The scar tissue healed nicely, thanks to my mom cleaning all the lacerations with a toothbrush for weeks. I didn’t have any mobility in my middle finger, and Paige always yelled at me for flipping people the bird when I was just trying to give a thumbs-up. My arms were never broken like we originally thought, but I had a pretty nasty gash on my right forearm that required a skin graft. The surgeries on my legs were mostly wound wash-outs and the slow closure of my amputation sites, which also included lots of skin grafts. Skin was shaved off my upper thighs during surgery and applied where needed. The donor sites bothered me more than the spots where they were applied. They felt like really bad sunburns that burned from even a slight breeze. Finally my legs were beginning to take shape, and I would hopefully stand on these stumps with prosthetic legs one day. As I looked down at the beginning of July, my left leg surgery site was successfully closed, but the right leg was going to require a skin flap, according to my new surgery team: the plastics. The entire time I had been at Walter Reed, the trauma surgery team had handled my procedures. This next operation could only be done by a team of plastic surgeons willing to do weird things to help me walk again. Apparently, the muscle, tissue, and skin on my left shoulder would provide the flap surface to be placed at the end of my right leg. Part of my shoulder would now finish off my leg? Seriously? That would be a good party trick later on, I’m sure. Two truths and a lie. One: I’ve met the president. Two: I’m scared of snakes. Three: I do my best walking on my shoulder. Despite our ever-growing list of jokes, this surgery was actually quite serious. It meant spending the Fourth of July in the ICU to monitor blood flow and connectivity of the flap. There was no plan B if my body rejected the flap, but if it worked, it would become a big milestone in my recovery journey. A final procedure to close my leg’s wound site meant the surgeries and procedures should dwindle and weight bearing was just around the corner. Following the flap surgery, I was advancing quickly in physical therapy. It seemed like I was mastering things in a matter of days. I needed to make more time in my day to do longer PT sessions, so I tried to assess my schedule and see what appointments I might be able to cut. I got a few things off my schedule, but I could not figure out how I was going to get out of going to TBI clinic. By default, every amputee gets diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury; pretty much all of us land on our heads when we get injured. I couldn’t really prove I didn’t have one at first, because the drugs messed me up. Now that I was tapering off my IV pain meds, I was passing all the cognition tests. After every session I would ask if I could be cleared to stop going, but they refused because they thought it was too soon. I was convinced I didn’t have a TBI until we went to an authentic Mexican restaurant near the hospital. It was so authentic that our waiter couldn’t speak English. We weren’t worried about it, because I could order for us. I knew conversational Spanish from language school training in the Q Course. I even communicated to the Spanish speakers in my platoon during firefights. But when it was time to order, I could not remember a single word. Paige thought I was joking around, but I couldn’t even remember how to say Hola. I went back to TBI clinic and said I had found my first and only symptom: I had lost a whole language.
Since I was making small daily improvements, I encouraged Paige to coach her team for their national championship tournament and couldn’t wait to show her what I’d learned by the time she returned in just two days. Nothing else mattered except physical therapy and adding one more skill to the growing list that meant I was moving toward functioning like a normal adult again.
PAIGE
Walking to my team’s court, I got a text from our FRG leader saying that Josh’s platoon sergeant, SFC Edgar Barrera, had been injured by an IED. He had lost a hand and both legs. I immediately became nauseous not just for Barrera but for how Josh would react—without me there. I took a deep breath and called him to tell him what had happened to his friend. When I was confident that I had his full attention, I repeated the information I was given. He was frazzled and panicking, but he immediately began reaching out to his platoon to see if he could find out more. I knew this was going to hit Josh hard. SFC Barrera was Josh’s platoon sergeant and one of the toughest people on planet Earth. Josh appreciated his direct leadership style and felt like he would take care of the platoon after Josh’s injury. Now, their leader was a triple amputee, a reality that dropped my heart into the pit of my stomach. Until this day, we had lived our lives as if Josh would be the only amputee in his platoon. We expected the team would learn from Josh’s explosion and watch Josh get better, and no one else would get blown up. Not only had an IED claimed its next victim, but the injury was worse. This was like watching Superman go down. As much as I wanted to comfort Josh, I knew he didn’t want to talk to me. He needed
