Kyle\’s Story: Life As a Disabled Veteran

Even before I could fully grasp the importance of generational service I wanted to be a soldier. I use to play \”Army\” in the backyard and always I played as the good guy. I would run into a hail of gunfire, waste my enemies, save my comrades, and in my games, the good guy never got killed. He got to come home, victorious with his buddies, unhurt and unfazed, ready to live a long happy life of honor and respect. My desire to serve grew from the seed of this childhood fantasy as I learned of my family\’s history of military service, starting with both grandfathers, one who served in Korea and the other WWII. Everyone was happy I joined the Guard so that not only could I pay for college but fulfill my familial obligation of military service. I knew that the military itself would be a challenge but never did I expect that the real struggle for me would begin after coming home from multiple tours.

I graduated AIT from Ft. Gordon, GA on March 13, 2006 and by the end of that summer my unit had received orders to go to Iraq. It was supposed to be an \”easy\” deployment, seeing as our primary mission was to fly fixed-wing cargo planes and Anaconda was only the largest coalition air base in theater. However, Anaconda was nicknamed \”Mortaritaville\” for all the indirect fire that the base received, the year we were stationed there the base was hit with between 800-900 munitions and we also had to pull LN/detainee guard at the hospital; Anaconda had the busiest hospital in theater. My second-night pulling guard I was in the ER with a detainee while the Marine who was in the convoy he had attacked bled out and died only two tables down. The detainees of course lived and this stuck with me for the rest of the tour and even when we got back. I experienced many sleepless nights, in fact, insomnia was something that would become a real issue even to this day. Of course, it worsened after my second tour in Afghanistan.

Not being able to sleep most nights, and when I do sleep its one or two hours, has created problems in both my personal and professional life. In particular, I have been pulled over a couple times for swerving but the fact was I was simply driving tired. However, there was one such instance where it wasn\’t as simple as all that, this particular officer did not accept my explanation of, “insomnia related to PTSD\”, instead, being a self-proclaimed veteran himself he proceeded to pry a bit further. He asked me if I was taking any medications for depression or anxiety and when I told him that I did, this gave him all the cause he needed to conduct a field sobriety test and claim that my \”intoxicated\” appearance was a result of my medication. He hauled me down to the station and after I blew all zeroes he demanded that I submit to a blood draw. When the sample camp back that I had various psych meds in my system, the same meds I was prescribed for the treatment of service-related conditions, I was then issued a DUI. Professionally I have lost more jobs than I can count on one hand because I was either not able to focus 100% due to fatigue, or in a couple instances, I was having a hard time staying awake. The truly cruel aspect of this is that when I would come home at night, this still holds true, I would lay in bed, close my eyes, and see all the horrific images I have been exposed to. Needless to say, sleep was elusive.

Going beyond just insomnia, my experiences in Afghanistan led to the birth of such nervous conditions as generalized anxiety and PTSD. This was precipitated by two things: first, having to see my brothers hurt and wounded, having some close calls of my own and the general feeling that at any given moment the war was just off your doorstep; second, having a nervous breakdown while in theatre which was caused by my girlfriend dumping me, being the only person in my section working under an extremely demanding op-tempo, and the death of my father. During all of this, I suffered in silence as my chain of command didn\’t real care to hear about my problems and they certainly didn\’t care that I was being overworked. I honestly don\’t recall sleeping more than a few hours on any given week the entire year.

When I got back I felt so different. I was not a happy go lucky, life loving kid that I was when I first joined up. I was angry all the time, jumpy and I felt disconnected from all those around me. It was like I could be in a room full of people but still feel completely alone. I fought and argued with anyone and everyone, especially my friends and family. I craved conflict and I couldn\’t understand why. This caused distance to form between me and those I loved and my response was to turn inward and isolated myself even further. I would spend days at a time not leaving the house, barely leaving my room. It was a very dark period for me but nowhere near my low point.

In addition to all the emotional and mental troubles I had, I was also experiencing problems with my hip. This started as a catching sensation with some pain. During my time in Afghanistan, it got worse to the point of being associated with extreme pain, almost unbearable. Every time I talked to somebody from the VA my doctors just brushed it off. They told me that it was everything from growing pains to arthritis. I couldn\’t accept this diagnosis of arthritis being that I was only 23 at the time. So I persisted and after 2-3 years of this, I finally got someone to listen and submit a consult to ortho. It wasn\’t long after that I was diagnosed with FAI and scheduled for surgery. Now it should be noted that during this entire time I had been complaining the VA would not offer solutions but they were very willing to offer prescriptions. To put it another way, they were low on hope but high on dope. It was this pattern that led to my addiction to opioid-based painkillers.

My surgery was completed on September 7, 2012, and while my hip was fixed the real damage had been done. I had suffered 90% joint degradation and the surgeon who performed my procedure estimated I would need a hip replacement some time in my mid-thirties. When I had gotten back I had immediately gotten to work on a career in firefighting, but with a weak hip which leads to weak knees and a weak back, I saw my dream dissipate. Being a firefighter was something I had wanted as early as midway through my first tour, I had become fixated on that path as the only path for me and when I saw that as no longer an option everything got worse. My depression worsened as did my addiction.

I would go to follow up appointments and check ups with my primary care team and rarely did my doctors ask how I was doing, just how were the meds working. I had gotten so far away from who I really was that I could no longer even stand to look at myself in the mirror. I had a daughter who I didn\’t even know, a family who did not trust me and life that was nothing like what I had envisioned while I was deployed. I just wanted the pain to stop, the visions, nightmares, the anxiety and the sleepless nights. On March 8, 2014, I took twenty-eight morphine tablets, thinking this was the best way to end it. Somehow I survived. The next thing I knew was that I was gasping for air, with my mother standing over top of me. She had tears in her eyes and her right hand cocked back because apparently, she had been smacking the crap out of me, trying to get me to come around and by the grace of God I did.

After this I had her take me down to the VA hospital in St. Louis and I checked in as an inpatient. I spent the next six months at Jefferson Barracks attending drug rehab, group therapy for PTSD, anger management, frequent visits with my psych doctor and while it took some doing the doctors their finally got me on the right mixture of meds to help me sleep. I can honestly say that was the first time I had a full, restful eight hours of sleep in seven years. After being discharged later that year in late August, early September I was vastly improved. For one thing, I was no longer suicidal and haven\’t been since. Although things haven\’t always been great I still seek ways to improve by small steps at a time. I finally have the support of my family and their trust back in my life. With their love, I am able to handle things a lot better.

The biggest thing I have had to learn is that my experiences have changed me and I\’m not like most other people in society now because of it. It is something that has taken a great deal of patience. Due to my shortened fuse and sensitivity to anxiety, I have to avoid certain triggers and situations that I know are too much for me to handle. I have learned to be in tune with my emotions and to always have a plan for when things go wrong. The military put me through a lot but it also gave me a lot. Adjusting to life afterward was tough but I would serve all over again if I had the chance. I am happy now to be back in school and have a new direction in life, something that has been missing for a long time. Ultimately I want to be in a position to give back to the veteran community because it was my fellow vets who helped me through my darkest hours. Knowing that there are other vets out there right now who are suffering as I did is what gives me the strength to hope, to dream again and fills me with that same sense of duty in purpose that I had when I was still actively serving.

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