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Injured vets' families gladly shoulder load but hope for help

By Lisa Ryckman, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 27, 2008 at 9:05 p.m.
Updated November 27, 2008 at 11:53 p.m.

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Tracy Keil gives her husband, Matt Keil, a drink of wine as she prepares dinner at their Parker home. He was paralyzed by a sniper's bullet in Iraq, and Tracy Keil left her job to care for him around the clock.

Photo by Matt McClain / The Rocky

Tracy Keil gives her husband, Matt Keil, a drink of wine as she prepares dinner at their Parker home. He was paralyzed by a sniper's bullet in Iraq, and Tracy Keil left her job to care for him around the clock.

Tracy Keil helps her husband, Matt, adjust in his wheelchair. The Keils said that home-care aides from the Veterans Administration weren't much help to them.

Photo by Matt McClain / The Rocky

Tracy Keil helps her husband, Matt, adjust in his wheelchair. The Keils said that home-care aides from the Veterans Administration weren't much help to them.

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The Iraq war disabled them in very different ways: one soldier instantly paralyzed by a sniper's bullet, the other brain-injured by months of head-rattling explosions.

But the bottom line was the same for both Staff Sgt. Matthew Keil and Army combat engineer Joel Hunt: They needed constant care, and family members stepped up.

For Keil's wife, Tracy, that meant giving up her career to help her husband around the clock. For Hunt's parents, David and Judy, it meant an abrupt move from New Mexico to Colorado to deal with an injury they didn't understand.

"You look at it that it's your son, and that's just something parents are supposed to do: take care of them," Judy Hunt said.

The Veterans Administration offers adult day care at its facilities or a home-care aide for Matt Keil: Despite being a quadriplegic, he's considered too healthy for more. But a VA aide would be unable to help him live anything near a normal life, the couple says. Regulations would forbid taking him out of the house, for example.

"It would be like leaving him with a baby sitter," Tracy Keil said.

The Keils and other families of disabled veterans believe the government should compensate them for the care they provide. In many cases, they must choose between their loved one and their livelihood - jobs with benefits, money for bills and the ability to save for retirement.

"For me, it's not about the money," said Tracy Keil, who left her $58,000-a-year job as an accountant. "I just wish the VA would value what we gave up and what we as family members all sacrifice with whatever our personal goals were and just appreciate what we're doing. They take us for granted."

TBI is common

Change might be coming for some, though it's unclear when. The Veterans Health Care Authorization Act of 2008, awaiting congressional action, would create a pilot program to train and pay relatives as caregivers for soldiers afflicted with traumatic brain injury, known as TBI.

TBI is called the "signature" injury of the war, caused by widespread insurgent use of improvised explosive devices. The Congressional Brain Injury Task Force estimates up to 150,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan may have suffered brain injury; a study found TBI in nearly one in six veterans at Fort Carson.

The VA has opposed the veterans health care measure, in part because it could be held liable if anything happened to a soldier cared for by a government- trained family member. But the Keils are hopeful the new administration might see its value, even though it might not apply to Matt. His TBI is moderate, mostly affecting his memory.

"Even if it doesn't benefit us, we don't even care, because we know the families it's going to benefit," Tracy Keil said. "We have friends whose parents had to quit their jobs to take care of their son. They did it because they love him, and they don't want to see him living in a hospital or nursing home, and they don't want other people taking care of him. And they lost everything."

Parents asked to help

Judy Hunt said as retirees with part-time jobs, she and David had less to lose when they came to Denver to care for their youngest son, Joel. They thought they'd be back home in a couple of weeks, but they had no idea how disabling his TBI was - or even what it was. All they knew was that Joel's wife was out of the picture, and he was alone.

"That's when the VA called," Judy Hunt said. "They said they wanted us to come and stay with Joel to see whether he was able to live on his own. Otherwise, he'd go into a VA (nursing) home."

Like many TBI victims, Joel suffered from extreme light sensitivity, slurred speech, dizzy spells and blackouts that made it impossible to drive or work. He has improved enough to drive, as long as he has a GPS system to show him how to get where he's going.

"The doctor says he can concentrate on one thing at a time - something else comes in, it confuses him," his mother said. "He uses a Palm Pilot because otherwise, he wouldn't remember anything. He has to wear sunglasses all the time because of his eyes."

The Hunts have realized they probably need to relocate in Denver to make sure their son has support, and they put their house on the market.

"You just don't know what to plan or what to do," Judy Hunt said.

Togetherness is trying

For Tracy Keil, there was no question she would be wife, best friend and full-time caregiver to her husband. Every day she feeds him, brushes his teeth, empties his urine collection bag, gives him 30 pills. At night she hoists him out of his wheelchair, puts him in bed, undresses him. She takes care of meals, medical supplies and prescriptions and drives him wherever he needs to go.

They are with each other all day, virtually every day, because there is rarely anyone to offer respite. Home-care aides paid for by the VA failed to meet minimal standards of competence and cleanliness, the couple said. The VA suggested if Tracy wanted to go back to work, she could drop her husband at adult day care.

Not an option, the couple said. But they've discovered the constant togetherness can be emotionally trying.

"There have been times we'll drive each other absolutely insane. There have been times I've been ready to throw in the towel and say I can't do this," Tracy said. "But that's just not reality."

During a Veterans Day visit to Washington, D.C., Tracy asked VA Secretary James Peake about the compensation program. He told her the agency was having trouble determining who would benefit and asked her help with that.

"You always, always, always have people who will milk the system," she said. "Unfortunately, that can ruin it for the rest of us."

The Keils consider themselves fortunate to have family near their new home in Parker, built free of charge by the nonprofit Homes for Our Troops. It has extra-wide hallways and wheelchair-friendly bathrooms, a view of the Rockies and a five-acre lot level enough for Matt to navigate.

They moved in at the end of September and have settled into a life that has become simpler in some ways but so much more complicated in others.

"There are so many things that go through your mind that you really want to do. But it's not about you anymore," Tracy said. "You just don't do whatever you want to do if there's nobody to take your place."

Traumatic brain injury

* What is it? A blow or jolt to the head or a penetrating head injury that disrupts brain function. For U.S. troops in Iraq, the injury often is related to the concussive blasts of roadside bombs. The exact physiological action that causes the brain injury is still unknown. Impairment can range from mild and temporary to severe and long-lasting.

* Symptoms: Headaches; dizziness; irritability; sleep problems; problems with concentration, memory, vision and hearing; depression; anxiety; impulsiveness; and emotional outbursts.

* Help available: Brain Injury Association of America, 1-800- 444-6443, or biausa.org; Army Wounded Warrior Program, 1-800-237-1336, or www.aw2.army.mil

Comments

  • November 27, 2008

    10:01 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jbowen43 writes:

    No agency more exemplifies the incompetence of government under the Bush Administration than the VA. Even the Bush FEMA and the Bush Labor Department have to take a back seat to the Bush VA. Thankfully there is a change coming in January. I only hope the vets can hold out until the changes are made to help them.

  • November 27, 2008

    10:37 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    SL10 writes:

    As a vet myself. I am so happy to see an Obama administration soon coming in 53 days. If McCain was elected I would be dead cause McCain would cut funding for my and others care..

  • November 28, 2008

    12:08 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Frank_Zappa writes:

    I receive VA Care and couldnt be more pleased with the care I receive there. The people at the hospital work hard and have nothing to do with the politics or decision made on their funding.

    Denver needs a new hospital at Fitzsimons and Bush's VA Secretary Peake canceled plans for it. Peake incompetent and believes it is cheaper for VA to build a big VA care facility on Fitz but leave the inpatient beds out of it. Peake's plan will require VA to lease inpatient beds at another hospital - meaning the tax payers will have to pay for those beds over and over again for the next 40-50 years. Who benefits from that? The Vets? The taxpayers?

    Bush and McCain are both hollow when it comes to taking care of this Nation's Veterans. Thank goodness McCain lost.

  • November 28, 2008

    10:19 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    listenup writes:

    So the new president elect who accussed our military of air raiding villages and killing civilians - with no military background - actually no experiance of any kind, is with a the wave of a wand going to fix all the problems. PT Barnum once said there is a liberal born every minute. People - try to deal with reality and facts - not emotion and hate, back these soliders correctly by actually contacting them and signing up to help. I have - how about you?

  • November 28, 2008

    1:46 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    HankReardon writes:

    And this is all happening while we are involved in two wars, not during peacetime. That's gratitude for ya.

  • November 28, 2008

    2:55 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    HolierThanThou writes:

    This is a cost of war that no one is willing to pay but we all owe these veterans a moral debt and are obliged to ensure lifelong care for their injuries. There is no excuse for putting such a huge burden of care on the families of injured combat veterans. Even if we provided a full measure of the means, the price they have paid for these wars is horrendous.

    In the short term, the government must quit making excuses or using malingerers as a justification for denying proper care. Better to let five malingerers collect benefits than to deny care for any brave men and women who served.

    In the long term, let us reflect on the fact that having a professional military may not be such a good idea. Throughout history the greatness of an empire was sustained by the citizen soldier. War is too easy when such a small segment of society is forced to bear the whole burden. We've been tolerating the "back door" draft and keeping certain Americans in combat well beyond an acceptable duration for a tour of duty. This increases the likelihood that they will return injured and unfit for productive participation in civilian life, that their marriages will fail, their careers will disappear, and they will loose their homes.

    As a nation, we have a moral obligation to spread this burden as evenly across the entire society as possible. Drafting every able-bodied man between the ages of 20 and 55 who has not served in the military to take courses and training in combat methods would be a start to establishing a citizen soldiery. Then we would have a nationwide pool of potential draftees to call upon for war. We would have the manpower and boots on the ground to completely overwhelm and destroy the enemy in the shortest possible time. Tours of duty could then be shortened to minimize the impact of civilian lives unless of course the conscript is wounded or killed in combat. This brings me to the second social benefit.

    When everyone has a stake in the outcome, war is not spectator sport. With a professional military, it is too easy for us to blithely let ourselves be dragged into foreign military adventures for fun and profit. If every man realizes that it could be himself chasing Haji down some God-forsaken alley in Baghdad or Kabul then we will take war and its consequences seriously.

    I realize that none of these propositions are pleasant nor will they win any popularity contests. Many are those who want to win the war but few are those willing to step up and pay the price. But the price shall be extracted from us sooner or later. As moral and rational people, I believe that it's important for the long-term health and survival of our country to consider whether we want to pay a smaller price now or loose everything later.

  • November 28, 2008

    3:05 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    HankReardon writes:

    Well said, Holier.