thedrifter
10-17-06, 12:17 PM
October 23, 2006
Slow to heal
Families care for troops who can’t care for themselves
By Gregg Zoroya
USA Today
Army chaplain Maj. 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 more closely.
“That’s all right,” she whispered, her left hand gently supporting the base of his head. On it, depressions revealed where battlefield surgeons had peeled back his scalp and removed large sections of skull to relieve swelling from a bullet fired by a sniper in Iraq last 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 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,” said 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 long in previous wars. According to the Pentagon, at least 250 soldiers and Marines have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with head wounds leaving them — at least initially — comatose or unable to care for themselves.
“We all look at the amputees and say, ‘God, they’re really lucky,’” said Liza Biggers, 25, who left her career as a freelance artist to devote her time to her brother.
Families contend with the shock of seeing the physical destruction to their loved ones, and with the dramatic changes to their own lives. 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,” said Edgar Edmundson, 51, who left his job as a 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 injured in a roadside explosion last October 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 said. “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 service members alive and brought them home.
“They’re saving their lives. But there is no system really in place to give them their lives back,” said Marissa Behee, whose husband, Jarod, 27, was shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq on May 25, 2005.
She said her husband showed little improvement after spending three months in the summer of 2005 in one of VA’s new polytrauma centers in Palo Alto, Calif. The centers are designed specifically to treat service members suffering from multiple injuries.
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. However, they concede that war has brought new challenges.
Behee has formed a foundation called Heroes with Head Injuries to provide other families with information on navigating the military medical system with a brain-damaged loved one.
Wounded Warrior Program
In an effort to address concerns about military care, the Army’s Wounded Warrior Program, an advocate for severely disabled troops and their families, held the first in a series of symposiums with wounded soldiers and family members in June. The attendees were asked 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 troops; confusion about the medical retirement process; and the need for more financial support for families.
One recommendation from the symposium was for the military to urge service members more aggressively to make living wills with 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 Biggers at Walter Reed, is grim about his future. He said 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 said.
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.
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 good will come out of it.”
Today, the Biggers family continues its vigil at Ethan’s bedside.
Cheryl Biggers said that for service members 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 said softly, cradling Ethan.
“Come on out and join us,” she tells him. “Everybody’s waiting.”
Ellie
Slow to heal
Families care for troops who can’t care for themselves
By Gregg Zoroya
USA Today
Army chaplain Maj. 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 more closely.
“That’s all right,” she whispered, her left hand gently supporting the base of his head. On it, depressions revealed where battlefield surgeons had peeled back his scalp and removed large sections of skull to relieve swelling from a bullet fired by a sniper in Iraq last 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 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,” said 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 long in previous wars. According to the Pentagon, at least 250 soldiers and Marines have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with head wounds leaving them — at least initially — comatose or unable to care for themselves.
“We all look at the amputees and say, ‘God, they’re really lucky,’” said Liza Biggers, 25, who left her career as a freelance artist to devote her time to her brother.
Families contend with the shock of seeing the physical destruction to their loved ones, and with the dramatic changes to their own lives. 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,” said Edgar Edmundson, 51, who left his job as a 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 injured in a roadside explosion last October 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 said. “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 service members alive and brought them home.
“They’re saving their lives. But there is no system really in place to give them their lives back,” said Marissa Behee, whose husband, Jarod, 27, was shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq on May 25, 2005.
She said her husband showed little improvement after spending three months in the summer of 2005 in one of VA’s new polytrauma centers in Palo Alto, Calif. The centers are designed specifically to treat service members suffering from multiple injuries.
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. However, they concede that war has brought new challenges.
Behee has formed a foundation called Heroes with Head Injuries to provide other families with information on navigating the military medical system with a brain-damaged loved one.
Wounded Warrior Program
In an effort to address concerns about military care, the Army’s Wounded Warrior Program, an advocate for severely disabled troops and their families, held the first in a series of symposiums with wounded soldiers and family members in June. The attendees were asked 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 troops; confusion about the medical retirement process; and the need for more financial support for families.
One recommendation from the symposium was for the military to urge service members more aggressively to make living wills with 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 Biggers at Walter Reed, is grim about his future. He said 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 said.
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.
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 good will come out of it.”
Today, the Biggers family continues its vigil at Ethan’s bedside.
Cheryl Biggers said that for service members 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 said softly, cradling Ethan.
“Come on out and join us,” she tells him. “Everybody’s waiting.”
Ellie