We checked in to Building 62 on the afternoon of August 10 and plopped onto the couch like we were on vacation. The time went so quickly, but it was amazing. For the first time since the night before I dropped Josh off for his deployment, we were alone together. We slept in the same bed, binge-watched TV shows, and interacted with people when we felt like it. I thanked God for a successful, pain-free attempt at physical intimacy, a marital sanction that we both had feared would be lost forever. Over and over urologists would ask about the “function” of Josh’s male parts, and I would always think, Did you not just walk into this room without even knocking? And now you’re standing there talking about whether Josh would be able to get it on? Get out of here, man. Reconnecting and maintaining this sacred part of us after losing so much lifted a burden off of us that I don’t think we could have carried into this unknown future.
A weekend of lounging around was awesome, but things were different when Monday rolled around. Transitioning into a weekday while living in outpatient showed the difficulties of living with a severely wounded person. Once Josh got showered, I helped clean his wounds and wrap them up for bed. Then I would have to give him his meds and blood thinner injections in his abdomen. I was very apprehensive about administering medication. Josh took about nine pills a day during the week (we tried to taper the pills on the weekends since there was no PT and no surgery), and I was so afraid of mixing them up or not giving the right dosage at the right times. We were also responsible for calling his commanding officers at certain times of the day to check in, and we had to make it to all of his appointments on time. If we didn’t do a good job with this, we could be denied permission to move to outpatient. Josh also grew increasingly frustrated trying to do things himself. He tried to carry things in his lap as he propelled his wheelchair, but as soon as he stopped, everything fell on the floor. He also ran his chair into everything. I wanted to help him as much as I could, but at the end of the day, I knew making him as comfortable as possible defeated the purpose of releasing us from inpatient care. We agreed that he had to get his frustration under control in order to prove that he was able to leave the fourth floor. We received good remarks on our trial run, and our command said they would let us know when a room in Building 62 opened up. Josh was pumped and took this as permission to not be as careful and to go about life with reckless abandon.
The day after we left Building 62, Josh got way too excited in PT and ripped open his donor site from the flap surgery. The healed donor site was supposed to be a hairline scar that went from his armpit to his spine, where the surgeons removed the part of his back that was now the bottom of his right leg. I had noticed Josh had already developed a fluid pocket at the donor site from too much arm movement. I’ve got this, I thought, like I was some trained medical professional. It will just need to be drained with a bulb drain that will ensure no more fluid will build as he’s moving around. This seemingly no big deal of built-up fluid hardly compared to the nine-hour surgeries three days a week and, you know, having a husband with no legs. As usual, Josh was overzealous and tried to transfer from his chair to a table in PT by leaping out of the chair. The minute he hit the table, I could see the back of his shirt becoming saturated with fluid. The fluid pocket had ruptured. In my normal fashion, I rolled my eyes and said, “Really? That was the only way to get out of your chair?” Josh smiled and shrugged his shoulders like he couldn’t help it. Josh was not going to be slowed down by this. Even though Josh didn’t have prostheses yet, his physical therapists were confident he could start going on hospital outings like sporting events. He was not going to miss out on that.
We wheeled Josh over to the wound care section of the Military Advanced Training Center. The MATC was the physical therapy area where patients learned to use prostheses both for hands and legs. Splints, walking aids, and prosthetic adjustments could be done on the spot, then they would try them out. The MATC was all about seeing what worked for each person, because no two amputees could rehab the same way. The space contained exercise equipment like physio balls and dumbbells, video games, and a walking track with a harness that would catch the new walkers. Visitors often described the MATC as the most inspiring place in the hospital. We weren’t to the point where Josh was being fitted for prostheses yet, but at the rate Josh was going, we were close.
However, this day in the MATC wasn’t as cool as watching an amputee stand on his own. When we wheeled back to the wound care area, my suspicion was confirmed: Josh had ripped open the month-old donor site. PT was officially over. We went back to our room on the fourth floor and waited for the plastic surgery team to come look at it. The wound itself was pretty gross, because the fat and muscle from the dermis had been removed to create the flap, so when the incision was opened, you could see straight to the scapula muscle. I was learning more in real time about
