I’ve been meaning to write about this for months now and haven’t really had an inspiration for it. Until the other day. My daughter had been in a major medical center recently, one where some wounded US Marines are at as well…they are at this center for post surgeries and acute rehab care. At my work in the Adult Brain Injury Unit we have a couple wounded soldiers needing care as well. With all the well meaning folks of this great world who want to “do something” for these soldiers, let it be said- don’t go overboard with the self fondling bullshit that I have seen and which embarrasses the hell out of these warriors.

I got the first hint of this issue at work a few weeks back. Some local women had collected money and purchased some materials for the wounded soldiers’ wheelchairs- special battery packs for the power source. It was a great thing they did and the batteries are expensive. The soldiers in question are what we call TBI- traumatic brain injury- which generally means they have pretty signifigant memory problems, physical problems and stuff like that. Some can talk, some cannot; some appear to be alert and others are in coma. One has lost both legs, the other lost an arm.

The women came onto the unit, as guests of one of the big whigs who wanted to use this as a PR gimmick. The women had cameras and notepads…one was taking notes…One lady gasped as she stared at the amputated leg. Another stood there and absent-mindedly mimicked wiping drool off her own chin as the soldier she was looking did so…The worst of it all came from the so called leader of this women’s group, who commented about a urinary leg bag being full and mentioned all the tubing coming out from the solider she was staring at. She meant well, I think, but to ask stupid questions about medical issues and the mental/physical condition of the wounded was not very classy. This same lady said something about blogging about all this…

It really upset the soldiers. They knew their wounds were being gawked at, they knew these women were expecting a big fat THANK YOU. It was very awkward for the guys, to be put up on display like this. It was obvious that these women were standing around, waiting for something- a hug, a thank you, some sort of acknowledgment of their kindness…they didn’t realize how their very presence was so belittling to the wounded.

I was pissed off at the PR aspects of this and I took control of the situation. I escorted the women off the unit-and I wasn’t very nice about it (LOL am I ever?), along with the VP who sort of arranged all this. Of course he threatened me with being written up and all that crap…to which I reminded him, the patients safety and well being comes before his need for publicity. He promptly shut the hell up. The President of my facility thanked me for doing the right thing and wrote up the VP for allowing such a situation to occur in the first place.

Once the women left, one of the soldiers let out a big sigh of relief. He looked at me, and used his communication board to spell out, very slowly:
SHE embarrassed ME. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.

And I won’t. I promised him.

The science of healing, recovering, from severe injuries is a private matter. Those who have been wounded need time, space, respect, privacy as well as the nursing care. The pressure of having pain, memory problems, extreme disablity is bad enough to deal with. The emotional turmoil of these soldiers is ever present. They don’t need people they don’t know showing up, while they are in the process of this recovery. to gawk and gasp and google over them. It’s a matter of dignity.

A word to those who plan to do these things:
DON’T. DEMAND. ANYTHING.
DON’T EXPECT A THANK YOU right away.
DON’T STARE. And DON’T speak about wounds, tubes, machines. Watch your body language.
Know that your very presence might be embarrassing for the soldiers.
Wait until the healing has ended or is at it’s later stages.
Educate yourself just a little about the conditions you might encounter when such a visit is planned.
Have some class.
Remember. Dignity.

Sometimes life really sucks. Some people seem to get a real bad hand dealt upon them.

At work over the weekend, I took care of a very young man who was in an auto accident. The accident happened right after Thanksgiving. He was a passenger in the back seat; the driver was intoxicated. Hitting a tree at 50 mph. the young man was ejected over 75 feet. Onto the pavement.

Here we are 2 1/2 months later; he is still in a coma. His mother stays with him 24/7; she refuses to except the coma state and thinks her son is asleep. He has a tracheotomy;
central line; a JPEG tube feeding him and various other catheters and tubes coming out of his body.

His Glasow Coma Scale ratings have been hovering right around 3…With 15 being like you and me-3 is SEVERE BRAIN INJURY.

The kid is 17 years old and had his whole life ahead of him. His girlfriend comes to see him every weekend, and she wonders if he will “wake up” in time to bring her to the Prom in May.

His Dad is there every day, but goes home at night to work. He is always telling his son to “Wake up, we need to fix your car”…

I have been in this line of work for years and I have seen many young people in coma’s come out of it…In relatively decent shape. But this kid-I don’t know. He has a certain postering and absolutely NO response to anything we do. Rolling a pen across his fingernail-and pushing down hard-(causes me to yell out and leaves a nice bruise on my nail)-when we did it to the kid, as part of the coma assessment, he did not react at all. No eye movement, no wincing, nothing. I hope I am wrong, but I think this kid is going to be remain comatose for the rest of his life. Which could be as long as he would have lived without being in the accident. Such a waste of a life. A handsome young man with dreams and desires and fears and loves. All in there, somewhere. Maybe never to come out.

I was in tears everytime I moved him around in his bed; every hour we were in his room turning him; emptying tubes and canisters and providing tube feedings. Cleaning his trach site and changing his linens; checking vital signs and providing mouth care. Moving each of his limbs through a series of exercises to keep them from becoming stiff and contracted; his arms are already casted due to slight contracures. Of course, he cannot do ONE thing for himself. He is in a deep coma.

Nursing staff are “taught” not to get emotional while taking care of patients. There is a professional line, a boundary, we are expected to stay behind. No matter how we feel, we are not supposed to show any feelings. Sort of like being told to be a robot. Well this robot cried all weekend. And so did my co-robots. It is WAY too hard to see this young man like this. Up above his bed, above the oxygen tanks and tubes, are lots of family pictures. We saw lots of smiles, a family eating a turkey dinner just three days before the accident; a picture of a young man with his girlfriend…

Its a shame. DON’T. DRINK. AND. DRIVE. Or get in a car with a drunk driver…By the way-everyone else in that accident is fine.