Wounded Warriors Family Support

It took me longer than I thought it would to upload these photos and while looking at them a rush of all the positive memories came back to me.

I cannot even begin to express how much this trip has meant to me and my son. We have not had much time to spend together and ever since this trip I feel as if we have been reunited.

While in Florida we took about 3-400 pictures. We had them printed out and we each bought a 300 count photo album. We both sat down at the Bahamas Bay resort and put one of each picture in the albums.

I am telling you, if someone had told me getting (blowed) blew up by a rocket grenade had perks I would laugh in their face. It was a Thursday evening in Kandahar Afghanistan just after dinner. We were done with worked and headed towards our living quarters. As soon as we exited the vehicle, the emergency siren went off, I started running and the rest is history. Four surgeries later and one pending the doctors was able to save my leg and I am walking today without a limp.

Even since I landed in the US in January 2011 my job was to see doctors and specialists.. I had no reintegration, no debrief only medical personnel that was a constant reminder of what happened to me.

One day I went to see my nurse manager Nola Coughlan and she looked at me and said girl I can see that you need a break, I could barely break a smile. Among all my injuries I was diagnosed with PTSD and Major Anxiety Disorder. Nola said, I am gonna see if there something or somewhere you can go to relax and forget for a minute.  She got on her computer and started surfing the internet and found the Wounded Warrior Support site. She got so excited for me as I was still in that blah phase when I walked in her office. She even got on the phone and called to make sure everything was good. She handed me some paper work that she printed from the site as well. I took it and went home and lay them somewhere with my ever mounting medical records.

Of course my interest and low energy level had me not wanting to do anything.. A few weeks went by and Nola ask me what is going on with the vacation. I fumbled some excuse why it wasn’t completed. She insisted I jumped on it right away. It was more out of getting away from talking about the application and when I mention it to my children who got pretty worked up that it was complete. My kids and I have never been on a vacation. They were saying "Mom here is our break, lets go."

So here is the good part. I wasn’t able to get the Summer so Thanks Giving was the next holiday for the kids.. The envelope from Wounded Warrior Support arrived and I opened it and saw the little note cards I started smiling, I continued through the papers and saw the gift card I was so overwhelmed with joy my eyes filled with tears.. The first thing that came to mind was that I can pay the initial out of pocket for my daughter braces, (girl still have her baby teeth) we will have food, money, and gas money for the trip, oh Lord I was bursting with joy. Only my mother had done anything for me that made me feel this way.