thedrifter
09-25-06, 08:12 AM
Families bear catastrophic war wounds
Posted 9/24/2006 11:08 PM ET
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Army chaplain Kenneth Kaibel touched a cup of Communion wine to the lips of Spc. Ethan Biggers, who lay comatose at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A drop slipped down his throat. The soldier gagged and coughed twice as his stepmother, Cheryl Biggers, cradled him ever more closely.
"That's all right," she whispered, her left hand gently supporting the base of his head. Depressions revealed where battlefield surgeons peeled back his scalp and removed large sections of skull to relieve swelling from a bullet fired by a sniper in Iraq in March.
His stepmother grasped his clenched fingers and kept her face close to his. "I want to make sure that he knows that I have him," Cheryl Biggers explained.
That was in June. Ethan Biggers, 22, was later transferred to a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Tampa and remains in a near-coma state.
"He can hear us. He opens his eyes. And we think he can follow our voices," says Cheryl Biggers, 51. "But he can't quite focus."
Biggers is part of a small but growing number of catastrophically wounded casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan — many of whom would never have survived this long in previous wars.
According to the Pentagon, at least 250 soldiers and Marines have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with head wounds that left them — at least initially — comatose or unable to care for themselves.
ARMY MULLS LIVING WILLS: More returning from war with brain damage
"We all look at the amputees and say, 'God, they're really lucky,' " says Liza Biggers, 25, who left her career as a freelance artist to devote all her time to her brother.
Families' lives rearranged
Families of these wrecked young men contend not only with the shock of seeing the physical destruction to their loved ones but also with how their own lives change dramatically. Parents and siblings give up careers, forsake wages and reconstruct homes to care for wounded relatives rather than consign them to a nursing home.
"My son is in such a state," says Edgar Edmundson, 51, who left his job as a pie bakery supervisor to care full time for his son, Eric, 26, an Army sergeant. "He doesn't have control of his bladder or his bowels. He can't walk and he can't talk. ... To me, his father, the life my son knew is over."
Eric Edmundson, married and the father of a 20-month-old girl, was hurt in a roadside explosion Oct. 2 in Iraq. During surgery, his heart stopped and he suffered severe brain damage. His father, who had dreams of one day opening a gun and bait shop with his only son, now bathes and changes him daily and takes him to a rehabilitation center for physical therapy. Edgar Edmundson and his wife, Beth, who works as a state office supervisor, share a three-bedroom rental home in New Bern, N.C., with their son and his family.
"I guess you could say we don't have any disposable income," Edgar Edmundson says. "I live this every day. My son and I were very close. We had big plans."
Families say they also struggle with military and VA medical systems that were unprepared for these severely brain-damaged casualties.
They say the rehabilitation of catastrophic cases has not kept pace with the advances in battlefield medicine that kept these servicemembers alive and brought them home safely.
"They're saving their lives. But there is no system really in place to give them their life back," says Marissa Behee, whose husband, Jarod, 27, was shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq on May 25, 2005.
She says her husband showed little improvement after spending three months in the summer of 2005 in one of the VA's new polytrauma centers in Palo Alto, Calif. The centers are designed specifically to treat servicemembers suffering multiple injuries.
Help for soldiers, families
VA officials defend their programs and say they have made great strides in meeting these severe needs with their polytrauma facilities. By the end of this fiscal year, 21 new outpatient centers designed to monitor and continue treating rehab patients will be operating, officials say. They concede, however, that war has brought new challenges.
"There are some issues about family support, issues about the complexity of the medical and specialized needs that have to be addressed," says Lucille "Lu" Beck, chief consultant to the VA for rehabilitative services. "We have survivors now who come to us with medical conditions, rehab needs, multiple impairments that we've not seen before."
Behee has formed a foundation called Heroes with Head Injuries to provide other families with information on how to navigate the military medical system with a brain-damaged loved one.
In an effort to address concerns about military care, the Army's Wounded Warrior Program, which serves as an advocate for severely disabled soldiers and their families, held the first in a series of symposiums with wounded soldiers and family members. In June, the Army asked the more than 40 attendees to go through dozens of complaints and narrow them to a manageable list. Among the issues raised: problems in the process of notifying families about casualties; a shortage of trained case managers; the adequacy of rehabilitation for severely brain-damaged soldiers; confusion about the medical retirement process; and the need for more financial support for families.
"They are being pushed to the highest level," says Army Col. Mary Carstensen, director of the Wounded Warrior Program.
One recommendation from the symposium was for the military to more aggressively urge soldiers to fill out living wills containing directives about whether medical treatment should be withheld in the event of a dire brain injury.
Ethan Biggers' family is divided. His twin brother, Matt, a former soldier, believes Ethan wouldn't have wanted extraordinary steps taken to preserve his life.
Army Maj. Ronald Riechers, a neurologist who treated Ethan Biggers at Walter Reed, is grim about his future. He says Biggers could either remain in a near-coma or progress to requiring significant lifelong assistance. Perhaps he would be able to sit in a wheelchair, Riechers says.
Cheryl and Liza Biggers believe they see incremental improvement in Ethan and hold out hope. Ethan Biggers' wife, Britni, hopes her husband will someday recognize the couple's son, Eben, born June 2.
Liza Biggers works with hospital staff to stimulate responses from her brother, using Britni's Cotton Blossom body lotion, peeled oranges and Tootsie Rolls.
"I feel that we're here to get Ethan better," she says. "It's not asking too much to sacrifice a year or two of our lives to get Ethan back."
They suffered a setback July 27 when Ethan's father, Rand Biggers, died in a traffic accident. He had shepherded his son through the military's medical system. "I believe in God," he had said. "Something goodwill come out of it."
Today, the Biggers family continues its vigil at Ethan's bedside.
Cheryl Biggers says that for soldiers like her stepson, their last waking thought was of war. "I want to make sure that he knows where he is, that he's safe. We wouldn't be here with him unless it was safe, and trying to convince him to wake up," she says softly, cradling Ethan.
"Come on out and join us," she tells him. "Everybody's waiting."
Ellie
Posted 9/24/2006 11:08 PM ET
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Army chaplain Kenneth Kaibel touched a cup of Communion wine to the lips of Spc. Ethan Biggers, who lay comatose at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A drop slipped down his throat. The soldier gagged and coughed twice as his stepmother, Cheryl Biggers, cradled him ever more closely.
"That's all right," she whispered, her left hand gently supporting the base of his head. Depressions revealed where battlefield surgeons peeled back his scalp and removed large sections of skull to relieve swelling from a bullet fired by a sniper in Iraq in March.
His stepmother grasped his clenched fingers and kept her face close to his. "I want to make sure that he knows that I have him," Cheryl Biggers explained.
That was in June. Ethan Biggers, 22, was later transferred to a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Tampa and remains in a near-coma state.
"He can hear us. He opens his eyes. And we think he can follow our voices," says Cheryl Biggers, 51. "But he can't quite focus."
Biggers is part of a small but growing number of catastrophically wounded casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan — many of whom would never have survived this long in previous wars.
According to the Pentagon, at least 250 soldiers and Marines have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with head wounds that left them — at least initially — comatose or unable to care for themselves.
ARMY MULLS LIVING WILLS: More returning from war with brain damage
"We all look at the amputees and say, 'God, they're really lucky,' " says Liza Biggers, 25, who left her career as a freelance artist to devote all her time to her brother.
Families' lives rearranged
Families of these wrecked young men contend not only with the shock of seeing the physical destruction to their loved ones but also with how their own lives change dramatically. Parents and siblings give up careers, forsake wages and reconstruct homes to care for wounded relatives rather than consign them to a nursing home.
"My son is in such a state," says Edgar Edmundson, 51, who left his job as a pie bakery supervisor to care full time for his son, Eric, 26, an Army sergeant. "He doesn't have control of his bladder or his bowels. He can't walk and he can't talk. ... To me, his father, the life my son knew is over."
Eric Edmundson, married and the father of a 20-month-old girl, was hurt in a roadside explosion Oct. 2 in Iraq. During surgery, his heart stopped and he suffered severe brain damage. His father, who had dreams of one day opening a gun and bait shop with his only son, now bathes and changes him daily and takes him to a rehabilitation center for physical therapy. Edgar Edmundson and his wife, Beth, who works as a state office supervisor, share a three-bedroom rental home in New Bern, N.C., with their son and his family.
"I guess you could say we don't have any disposable income," Edgar Edmundson says. "I live this every day. My son and I were very close. We had big plans."
Families say they also struggle with military and VA medical systems that were unprepared for these severely brain-damaged casualties.
They say the rehabilitation of catastrophic cases has not kept pace with the advances in battlefield medicine that kept these servicemembers alive and brought them home safely.
"They're saving their lives. But there is no system really in place to give them their life back," says Marissa Behee, whose husband, Jarod, 27, was shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq on May 25, 2005.
She says her husband showed little improvement after spending three months in the summer of 2005 in one of the VA's new polytrauma centers in Palo Alto, Calif. The centers are designed specifically to treat servicemembers suffering multiple injuries.
Help for soldiers, families
VA officials defend their programs and say they have made great strides in meeting these severe needs with their polytrauma facilities. By the end of this fiscal year, 21 new outpatient centers designed to monitor and continue treating rehab patients will be operating, officials say. They concede, however, that war has brought new challenges.
"There are some issues about family support, issues about the complexity of the medical and specialized needs that have to be addressed," says Lucille "Lu" Beck, chief consultant to the VA for rehabilitative services. "We have survivors now who come to us with medical conditions, rehab needs, multiple impairments that we've not seen before."
Behee has formed a foundation called Heroes with Head Injuries to provide other families with information on how to navigate the military medical system with a brain-damaged loved one.
In an effort to address concerns about military care, the Army's Wounded Warrior Program, which serves as an advocate for severely disabled soldiers and their families, held the first in a series of symposiums with wounded soldiers and family members. In June, the Army asked the more than 40 attendees to go through dozens of complaints and narrow them to a manageable list. Among the issues raised: problems in the process of notifying families about casualties; a shortage of trained case managers; the adequacy of rehabilitation for severely brain-damaged soldiers; confusion about the medical retirement process; and the need for more financial support for families.
"They are being pushed to the highest level," says Army Col. Mary Carstensen, director of the Wounded Warrior Program.
One recommendation from the symposium was for the military to more aggressively urge soldiers to fill out living wills containing directives about whether medical treatment should be withheld in the event of a dire brain injury.
Ethan Biggers' family is divided. His twin brother, Matt, a former soldier, believes Ethan wouldn't have wanted extraordinary steps taken to preserve his life.
Army Maj. Ronald Riechers, a neurologist who treated Ethan Biggers at Walter Reed, is grim about his future. He says Biggers could either remain in a near-coma or progress to requiring significant lifelong assistance. Perhaps he would be able to sit in a wheelchair, Riechers says.
Cheryl and Liza Biggers believe they see incremental improvement in Ethan and hold out hope. Ethan Biggers' wife, Britni, hopes her husband will someday recognize the couple's son, Eben, born June 2.
Liza Biggers works with hospital staff to stimulate responses from her brother, using Britni's Cotton Blossom body lotion, peeled oranges and Tootsie Rolls.
"I feel that we're here to get Ethan better," she says. "It's not asking too much to sacrifice a year or two of our lives to get Ethan back."
They suffered a setback July 27 when Ethan's father, Rand Biggers, died in a traffic accident. He had shepherded his son through the military's medical system. "I believe in God," he had said. "Something goodwill come out of it."
Today, the Biggers family continues its vigil at Ethan's bedside.
Cheryl Biggers says that for soldiers like her stepson, their last waking thought was of war. "I want to make sure that he knows where he is, that he's safe. We wouldn't be here with him unless it was safe, and trying to convince him to wake up," she says softly, cradling Ethan.
"Come on out and join us," she tells him. "Everybody's waiting."
Ellie