Just Remember to Breathe by Charles Sheehan-Miles Page A

there was still a significant risk of losing my leg: the muscle and deep tissue damage was pretty bad. I spent almost thirty days in Germany, then they shipped me to Washington, DC, where I stayed until my discharge from the Army in the middle of May. They’d saved my leg, but at that point I was still in a wheelchair.
    It was at Walter Reed that I met the outreach coordinator from Columbia University, who urged me to apply. I was doubtful. Beyond doubtful. I didn’t think I’d be able to succeed in college, must less at a top-rated college like Columbia.  
    My mother, though, pushed me to do it. She pushed me to get out of the wheelchair, to follow through with my physical therapy, to do everything the doctors said and more. She worked with the guy from Columbia, who smoothed the path ahead of me, including the fact that I’d long since missed the application deadline. And so here I was.
    Look, I get it. I’m a pretty lucky guy. Roberts is pushing up flowers in a cemetary in Birmingham, Alabama. I met his family back in August. I’d finally gotten free of the wheelchair, and I went out there to have a beer with his dad, hug his mom, and cry. Of course, I didn’t tell them it was my fault Roberts was dead. Sometimes I wish he’d been the one who lived. I mean, it was just chance. Why did it kill him and leave me alive? I don’t know.
    The flip side of being a lucky guy is, sometimes I’m not the same guy I was. I want to draw a picture in your mind. Just imagine a brain… a big gray blob, connected to your body through the brain stem and spinal cord, floating and cushioned by fluid and protected by my big thick skull. Now take a sledgehammer and hit it, hard.  
    That’s pretty much what happened. It’s been tough to accept, to be honest with you. I may not have been the best student in the world, but I was pretty damned smart. Used to be, anyway. Now… I have some problems. Can’t remember things sometimes. Like where I’m supposed to be, or what day it is, or how to add and subtract. It’s much worse when I’m tired, but you can see evidence pretty frequently, when I forget words. I’ll just be talking up a storm, then all of the sudden I’ll forget simple words—like blue, or sky, or my own name. It’ll be right there on the tip of my tongue, but I just can’t get it out.  
    In any event, when I got accepted to Columbia, the Atlanta VA made arrangements for me to continue my physical therapy here in New York. Three times a week I’m down at the VA on East 23 rd to get poked and prodded, stretched and pulled.
    “Morning,” I said when I was called and walked slowly, without the cane, to Jerry Weinstein’s office.
    Jerry’s a big guy. A monster. A fortyish Marine who lost a leg in Iraq back in 2004, he’s got zero sympathy for any bullshit from me. Strangely, I like him. But God if he doesn’t love to cause me pain.
    “What’s up, Paris? Why are you so cheerful? It’s Monday morning.”
    I looked at him, tried to keep a straight face, and said, “I can’t think of any place I’d rather spend my Monday mornings than with a washed up Marine with a cruelty fetish.”
    He guffawed. “You’re gonna get extra work for that, dogface.”
    “Bring it, jarhead.”
    He stood with a grin, asked, “All right, how’s the leg?”
    “Better. I’ve been off the cane for a few days. I carry it around just in case. Still moving slow as hell, though.”
    “What about the noggin?” he asked, tapping the side of his head.
    I shrugged. “Struggling some, especially with math. I used to be really good at math.”
    “Hmm,” he said, nodding. “Any light sensitivity?”
    I tapped my sunglasses. “Yeah, always.”
    “Headaches?”
    “Might be better, I’m not sure.”
    “All right. When was your last CAT scan?”  
    I thought about it. Then shook my head. “I don’t know. It was in Atlanta… three weeks ago? A month ago?”
    He nodded, slowly, then said, “All right, time to get another.