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In any case, this is a situation that will not disappear. And it will affect not only the survivors, or their families, or the armed forces.
“Outside the military, this will become a societal issue,” says Lux. “This will be a problem in the aftermath of this conflict. We will all have a responsibility to deal with it.”
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What TBI Does
• Mild TBI causes headache and subtle decrements in attention, memory, information processing speed, information synthesis, organization and task execution associated with anxiety, depression, irritability and lost self-confidence.
• Moderate TBI can cause substantial lifetime impairments of cognitive, visual, motor, emotional, social, sexual or vocational functioning with ongoing need for home assistance, job assistance and therapies.
• Severe TBI can cause death, coma, permanent vegetative state, chronic under-arousal, serious disorders of swallowing or communication, seizures, storming, muscle paralysis, muscle spasticity, abnormal bone growth, apathy, disinhibition, dementia or psychosis.
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(sidebar) A Miraculous 99%
News of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) among troops returning from Iraq is disturbing to Bill Roper of Hilton Head Island, S. C., and Culver City, Calif. He knows firsthand how devastating those injuries can be. While a Specialist 4th Class in Vietnam, he was riding in a Jeep that flipped near Long Binh during the 1968 Tet Offensive. His head slammed to the ground, and his brain immediately began to swell. Neurosurgeon Floyd Robinson at the nearby 24th Evac Hospital saved his life by drilling holes in his skull to relieve the internal pressure. However, Roper was in a deep coma, and the severe injury to the right side of his brain paralyzed the left side of his body. He vacillated between unconsciousness and consciousness for a prolonged time. His condition was so bleak, the Army sent his family a telegram saying he wasn't expected to recover. He has no memory of the events from a period prior to the accident to many weeks afterward; he later learned the details from his medical records and conversations with people who had been with him then.
Eventually, Roper was taken to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. for rehabilitation. The doctors there told him the severity of his brain damage meant he would forever be a paraplegic. For Roper, though, that was not acceptable. Having been a good athlete before entering the military, he was used to hard physical exercise. And he’s always been determined. “I wasn't gifted naturally,” he says. “But I worked harder than the other guys. I had always been able to do whatever I wanted to do.”
So when he began his rehab, “I always did more than the therapist told me to do,” he recalls. “I knew I could be normal again if I tried hard enough. I'd walk and fall down. I kept falling and falling. But eventually I walked. At first, I could only shuffle around but the more I used my left leg, the better it got. They offered me a walker, but I was too proud to take it. I walked out of the hospital on my own.”
Roper also began lifting weights while in Walter Reed. “I couldn't even hold anything at first,” he recalls. But, just as he trained his left leg to work again, he did the same to his left hand and arm.
After his release from rehab, he continued to lift weights and run, even running marathons. Today a successful businessman, Roper has only a slight residual weakness on his left side, and he still exercises regularly to hold that at bay. He limps when tired, and it’s hard to carry a cup of coffee in his left hand without spilling it. Yet, he characterizes his recovery as “not 100 percent, but 99. Miraculous.”
Roper understands that recovery from TBI often depends on the type and severity of the injury; he knows he was very fortunate. Yet he believes that most people can recover farther than they or their doctors believe is possible—if only they work hard enough at it.
“My recovery was all about the power within myself and being able to tap into it,” he explains. “Everybody has this power. The power of all creation is within everyone. So, it’s not hopeless. You can be what you want to be and overcome your injury, but you must be willing to do you think you can. You must be willing to tap into that power.”
Roper can be reached at W2003roper@aol.com.
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TBI Resources
• Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center: www.dvbic.org
• Military Severely Injured Joint Support Operations Center: 888-774-1361 –
