on the floor (that’s not).
I mean, I couldn’t.
The pain was so intense that I couldn’t bend enough to sit up. It took me about twenty minutes to get to standing next to the bed. Another ten minutes to be able to get my yoga pants on.
How did I get that way, you ask? It’s pretty simple.
Back in 2000, while deployed to Kosovo as a medical evacuation medic, we picked up this great big MP who’d shattered his ankle while in pursuit of…someone. I felt something pop in my back, and there was pain. I don’t remember the particulars, because that’s how trauma goes. The adrenaline starts pumping and service members just do their jobs. Period. We got that guy back to the MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, the precursor to today’s Combat Support Hospitals), and the marathon day of trauma response began. We had gunshot wounds, mine strikes, and at least one motor vehicle accident’s victims to attend to that day.
There were more missions and deployments after that, along with the usual field exercises and tending to vehicles in the motor pool; the everyday business of the Army was our business, and none of it is particularly easy on the back.
The thing is, I’m okay with it. The pain, the sleepless nights, the bad dreams, the headaches. There’s a simple reason for this.
You’ve heard the description of military units as a Band of Brothers. And that’s what it all boils down to.
You don’t stop and think, “Oh, I can’t save that guy’s life (or arm, or leg, or eyesight) because my back hurts.”
You just do it.
These people, these men and women from every background and walk of life, people whom you’d never have met had you just stayed home and worked in your hometown? They’re your brothers and sisters, and you just don’t let them down.
You suck it up, you drive on, you stop the bleeding and hold the hand of a Marine who’s been shot and who really, really wants his mom.
You sit in the recovery ward with some soldiers who made it out of that Humvee rollover alive, and you read A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to them because it’s the only book you have with you and everyone could use a laugh.
Because you can.
So now, 14 years later and thousands of miles away, even when I wake up and can’t walk and have to ask my amazing mother-in-law to tie my shoes and drive me to the ER so I can make it through the day, I’m okay with it. Because that MP, that Marine, and those soldiers? They got to go home to their families and the people who love them, and maybe if we hadn’t been there they wouldn’t have.
