#14 So Today We Made Some Calls

Soldier had a very bad start to his weekend and was confined to the safety unit -- where he can't hurt himself or others. His Saturday and Sunday seemed better. He called and asked whether another soldier (a girl) could come live with US when she is discharged because she doesn't have any place else to go. This is the second time he has "adopted" a "stray" soldier and asked if we would let them move in with us. The answer for the second time was "no". How do you tell him we aren't even sure we can handle (gracefully) having our own child come live with us because he has such problems and we have never cared for someone who has mental health problems and his seem pretty severe right now. We could never imagine him going anywhere else, and of course, we will do whatever we need to do to help our son. We tell him to worry about himself. But it shows what a big heart he has... and how much he thinks of us as good parents, I suppose -- that he would bring other soldiers in distress here under our wing. More than we can handle at our ages, I'm afraid (we're much older than other parents of 21 year olds... he is our youngest child -- with 12 years between him and the oldest.)

We called a patient representative at the base hospital today to draw their attention to the fact that this Soldier is getting WORSE not better. What I thought was going to be a "blow me off" telephone conversation actually turned into a series of in-depth discussions of treatment options, what the Army should be doing, what's not been done by either the Army or the private facility. In fact, the Officer -- who from the start had been both courteous and respectful -- had a very fast uptic in attitude the instant he found out that I was not just someone's crybaby momma calling about one of the Basic training recruits that had wilted under the strain of basic training, but that I was the mother of a Soldier who was not only a combat vet, but a wounded vet in the unit that had more deaths than any other during their rotation through Iraq... and that I was only calling after 5 weeks of ineffective treatment.

It probably also helped some that this officer was also a clinician and that I had found the DoD/VA Medical Guidelines for the treatment of PTSD and the DoD Iraq War Clinician's Guide by the National Center for PTSD (yes, both manuals can be found out on the wonderful internet). I stayed up late all weekend reading all about the various methods of treatment and the evaluations of what works most often and what doesn't, including the preferred medications and psychotherapy options.

What is just f*** unbelievable to me and should be a cause for concern is that this hospital -- at a MAJOR Army base in the US -- that has sent its soldiers to Afghanistan once and to Iraq TWICE and will again in the New Year -- the Army Hospital HAS LESS THAN 15 BEDS IN THE PSYCHIATRIC UNIT. That's right... less than 15 beds for an Army base of almost 40,000 active duty Army and an additional 100,000 family and civilian support has just 15 beds for psych patients. Unf***believable! No wonder they have to use a civilian facility. When I asked whether the new budget would help ease that, he said he could find another 30 beds pretty readily but there was no budget to hire staff for those beds!!!

Does the Army think the PTSD is going to go away or not recur the next deployment that they won' need the beds and staff in the future? Is this the way the Army HIDES its problems with PTSD -- by showing just 15 beds and staff at the Army hospital but then have a "consultant" slush budget category somewhere for the soldiers warehoused OFF the base??

Dad called and talked to someone in the battalion command to ask that Soldier receive the assistance with his personal affairs that his unit had promised both Soldier and again to me when I traveled cross-country to see Soldier. Everyone seemed concerned and angry that Soldier had not gotten the help and promised to investigate that further. So we stirred the pot and we'll give it a few days to see if they are good to their word.

I was thinking today that we could not have imagined how long a journey this would be when the Army called us so many months ago to tell us he had been wounded... How relieved we were when his injuries healed and he returned to his unit... We thought that the hard part was over. We could not have imagined that those were just the first steps in this nightmare of a very long journey.