thedrifter
09-03-07, 08:44 AM
Roadside bomb explodes in many directions
By Karen Jowers - kjowers@militarytimes.com
Posted : September 10, 2007
The roadside bomb that injured Staff Sgt. John Q. Adams in Iraq on Aug. 29, 2003, tore through his entire family — and they are still feeling the effects.
Christopher, who was 2 at the time, was frightened after seeing his father for the first time, said Summer Adams, John’s wife, who said her husband, as his name implies, is on the family tree with the second and sixth presidents of the U.S.
Christopher “didn’t want to look at him or talk to him,” she said. John Adams came to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 1, and the children saw him the next day. He had injuries to his arm, his face and his head, along with a traumatic brain injury, which affected his walking.
The other children reacted differently. Brandon, then 4, gave his father a kiss and was very nurturing, Summer said, alerting nurses when “dressings needed to be changed.”
But even after his father came home, “Chris stayed with my mom for a while, because he just didn’t want to be around him,” she said.
As time wore on, Brandon started having anxiety attacks and stomach problems, especially if his dad left the house for an appointment and didn’t come home when he expected. Brandon is now 8.
Chris, now 6, began imitating his father. “He was acting like he had a cane or a walker, and was talking like him,” she said. When they finally found a counselor through the Department of Veterans Affairs, it didn’t work for them.
“It’s hard for the counselor to get past the injury, and the VA is just not used to dealing with children,” she said. They’ve also tried Tricare — unsuccessfully, they say.
She and her husband have both had counseling, which has been very helpful, she said.
“We’ve been talking about the possibility of PTSD in the kids. We get angry, they feel it. I think sometimes about the long-term effects. Or is he trying to get attention? How can an 8-year old have anxiety attacks? We want to nip it now before in the long run it gets worse.”
“Every child struggles with something like this when they have this kind of event take place,” said Dr. Stephen Cozza, a retired Army colonel who is the associate director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Child and Family Programs for the Uniformed Services University.
Such an injury, Cozza said, “disrupts the structure, potentially changes the family constellation, disrupts parenting. These are huge events for anyone to manage.”
Individuals are returning to communities across the country, and like the Adamses, they may not be in a community with available military resources, he said. “We need to be educating our civilian colleagues ... about recognizing and identifying when families and children are impacted by these wound experiences,” Cozza said.
Many things must be considered. “What we’ve become blind to ... is what happens when children come to be involved in health care of their parents or adults,” he said. “They may be exposed to sights that are inappropriate, and they may or may not be properly prepared for the visit.”
Children have different developmental limits at different ages. “They may be very confused about what it means for their parent to be injured,” Cozza said. “It can be very frightening if someone five times your size has been injured. What does it mean about your [own] body integrity?”
In late 2006, when the Adamses went to the Road to Recovery conference in Orlando, Fla., an annual event sponsored by the private, nonprofit Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes, it was a turning point — the first counseling the boys had received.
“They spoke to other kids whose fathers and moms were recovering ... some had even bigger injuries than their own father,” Summer Adams said.
Counselors were able to get the boys to answer questions about being angry or worried, and whether they knew what had happened to their dad — questions the parents had asked without receiving answers, she said.
She said they are again seeing anxiety in Brandon, who often wakes in the middle of the night.
“He won’t let us go out. I think he gets scared that we won’t come back,” Summer Adams said.
“We do need counseling,” she said. “I’m relentless in trying to find it because there’s not much around” their Miramar, Fla., home. “The VA has nothing.”
In the meantime, “we try to take them to every Coalition event we can because we know other kids will be there,” she said.
“You see the differences when they’re around the other kids. They’re not scared, and they ask questions. That is what I want them to do.”
Ellie
By Karen Jowers - kjowers@militarytimes.com
Posted : September 10, 2007
The roadside bomb that injured Staff Sgt. John Q. Adams in Iraq on Aug. 29, 2003, tore through his entire family — and they are still feeling the effects.
Christopher, who was 2 at the time, was frightened after seeing his father for the first time, said Summer Adams, John’s wife, who said her husband, as his name implies, is on the family tree with the second and sixth presidents of the U.S.
Christopher “didn’t want to look at him or talk to him,” she said. John Adams came to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 1, and the children saw him the next day. He had injuries to his arm, his face and his head, along with a traumatic brain injury, which affected his walking.
The other children reacted differently. Brandon, then 4, gave his father a kiss and was very nurturing, Summer said, alerting nurses when “dressings needed to be changed.”
But even after his father came home, “Chris stayed with my mom for a while, because he just didn’t want to be around him,” she said.
As time wore on, Brandon started having anxiety attacks and stomach problems, especially if his dad left the house for an appointment and didn’t come home when he expected. Brandon is now 8.
Chris, now 6, began imitating his father. “He was acting like he had a cane or a walker, and was talking like him,” she said. When they finally found a counselor through the Department of Veterans Affairs, it didn’t work for them.
“It’s hard for the counselor to get past the injury, and the VA is just not used to dealing with children,” she said. They’ve also tried Tricare — unsuccessfully, they say.
She and her husband have both had counseling, which has been very helpful, she said.
“We’ve been talking about the possibility of PTSD in the kids. We get angry, they feel it. I think sometimes about the long-term effects. Or is he trying to get attention? How can an 8-year old have anxiety attacks? We want to nip it now before in the long run it gets worse.”
“Every child struggles with something like this when they have this kind of event take place,” said Dr. Stephen Cozza, a retired Army colonel who is the associate director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Child and Family Programs for the Uniformed Services University.
Such an injury, Cozza said, “disrupts the structure, potentially changes the family constellation, disrupts parenting. These are huge events for anyone to manage.”
Individuals are returning to communities across the country, and like the Adamses, they may not be in a community with available military resources, he said. “We need to be educating our civilian colleagues ... about recognizing and identifying when families and children are impacted by these wound experiences,” Cozza said.
Many things must be considered. “What we’ve become blind to ... is what happens when children come to be involved in health care of their parents or adults,” he said. “They may be exposed to sights that are inappropriate, and they may or may not be properly prepared for the visit.”
Children have different developmental limits at different ages. “They may be very confused about what it means for their parent to be injured,” Cozza said. “It can be very frightening if someone five times your size has been injured. What does it mean about your [own] body integrity?”
In late 2006, when the Adamses went to the Road to Recovery conference in Orlando, Fla., an annual event sponsored by the private, nonprofit Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes, it was a turning point — the first counseling the boys had received.
“They spoke to other kids whose fathers and moms were recovering ... some had even bigger injuries than their own father,” Summer Adams said.
Counselors were able to get the boys to answer questions about being angry or worried, and whether they knew what had happened to their dad — questions the parents had asked without receiving answers, she said.
She said they are again seeing anxiety in Brandon, who often wakes in the middle of the night.
“He won’t let us go out. I think he gets scared that we won’t come back,” Summer Adams said.
“We do need counseling,” she said. “I’m relentless in trying to find it because there’s not much around” their Miramar, Fla., home. “The VA has nothing.”
In the meantime, “we try to take them to every Coalition event we can because we know other kids will be there,” she said.
“You see the differences when they’re around the other kids. They’re not scared, and they ask questions. That is what I want them to do.”
Ellie