By Jim Nicholson
The stories hit like a slap to the face—the wife living in a
pick-up on a Veteran’s Hospital parking lot because she could
not afford a hotel room; the mother from Los Angeles existing
on $18,000 a year who rushed to the Veteran’s Hospital in Palo
Alto to be with her seriously injured son and had to be smuggled
into a vacant room in the hospital because, although $18,000
doesn’t go far in Los Angeles, it comes nowhere near renting
a room or apartment for a long term indeterminate stay in Palo
Alto. “My mother was there when I woke up,” says Jeff Seagle
at the Veteran’s Hospital at Jefferson Barracks. “Of course,
it took me two weeks to wake up. My parents were living in a
RV on the Casino Queen parking lot.”
What may once have been the exception is now fast becoming the
rule when it comes to families of service men and women who
have suffered catastrophic injury. Congressional appropriations
cover the cost of medical care. The economic cost to the family
is not factored into the equation. “It’s difficult when people
are not in a financially secure situation,” offers Jeff Seagle.
More to the point, how many families are in a situation allowing
them to pack up and move to hospitals, conceivably states away,
to be with family members living through life or death medical
situations followed by week after week, after month after month
of on-site recovery and rehab?
The Fisher House Foundation offers a solution. Founded by a
New York businessman, Zachary Fisher and his wife, Elizabeth,
and guided by the principal that “a family’s love is good medicine,”
the Foundation has built and donated over 40 group homes at
Veteran’s Administration Hospitals across the United States
and in Germany. As a private entity, the Foundation can construct
the homes minus the encumbrance of bureaucratic red tape. Once
donated, the homes are still subject to the inspection of the
Foundation, which also staffs the homes. The homes provide housing
for the very people unable to afford the necessary luxury of
extended hospital visits. “It’s a good idea, especially for
people who have to come long distances,” observes Todd Meyers,
another patient at Jefferson Barracks. “If you have to recover,
it helps a lot to have family here. It gives you more encouragement.
It would have been great if my wife could have been here.”
The need is apparent. James Donahoe, president of the Fisher
House in St. Louis Foundation (and with the assistance of an
active website, www.fisherhouseinstl.org designed and donated
by Maritz) is actively soliciting funds to construct a local
Fisher House on the bluffs at Jefferson Barracks overlooking
the Mississippi. “We’d like to build during 2008 and open in
late 2008 or early 2009,” Donahoe projects. “In the current
conflict, the two most common injuries are Traumatic Brain Injury
(TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSI).” Left unsaid,
is the obvious fact that both are more often than not accompanied
by serious catastrophic injuries—including single or multiple
amputation, paralyzation, severe burns and various forms of
disfigurement. The only way to differentiate between TBI and
PTSI, and to establish a treatment regimen, is to bring the
patient to a hospital for a full evaluation. It is also essential
to have the Veteran’s family provide their own specialized input
about the Veteran’s behavior.
There’s the rub. Many Veterans’ families, having absorbed the
cost of the journey, simply cannot absorb the additional cost
of housing and food (“We’re dealing with some extremely young
families here,” Donahoe observes). With no place for their families
to stay beyond commercial hotels, which they cannot afford,
Vets all too often cancel their appointments. PTSI and TBI do
not heal themselves.
Veteran’s Administration doctors point out that, as the Veterans
heal and rehab, their families need to learn how to care for
their Veteran—from diet to exercise to skin treatment to avoidance
of skin rashes or sores to when to seek medical treatment. The
list goes on forever, as the conditions are lifelong. Donahoe
explicates that, in the current situation, the family definition
suddenly includes “young spouses (of both sexes), parents and,
even, grandparents,” as the rehabilitation process can take
“weeks, even months, on end.” It is no secret that the severity
of injuries currently being seen are potential ‘marriage breakers’
and that elderly relatives are suddenly taking up the slack
when it comes to care giving.
Donahoe is particularly worried about the situation of National
Guardsmen and Reservists as active military personnel, when
returned stateside, arrive and stay en masse at specific locations
where they all are aware of their shared experiences, and are
more likely to recognize the incipient indicators of PTSI or
TBI. The National Guard and Reservists “because they immediately
go back to work, bring all their baggage with them, and find
themselves interacting with uncomprehending colleagues. There’s
no decompression time,” he points out, while adding that the
Veteran’s Administration views PTSI as a major disability that
often goes unrecognized. “We really need the family to come
in with the Veterans for the evaluation, so we know what symptoms
are seen everyday at home. They are a part of the evaluation.
Quite often the Veteran will not recognize his or her behavior,
or will not admit it.”
Marcena Gunter, the Public Affairs Officer for the VA Medical
Center, firmly endorses the need for family members to have
an active role in a Veteran’s rehabilitation. “They need to
know how much (their Veteran) can do, when to push and when
to compliment (the patient). The financial strains,” she gently
cautions, add to the “strains of relationships suddenly more
vulnerable (to failure)”. A Fisher House available to family
members dealing with medical, financial and personal crises
would obviously ease any number of major concerns.
Both Jeff Seagle and Todd Meyers have visited the proposed site
of the Fisher House. “It’s a beautiful view,” says Meyers, while
Seagle mentions the “tranquility of the water.” They talked
about watching barge tows on the Mississippi and speculating
what was in the barges—grain? coal? scrap? Until Seagle came
up with the answer that seemed to fit best: “They’re full of
broken dreams.” With ample local donations, Jim Donahoe and
the Fisher House Foundation plan to do something about that.
