Sigh

[pecunium]

I'm glad it's happened, but the price was too high.

Army tests new prosthetics

Mind, I am sad that Walter Reed is closing. I have an intense fondness for it. The campus is lovely the staff were wonderful, and I was far better when I left than I was when I arrived.

But I wish to god the cause for the research wasn't there.

Comments

[kestrels-nest.livejournal.com]

I keep feeling I should have words, but they are not there. Only quiet grief, for all the agony that did not have to be.

I find myself thinking that I'm glad they're learning, glad Walter Reed did well for you, glad most of all that you did not leave heart or soul behind, as some I knew did in Vietnam.

None of the words are adequate, but a hug feels presumptuous.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I don't know quite what I left behind. I ain't what I was.

This isn't the first time (the first big advance in the US on prosthetics was in the late 1860s), and it won't be the last.

I'll take that hug, anytime.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. My son will grow up in a society where prosthetic limbs like his, and better than his, are common. Which is both wonderful and terrible...mostly terrible.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

He has a really cool arm. It's a thrill to see him adapt to the change so quickly.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Yes - the advantage of babyhood is that everything is just about equally unfamiliar, so the arm is somewhere between "shoes" and "chew toy" in his mind, even though he's only had it for a couple of days. (And he's only wearing it 1 hour a day right now).

He will probably always have a fairly low-tech arm compared to the new stuff they have for surgical amputees, because he doesn't have the nerve structures to drive bionics. But even body-powered limbs can do a great array of stuff now, and in 20 years, who knows?

I just wish this research wasn't born from the traumatic losses of so many veterans.

[kestrels-nest.livejournal.com]

He's also just learning to use his body generally. So to him, learning to use the arm is just part of that process.

You might be surprised what he can do even with a relatively low tech arm, though. There was a girl in my class when I was in 9th grade who'd been born with an arm that ended about half-way between shoulder and elbow. I didn't even realize she had a prosthetic arm until the day she wore a short sleeved shirt, because its use was so natural to her. She was in a flag corps of the school marching band, too. That was with what was available in 1973. Gods alone know what will be available for Charlie.

I took a look at the photos. He's adorable!

[kestrels-nest.livejournal.com]

I don't know quite what I left behind. I ain't what I was.

I'd be surprised if you were, and I'm sorry. But the person I see now, through your blog, is pretty amazing.

I'll take that hug, anytime.

Okay. *g*
{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Terry}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I don't think I am a "worse" person. Harder now, in some ways, more fragile in others. I might even be a better person (more driven to speak about some things).

I am not, however, sure I am a whole person. I am pretty sure I wasn't when I got back. If it hadn't been for akirlu and libertango, I don't know that the pieces could have been stitched together at all. Lj helped a lot.

A feather on the wind
drifts ever downwards

[mycroftw.livejournal.com]

I agree, the cost is too high.

On the other hand, the fact that there is more incentive to build good prosthetics because of the higher proportion of limb casualties is better than the alternative; that without the improvements in personal armour, many of those limb casualties would have no need for prosthetics.

It's good to know as well that there are improvements in treatment for those whose wounds aren't visible. Add me to the list of civilians whose lives have been improved (maybe saved) by that necessity.

And that that cost is still too high.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

My sadness is... there was no reason not to drive on for those things, absent war.

Maybe the density of mental damage (see, soldier's heart), made it easier to see the shapes and forms of PTS/PTSD, but nothing should have stopped us from looking at prosthetics.

[mycroftw.livejournal.com]

Well, in a way we didn't - my cousin that was waist-down paralysed in an accident was a test bunny for a neural reassignment system that now has him walking effectively naturally, and there are others. And it was a while, a while back, where the War Amps of Canada had many, many more (civilian) children as patients than soldiers (probably still do, but the numbers are climbing back up).

But still, per capita, workplace accidents requiring amputation are highest among the military. Even in peacetime, I would assume. It would be nice if the job became as necessary as Gestetner maintenance; but we both know the chance of that. Having said that, any good that comes out of it should be celebrated, provided it isn't intended as an encouragement.