Climb the Mountain Read online

  Climb the Mountain

  By David R. Beshears

  Greybeard Publishing

  www.greybeardpublishing.com

  Copyright 2010 by David R. Beshears

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Greybeard Publishing

  P.O. Box 480

  McCleary, WA 98557-0480

  ISBN 0-9773646-9-0

  ebook edition

  Copyright 2011 David R. Beshears

  Prolog

  On Friday, October 12, 2007 at 10:00 AM, I received a phone call from a Captain Anderson from the US Army. Our son, Sergeant First Class David Michael Beshears, had been severely injured in Afghanistan.

  David was part of a seven man unit training Afghani police and military. They had been pretty much on their own for their entire tour in-country. Just a few weeks earlier, they had been on a mission for which David was to earn the Bronze Star.

  On this final mission, his 150th, he would earn the Purple Heart.

  His unit had been traveling in two vehicles somewhere near the Pakistani border in northern Afghanistan when the forward vehicle, the one in which he had been traveling, was blown twenty feet into the air. It took 25 minutes to get him out of the Humvee. It took much longer to get a medivac to him. The team and the helicopter attempting to reach them were taking fire.

  David had once said that his greatest fear was to be taken prisoner by the Taliban. Despite this, as they huddled for cover on that dusty road in a foreign land, he told his brothers-in-arms to leave him behind. However, being that these were his brothers-in-arms, their quick response was ‘f*** you, Beshears’.

  The helicopter finally made it to them and got David out. It would be another two days before the rest of the unit made it to safety.

  David was medivacked to Bagram, Afghanistan, then to Germany, and finally to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC. He lost consciousness somewhere en route to Bagram. Due to the concussive blast, he had suffered severe traumatic brain injury, major spinal and internal injuries.

  His mom and I arrived at Walter Reed the day after David. We would spend the next six weeks there with him, most of that time in Surgical ICU. He would then spend seven months at the polytrauma unit in Palo Alto, California. There would then be months more as an inpatient in a physical therapy facility here in Washington State before he would move in with us.

  This journey was documented from the very first day, beginning with daily emails that I sent to family and friends, and later through similar status updates that I entered onto a website that was written to chronicle David’s Journey.

  I wasn’t initially aware that the daily updates that I was sending out were being forwarded on, and forwarded on, and forwarded on; not until we began receiving emails and cards from people that we didn’t even know. Hundreds of people arrived at work each morning anxiously looking for the next status update in their inboxes. Church groups were holding prayer vigils. David had become a part of their lives, a part of their families. Our struggle had become their struggle.

  Important Note:

  The emails included throughout this book are presented unedited, shown exactly as they were originally sent out: sentence format, typos, emotional rantings and all.

  The Phone Call

  As a computer programmer, I’m in a position where I can telecommute from my home office on Fridays. I like working out of my office. It’s quiet and I usually get more work done than on those days that I drive into Olympia.

  My method of communicating with management, fellow programmers and the stakeholders of the programs that I’m developing is generally by email. I like email. I don’t really like the phone.

  But on this particular Friday, on October 12, 2007, at about 10:00 in the morning, I am on the phone. I’m talking with someone named Captain Anderson.

  “Your son has been injured,” he said. “It was a roadside bomb. I’m afraid that he’s in serious condition.”

  When I hung up the phone, my mind and body were completely numb. I remember concentrating on each breath. My chest was shaking. It was vibrating. Something weird was happening to my heart. I don’t think it was quite sure what it was supposed to do.

  And yet I somehow thought to send an email to Laura, my supervisor. I was letting her know that I wasn’t going to finish out the day.

  My wife Sylvia made it home within an hour. She was hysterical. She began pounding her clinched fists on the kitchen counter and screaming out “No! No! No!” I tried my best to comfort her, to be strong for her. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?

  I told her that from what the captain had said, that while David’s injuries were serious, it sounded like he was going to be all right.

  But, as we soon found out, Captain Anderson hadn’t known the true severity of our son’s injuries.

  I would be on the phone most of that day, throughout the night, and for several days afterward. I would follow David as he moved from hospital to hospital; first to Bagram Afghanistan, then to Germany, and eventually reaching Walter Reed in Washington DC I would talk with each doctor that he was handed off to. I talked with residents and with nurses on the floor.

  And I kept my supervisor informed as to what was going on. On my telecommute days, I would always let her know what I was working on, if I was going to step away from my desk, whatever. Letting her know what was happening on that Friday just seemed like the normal thing to do. As it turned out, I would continue this for months, and then for several years.

  Friday, October 12, 2007

  10:12AM

  My son was hit with a roadside bomb.

  He is in serious condition.

  He has numerous injuries, legs, pelvis, abdomen.

  He is in exploratory surgery for his abdomen.

  Friday, October 12, 2007

  1:25 PM

  David is still in surgery.

  All I know is that he in serious condition. I have a 1-800 number that I can call 24 hours a day.

  I did find out that he is in a hospital in Bagram, Afghanistan.

  The Army travel office contacted me about travel arrangements overseas "if we are needed to be at his bedside".

  Saturday, October 13, 2007

  9:56 AM

  David's injuries are much more severe than was first indicated.

  He is in critical condition. Back fracture, spinal cord injuries, fractured pelvis, broken femur, bruised lungs, concussion, brain swelling. Infection has set in. He is under heavy sedation and is on a ventilator and is bound up in weights.

  He was flown out of Afghanistan overnight and has been in surgery in Germany most of the day (it is 6:30 PM there now). If they can stabilize him enough, a team will take him to Walter Reed tomorrow (Sunday). They are concerned about his lungs during travel.

  When I asked his doctor about the "life threatening" status of his injuries, her main concerns were infection from his pelvis injury, brain swelling, and clots in his lungs. These are being watched.

  Monday, October 15, 2007

  6:02 AM

  David is at Walter Reed.

  He is still in critical condition. He is on a ventilator, has a monitor in his skull to track brain swelling, and is being kept fully sedated. He is not out of the woods.

  He has a crushed lumbar vertebrate, back fracture, broken femur, broken pelvis, brain concussion, bruised kidneys, bleeding around the spleen, and a lot of lesser injuries.

  They tried to lower the sedatives to bring him around long enough to get info they can get only when he is conscious. However, when they did, he began involuntarily reacting to the ventilator tubes in his throat and lungs and they had to put him back under. While they were very happy at seeing such a level of response, they weren't able to get whatever info they were looking for.

  They were going to send him down for CT scans overnight. They want to see if the crushed vertebrate injury also damaged his spinal cord. I will know the results this morning.

  They are making arrangements to bring us to Walter Reed. We will probably be going out Wednesday night on a red-eye. I should know for sure someday today.

  Tuesday, October 16, 2007

  5:18 AM

  We're waiting on a phone call from Walter Reed.

  We're flying out tonight rather than tomorrow night. David is going into surgery today to install clot filters and surgery tomorrow for his spine.

  Tuesday, October 16, 2007

  8:25 AM

  They are flying us out early... like early this afternoon. We're being picked up in a little while.

  I know this is asking a lot, but I think that what you were putting together for my grandkids was very thoughtful (Sylvia cried. Her work had wanted to know why she didn't finish out her shift when we first got word about David). Is there any way you can send it to us?

  If you can, they are putting us up at:

  Courtyard by Marriott

  8506 Fenton Street

  Silver Spring, MD 20910

  I'll let you know what happens. I'm not taking my laptop, so I won't be communicating email. I'll try and call.

  During those first few days before we left for Walter Reed, Sylvia was frequently on the phone with her family. Once at Walter Reed, she would continue to talk with them regularly, but as for day by day status updates, her family would come to rely on the
nightly emails that I sent out from the hotel computers.

  Each evening after returning to the hotel from our day with David, I would sit at the computer kiosk in the hotel lobby and detail the events of the day. As these were going to David’s grandma and grandpa, I would do my best to come up with something good that had happened. While I never hid the truth, and always gave them all the facts that I could remember, I tried my best to find something good about that day; something positive.

  As I look back now, I believe those daily emails helped me get through some extraordinarily terrible times. I was forced to find a little bit of good in every day. I took that in, took it to heart, and made sure that we all saw at least some good, and thereby avoided (for the most part) letting the bad completely overwhelm us.

  And when I sent this status update off to family each night, I cc’d copies to my supervisor and my IT manager. It wasn’t until weeks later that I found that Laura was forwarding these updates on to dozens of other state employees who were concerned about David. Many of these folks were then forwarding them on to their coworkers, friends and family.

  Walter Reed

  We flew out of SeaTac airport in the early afternoon on October 16th, 2007. I don’t remember too much of the flight, but I do remember coming into the airport in DC It was almost midnight and the monuments below were lit up and visible in the darkness.

  If we had been on vacation, I no doubt would have been suitably impressed. As it was, what meaning they held for me was ill-omened. My son was somewhere nearby, and very bad things had happened to him.

  I was surprised at how quiet the airport was. There were very few people about and what talking there was seemed hushed. We had brought only carry-on baggage, so Sylvia and I went immediately to where we were told we would be picked up. There was to be both a military and a civilian representative waiting to take us to see David and then take us on to the hotel.

  No one was at the pick-up location near baggage claim. Absolutely no one; no other passengers, no airport staff, and no one waiting to meet us. That entire section of the airport was deserted.

  So we waited.

  After fifteen or twenty minutes I started wandering around within the terminal and on the sidewalk just outside. I finally met our guide halfway between where we were waiting and where he had been waiting. He had gotten the flight numbers wrong.

  He was alone. It took another few minutes for the privately contracted SUV limo to pick us up. I never did ask about the other person that was supposed to be with him.

  Being as late as it was, now well after midnight, we asked to be taken directly to the hotel. I really didn’t want to go to my unconscious son’s bedside in the middle of the night and see how badly he had been hurt, and then go to the hotel, lay my head on the pillow and close my eyes.

  Since David had a surgery scheduled for 8:30 the next morning, we would go in at 7:00.

  The drive from the airport to the hotel was surreal. Our guide made small talk, noting what the area had to offer as would any tour guide. I guess he assumed that we planned to take in the sights while we were in town.

  At one point we could see the Washington and Lincoln monuments, brightly lit against the black of the night. They were wondrous sights, as they had been from the air. I tried to admire them, but they really held little interest for either of us.

  Much of the drive was through residential and side streets, winding roads and very dark shadows. The driver explained that this was a faster route than taking the main streets, even late at night.

  We pulled up outside the back entrance of the hotel and entered through an unattended lobby. We had to call up for the elevator that connected this lower lobby to the main lobby. We would later find that this was to be our regular access to the street. The hotel shuttle to Walter Reed would pick us up and drop us off at this back entrance. The lower lobby was never clerked.

  Our guide helped us get checked into the hotel. Though our lodging was to be taken care of by the government, we did have to present a credit card for other charges that we might accrue. This would come back to bite us. The way the overnight hotel clerk incorrectly set things up, the lodging charges were held against our account each day, pending payment from the government. As we had given our check card, these lodging charges, which grew daily, were held against our checking account. Of course, we didn’t realize this until Sylvia had a look at our checking account online days later.

  The Marriott would face the wrath of the United States Army on this. The hotel had only recently been added to the contract to provide lodging to families of wounded soldiers. The two wars were creating a lot of wounded and current lodging hadn’t been keeping up with the demand.

  Still, if the Marriott expected to keep this lucrative contract, they had to meet all expectations. This included shuttle service to and from the hospital, clean rooms and housekeeping services, and no holding the charges on client checking and charge accounts against payments that were to be made by the government.

  Our guide went with us to our room, made certain we were settled in, and had me sign a couple of documents. I think they acknowledged that he had done his job and that we were satisfied with what we had been provided.

  Sylvia and I settled in for the few hours before dawn.

  David’s wife Semiha (Sem) had arrived at Walter Reed the day before, and she and the two kids had a room at the same hotel. Over the next day or so we would find that there were several other wounded warrior families also staying at the Marriott, as well as contract employees on assignment to Walter Reed and being billeted at the hotel.

  This meant that demand for shuttle service frequently exceeded the number of available seats. In the coming weeks we would sometimes find ourselves waiting an hour or more for a ride to the hospital, or while at the hospital waiting for a ride back to the hotel. As we grew more and more exhausted, physically and mentally, day by day, this would become increasingly arduous.

  The traffic between the hotel and the hospital was some of the worst that I’ve ever seen, and while I don’t want to generalize, the drivers in that area were often some of the rudest, most inconsiderate people that I’ve ever come across.

  But on that first morning, this very strange, very alien world barely registered on my numbed consciousness.

  All we wanted to do was get to our son.

  We eventually reached the Walter Reed campus gate, showed our identification and were passed through. We drove past the helipad up on the right, and were dropped off at the front doors to the hospital. In the coming weeks, our hearts would sink every time we heard a helicopter arriving. Another wounded kid was being brought in…

  We walked into the hospital and lined up at the check in desk in the center of the massive front lobby. I would later see this signing in process as a rather meaningless endeavor. In a few weeks, once Sylvia and I moved to the nearby Mologne House, we would come in through an unattended side door that was accessible to anyone and was heavily used. There was also an underground route that ran from the old hospital building to the main hospital building.

  For now, we followed protocol. We signed in, went to the elevators and up to the fourth floor. We walked a maze of hallways to Surgical ICU (SICU).

  Stepping into our son’s room sent my mind spinning. There was my boy in the hospital bed, barely recognizable and yet immediately identifiable. Ventilator tubes crawled out of his mouth, strung to his left and attached them-selves to a machine with banks of buttons, LED readings and glowing red numbers.

  A wire protruded from his skull, attached to a line that ran from his brain to a machine next to his head, this also flashing a number: the pressure inside his skull.

  A massive neck brace kept his head from moving. The concern wasn’t that David would move on his own, but that shifting would occur when medical staff had to work with him.

  Mounted on the wall behind him were green oxygen tanks and clear plastic bottles, some providing moisture to David’s ventilation, some collecting moisture from the breath that the machines pushed out of his lungs.