Got a tip about this article today. Good reading – check it out.
It was July 4, 2009 when Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Hill had his independence taken away from him. But he doesn’t remember much of what happened on that hot, dusty Saturday, and has no recollection at all of the moment the lights went out on his former life for ever.
His last memory was of a Chinook helicopter rising from a ploughed Afghan field. It carried the lifeless body of 18-year-old Private Robert Laws and other injured men of the Light Dragoons and 2 Mercian, victims of an attack with rocket-propelled grenades by the Taliban. After that, the gaps have to be filled in by others.
It is so interesting that many of us TBI survivors are so different than others.
I have my senses of taste and smell unchanged from before the TBI.
I lost eight weeks of my life. My last memory is about 10 minutes before the accident. My next memory was Father’s day. My VP stopped by for a visit and I remember one comment he made. I am told all five of my stepchildren were there…I remember nothing. I was flown from Albuquerque, NM to Denver, CO in a private ambulance plane. I have pictures of me being loaded onto a gourney, then into an ablulance and then nothing. Two weeks after Father’s day I got an NP to let me go home. Today I don’t think that was such a good idea…but how was I to know?
Like Stewart Hill, I believe who I was before the accident/TBI died that day. My challege today is to come to understand who I am now and how to preserve my family and some semblance of who I was.
The very best to Stewart, Melissa and their children!!!
Stuart
thanks for the story, it is hard for me to read this, deployed there in 2003 with the us army. hope all is working out okay for you…
Reblogged this on veterans news 3.0.
Yeah… thank you for your service. Hard stuff. Stay strong.
True words – very true. It’s like waking up in different skin, sometimes. Keep on keepin’ on…
maybe one day, taking each day as they come. will try and you do the same. thank you for all the sharing you do. much appreciated.
You’re very welcome. Have a very happy new year! Here’s to a great 2013.
amen and you do the same. have a good and healthy new year.