by Flo Groberg
“I would give anything to bring him back,” I said. “I am so sorry for your loss, and want you to know that the other guys and I will always be here for you.”
“Thank you, Flo,” Pam said through tears.
Pam Griffin inspired me the same way Heather Gray and Kami Kennedy eventually would. All three Gold Star wives, I would soon learn, are astonishingly courageous people.
• • •
Upon returning to Maryland just before Christmas, I became an outpatient at Walter Reed. Around-the-clock care had certainly helped the healing process, but my leg was still in rough shape and at constant risk of infection.
During my first few weeks as an outpatient, getting out of my new apartment in Bethesda and drinking with my high school, college, or military friends in the Washington area helped me temporarily escape the physical and emotional pain I was still experiencing. In addition, coming home with a buzz at night usually helped me fall asleep, even if it was for only a few hours. If the choice was between a morning hangover and the hallucinations I routinely experienced while taking sleeping pills, I picked the former.
Of course, this lifestyle was not healthy. It began taking its toll on my liver, not to mention my leg. It was also becoming obvious to the fine military doctors and nurses at Walter Reed that I was still struggling.
“You have to take care of yourself emotionally as well as physically, Flo,” Haley said. “I know you’ve been through a lot, I really do, but you have to take better care of yourself.”
Haley was candid with me because she knew she was my favorite nurse.
“I’m fine, Haley. Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’m working on it; I just can’t sleep without the IV Benadryl that I received as an inpatient. Pills are the only thing that can put me to sleep when the pain takes over.”
A few days later, I came into Walter Reed with yet another infection in my left foot. Then, a few weeks after that episode, I ran into Haley at a birthday party for one of my former nurses. I must have looked exhausted.
“Flo, I have to be honest with you,” she said. “I have seen you go through so much over the last seven months.
“All of your hard work to get back on your feet has been incredible,” Haley continued. “But have you considered the alternative?”
Haley was pointedly staring at my PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) line, which was driving antibiotics straight into my vein. She was implying that I consider amputation of my left leg.
“Look, I understand that limb salvage is one of the hardest medical decisions to make, but sometimes amputation can lead to a better quality of life,” she said.
Despite our strong nurse-patient relationship, Haley’s bluntness surprised me.
“The prosthetics are phenomenal these days,” she continued. “Plus, your recovery time will be so much faster, and it could help you with the sleepless nights and the need for sleeping pills.”
I paused for a moment to think about what Haley was saying. I had seen a few of my military friends elect to amputate, and they were already making major progress. Maybe Haley was right, even if I couldn’t bring myself to accept it.
“I get what you’re saying: this leg is awful and I know that I’ll never run again,” I said while looking at the ugliness beneath my bandage. “But at the end of the day, it’s still my leg. I can’t volunteer to amputate it.”
“I understand, Flo,” she said. “Just remember that you will always have that choice.”
Haley’s frank talk was the moment that I decided to take the difficult route and keep my leg, which would mean more pain and more drugs.
• • •
Over the next few months, I knew that I had to come up with a plan. I understood that the severity of my injuries and the decision to choose limb salvage over amputation meant that I could probably never serve as an infantryman again. That meant transitioning my military mind-set into that of a civilian, and there I was lost. For the first time in my adult life, I had no idea what my future would entail.
Transitioning into the civilian world was the hardest thing I had done since learning English as a young immigrant. So, my first mission was to find my next passion. I sat down, took out a sheet of paper, and wrote down things that I absolutely would hate to do and things that I would find rewarding.
Immediately, I wrote that I could never work a five-day-a-week, nine-to-five job in front of a computer. I had to be outdoors, able to meet with people, and part of a team that would work together to accomplish a mission. In short, I was looking for the closest thing to make me feel whole again, like the Army once did. Finding that next passion—and the support system I would need to carry out my transition to civilian life—was my biggest challenge.
Another challenge was maintaining a rigorous physical therapy schedule as part of the Wounded Training Brigade’s Bravo Company at Walter Reed, which I would visit every day. Thankfully, I had a great squad leader in Army Staff Sergeant Todd Askew, who worked incredibly hard to help wounded service members keep our hectic physical therapy and appointment schedules organized.
When I first met SSG Askew, I thought he was going to be a hard-ass. But within a few conversations, I knew he was a smart, compassionate soldier who genuinely cared about my recovery.
Like all good NCOs, SSG Askew made sure that I attended physical therapy five days a week, as well as all my other appointments. I had never realized that recovery could be like a full-time job, but the Wounded Training Brigade quickly changed my thinking. In addition to frequent PT appointments, I had to see neurologists for my traumatic brain injury, dermatologists for my skin burns and rashes, gastroenterologists for my severe heartburn caused by medications, urologists—due to the blast effects—to preserve my ability to someday father children, therapists to deal with my post-traumatic stress, and infectious disease specialists to combat infections in my leg. I guess you could say that the Wounded Training Brigade kept me busy.
Even with such an extensive medical appointment schedule, I knew that I had to set myself up for success. So I did two things that would change the course of my life: I applied to graduate school and eventually decided on attending the University of Maryland University College (UMUC). I also decided to find myself a mentor.
I knew that attending school full-time would be impossible due to my medical appointments, but UMUC allowed me to attend class remotely. I also felt comfortable with the institution because I had completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Maryland.
In the spring of 2013, I enrolled and began my pursuit of a master’s degree in Management with a specialization in Intelligence Policies. I was always fascinated with the intelligence community, and figured that this might be a great opportunity to learn more about it with a potential career path in the horizon.
That same spring, my friend Rory introduced me to Jared Shepard, who is the founder of Warriors Ethos, an incredible nonprofit organization dedicated to helping veterans like me take the next step. He was also president and CEO of Intelligent Waves, a successful IT and networking company.
Jared is a veteran who brilliantly transformed himself from military sniper to IT guru after conquering the same initial fear of transition that I was experiencing. After listening to my story, Jared promised to work with me, on one condition.
“I will help you find the next mission,” he said. “But I will only do that if you promise me that you will listen and put the work into it.”
After assuring Jared that I was ready to go, he offered me a hand up instead of a handout. As it turned out, that was exactly what I needed. For both of us, it was a risk worth taking, so we took it. That’s what infantrymen do.
Jared and his team quickly took hold of my résumé, and together we retold my story to identify the military experiences that could best translate into civilian career strengths. Next, we worked on rehearsals and mock interviews to increase my confidence and comfort level. I also learned that I needed to work on my etiquette, ref
rain from using chewing tobacco in the office, and cut down on my use of acronyms, all of which were bad military habits.
The Wounded Training Brigade allowed me to take part in an internship program for up to twenty hours a week. So for the first three months as a Walter Reed outpatient, I was able to spend four days a week working with Jared. During my time in his office, I watched, listened, and learned how his team communicated, dressed, and conducted themselves. In meetings, which I attended after buying new suits and dress shoes, I was a follower instead of a leader. But I was also learning more and more each day.
• • •
After three months working with Jared and his team, I finally felt ready to lead in the civilian world. That was until I woke up one morning with a burning sensation in my left leg.
Damn it.
I had experienced that feeling before, and knew it wasn’t good. Immediately, I went to see Kara, who helped me with wound care at Walter Reed. It took her only a minute to conclude that I had another infection. For a moment, the frustration that I had felt during my first period in the hospital reared its ugly head.
“Just when things are starting to go well, this crap has come back,” I said.
“It’s all part of the process, Flo,” she said. “Limb salvage is never easy.”
An hour later, my left foot was red-hot and being examined by the talented Dr. Shawen, whom I had nicknamed “the magician” for all the wizardry he had performed to save my leg.
“It’s definitely an infection,” he told Kara. “Let’s get him ready for surgery first thing in the morning.”
This would be my thirty-second surgery since the blast, which had opened the door for the infectious parasites that had burrowed their way into my wound. While I was working around the clock to recover, the parasites were working just as hard to defeat my immune system.
After Dr. Shawen removed the infected tissue and cleaned out my wound during surgery, I spent another week—now my eighteenth since coming home—as a Walter Reed inpatient. The difference was that this time around I was working on graduate school papers and jumping on work-related phone calls from my hospital bed.
I was in a walking boot for a month after my release, which required frequent visits to Kara, who would check the status of my stitches. Once they were removed, it took another few weeks of careful walking and wound cleaning before I felt comfortable with the progress. From that point forward, the lasting effect of my injuries was more about annoyance than overwhelming pain. I had fallen behind at work, but because of the time management and dedication skills I had honed in the military, I was able to catch up.
During the summer of 2013, I spent six weeks at the Center for the Intrepid at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio working with a genius prosthetist named Ryan Blanck. Ryan had invented a revolutionary brace called the the Intrepid Dynamic Exoskeletal Orthosis, or IDEO. I had lost the ability to move my left foot up and down and from right to left. This brace, which was designed to bypass the mechanics of the human ankle, did that for me.
While I knew that sprinting or running long distances was out of the question—which was still difficult to accept for someone who loved running as much as I did—the IDEO brace allowed me to walk and even jog for short periods of time. It also reduced the pain I felt while maneuvering. The only lingering problem was my skin grafts, which would make contact with the brace and occasionally open up my wounds. Despite those occasionally aggravating issues, Ryan and the IDEO brace made a monumental difference in my recovery.
That same summer, I found an opportunity with the Department of Defense, where I would begin working in the intelligence field and ultimately discover that next career passion. Working with members of the military and civilians alike, I tackled projects that made a difference and intrigued me at the same time. I was doing something that was beyond just making money; it was about doing my part to serve my country in a different way.
I was finally happy again. I had a routine with my physical and mental rehabilitation, as well as a career in front of me and a new path. Over the course of the next year, my life became routine; even boring, some might say.
My last leg surgery took place on February 14, 2014, Valentine’s Day. Thanks to the love and support I received from my family, friends, fellow soldiers, doctors, nurses, and geniuses like Ryan and Jared, I would be able to take the next step in life without a cane and with my left leg still firmly attached.
• • •
A chance encounter in the fall of 2014 was the moment when I started permanently putting my life back together.
October 3, 2014, was an exciting day in Bethesda, Maryland. Both of the Beltway region’s hometown baseball teams, the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles, had home playoff games on that Friday afternoon. The postseason excitement, combined with the workweek’s conclusion, put a buzz in the Mid-Atlantic air that was tempered only slightly by the chills of early fall.
Using the dropping evening temperatures as an excuse, I planned to sit in my apartment that night instead of going out. With chewing tobacco handy and my wounded leg covered by white bandages and gray University of Maryland sweatpants, I was playing Call of Duty on my Xbox, which transported me back to my days of leading soldiers in battle.
Getting the Bethesda apartment eighteen months earlier marked the first time I had lived alone since a few months prior to my second deployment. It was a major challenge at first, especially considering that my apartment was on the second floor of a walk-up, which meant that there was no elevator. Climbing stairs every day, especially when I was wearing a large protective boot, was tough. Taking a shower was one of my most difficult tasks for that first year and a half, as my left leg always had to be covered up to the knee by a plastic sheath. I called it my “leg condom.”
By October, I was finally on the cusp of showering normally. Yet despite all the progress that had been made, I still had trouble sleeping. Even a year and a half after my injury, I could barely close my eyes without the dreaded sleeping pills.
That troubling trend might have continued if not for a text message that evening from my friend Marie Mimiaga, whom I had known since my freshman year of college. We hadn’t talked in a while, but she knew I was back from Afghanistan and wanted to catch up.
“Come meet my friends for happy hour in D.C.,” she wrote after we exchanged a few initial texts.
To be honest, I was enjoying my videogame and evening dip, and didn’t really feel like dealing with a barful of rowdy Nats and O’s fans, in addition to the usual Friday night revelers.
“I don’t know if I can make it,” I lazily replied.
“Come on, it will be fun,” Marie wrote. “Plus, you should meet my friends—there will be a big group of girls.”
Suddenly, Marie was making a lot of sense. Within a few minutes, I was putting on the leg condom and taking a shower before changing into some decent clothes and heading out the door.
My left leg had started to ache by the time I got off the Metro and arrived at a bar called Science Club on 19th Street. Just as I was about to walk inside, I saw a pretty girl sitting on the patio with a few friends drop her cell phone.
We reached down at the same time to retrieve the phone. I then picked it up and took a quick glance at the screen to make sure it wasn’t broken before handing the phone back to her.
“Here you go,” I said to the attractive, dark-haired woman with striking eyes.
“Thanks so much,” she said with a smile.
As I continued into the bar to look for Marie, I started kicking myself. Why didn’t I ask for the beautiful girl’s name and offer to buy her a drink? Damn it.
I couldn’t find Marie, so I decided to sit down at the only open seat I could find and rest my leg. By the time I finished my first beer, the place was packed and extremely loud, so I decided to text Marie to see if her group had gone somewhere else. To my surprise, she said everyone was hanging out at a large table upstairs.
After struggling to
climb the Science Club’s stairs, all I could think about was popping a painkiller, even though I could hear Haley’s voice in the back of my head warning me not to mix pills with alcohol.
Just as I was about to break the rules, I stopped in my tracks. Sitting at the group’s long table was the same young woman who had dropped her phone. They must have moved from the patio to the second floor while I was waiting by the bar.
This time, I refused to let the chance to introduce myself fall by the wayside.
“Hey, it’s nice to see you again,” I said. “I’m Flo.”
“Likewise! I’m Carsen,” she said with another smile. “So you know Marie?”
“Yep, we briefly ran track together my freshman year of college, but it’s been years since I’ve seen her,” I said.
The bar may have been crowded that night, but as soon as I sat at the head of the table, Carsen and I might as well have been the only two people there. We had a lot in common, including the fact that neither of us had intended to go out that night. As it turned out, Carsen had been working on an important office project when her colleagues convinced her to join them for a few drinks.
“Well, I’m glad we both decided to go out,” I said.
“So am I,” said Carsen.
In addition to her beauty, what made Carsen so extraordinary was that she listened. When she noticed that I was wearing a black bracelet, which had been given to me by my battle buddy Brink, I told her there had been a terrible suicide bombing while I was serving in Afghanistan. The names emblazoned in silver lettering on my bracelet, I explained, belonged to my fallen brothers-in-arms.
The conversation didn’t end there. Carsen asked me about each fallen hero and how their families were doing. She then inquired about my injuries and my time at Walter Reed and even my first deployment to Afghanistan. I told her about living in close quarters with my fellow soldiers in the “Wild West,” where enemy fighters like Dairon spent every day trying to kill us. (I had recently been told that Dairon was killed by a Coalition air strike in 2013.)