Saralee Trimble offers suggestions to her son, Army Pfc. Kevin
Trimble, as he works on a leather project with his brother, Ben, at
the Warrior and Family Support Center in San Antonio, Nov. 10, 2011.
DOD photo by Linda Hosek |
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SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 17, 2011 – Saralee Trimble hunches over a craft
table, meticulously weaving thin strips of material together to form
a basket.
The room is noisy with TVs blaring and people
chatting and laughing, but her concentration is unbroken as she
focuses on her task.
For just a few brief moments, this mom
of five is simply focused on piecing together a basket, rather than
the life that was nearly lost to her on a roadside in Afghanistan.
Trimble's son, Army Pfc. Kevin Trimble, was just four months
into his deployment when a fellow soldier standing three feet away
stepped on a homemade bomb. The soldier was killed and Trimble lost
both of his legs above the knee and his left arm above the elbow.
Trimble was at home in New Orleans when she got the phone call.
It's a call, she said with tears welling up, that she'll never |
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forget. |
She and her husband, Daniel, were told their son had been
injured and was in serious condition, but was stable and
alert. Shocked at the news, they focused on the positive.
“The most important thing was he was alert,” she said.
After a few days in Germany, her son arrived at Brooke
Army Medical Center here on Sept. 24, and Trimble, her
husband and her children rushed there to greet him.
The toughest moment, Trimble said, was when she saw her son
for the first time. “I wanted to cry,” she said, again
tearing up at the recollection. “It was heavy, real heavy.”
Not wanting to convey their shock, she and her husband
went out in the hall, held each other and cried. Her son had
dreamed of being a soldier for as long as she could
remember, and joined right out of high school. She knew how
devastating this injury would be to him as a man, and a
soldier.
“It was really hard,” she said. “He's 19;
he's my baby.” She then thought of her other children. Four
of her five children are in the service: one in the Air
Force, two in the Army and one in the Marine Corps Reserve.
Two have deployed multiple times and one expects to go
soon, she said. “I thought of Kevin and then, ‘What about
them?'”
The Long Recovery
Trimble steeled
herself for the long recovery road ahead. Her electrician
husband returned home to a foreman job they couldn't afford
for him to lose, and she settled in at the hospital. She
grimaced as she recollected those early days of recovery.
“It was very traumatic, no way around it, it just is,”
she said.
Trimble said her son was boiling hot all
the time so they placed ice packs on his shoulders and
constantly doused his face and neck with cold water. He was
on pain medication, but even that couldn't fully prevent the
pain. “You can't avoid it; it's part of it,” she said.
Throughout, Kevin remained positive, Trimble said, with
only a few moments of despair. “A few times he's broken down
and said, ‘Mom, look at me. What good am I?'”
In
those moments, Trimble said all she could do was pray with
her son and assure him he'd be OK. She never, even from the
start, had a doubt that he'd pull through, she said.
Trimble said her son reached a turning point when a group of
wounded warriors, including several triple amputees, came to
see him at his bedside. “That encouraged him so much to see
other guys the same as him who were actually getting around
and able to do something,” she said.
Kevin checked
out of the hospital less than two months after his injury,
and is about to start his therapy at the Center for the
Intrepid, a state-of-the-art rehabilitation center just
steps away from the hospital.
He's had one two-hour
physical therapy session so far, Trimble said, and that one
“wiped him out.” “They had him getting from the wheelchair
onto the floor and then back up,” she said, noting that's no
easy feat with just one arm. “When he came back he didn't
want to do nothing but sleep.
“But that's good,” she
added. “He needs that challenge.”
Next up, he'll be
fitted for a prosthetic arm, and later prosthetic legs. The
sooner he can use his limbs and gain independence, the
better, Trimble said.
Meanwhile, she is helping him
get acclimated to his “new normal” by taking him on outings,
whether it's to Sea World or to play miniature golf. He had
a great time golfing, she said, but was saddened by the
children's stares.
“I told him, ‘You know you're
going to have that the rest of your life,'” she said. “‘You
are different from everyone else, but that doesn't say who
you are. You still are who you are.'”
The Challenges
of Caregiving
It's been a rough couple of months and
Trimble acknowledged the stress that accompanies full-time
caregiving. Fearful of the devastating impact of a fall, she
isn't comfortable yet leaving her son alone. And she only
has brief respites during appointments or when one of her
children is there to help. But even a short break can
provide a big recharge, she said.
When she's not by
her son's side, Trimble finds respite, and solace, in the
Warrior and Family Support Center, a sprawling
12,500–square-foot facility here. The center offers a place
for families and wounded warriors to relax, reconnect or
just have a cup of coffee. Along with computers, video
games, movies and books, the center offers a host of
outings, and craft classes to service members and their
families.
Trimble is a familiar face at the craft
tables. One day she'll be seen weaving baskets, and the next
she is building a mosaic or stained glass creation. Her son
and other family members often join in, as well. On this
day, Kevin and his brother and sister -- visiting here on
military leave -- stopped by for a leatherworking class.
They joked and laughed as they worked on their creations.
Kevin was making a belt with help from his brother, Ben.
As he worked, Kevin said he was grateful for his mom's
presence. “Things would be harder without her,” he
acknowledged.
Having family around is vital for a
wounded warrior's recovery, his mother noted. “It's very
important for them to have support,” she said. “Look at
Kevin. It's not even two months and look where he's at.”
Trimble said they'll most likely be here for another two
years. Her son's goal is to graduate from the Center for the
Intrepid on his 21st birthday, May 22, 2013.
Meanwhile, Trimble has a long road of caregiving ahead, but
said she's up to the task. The toughest challenge for her
isn't the lack of time alone or the stress, she said, it's
seeing her son in pain. “That's one reason why you want to
take a break,” she said. “Knowing that he's suffering ...
that's very hard.”
With two years of separation from
her husband looming, Trimble said the time apart will be
tough. Plus, she's worried about how he's maintaining their
home in her absence. “I'm sure no one is running the broom
while I'm away,” she joked.
But despite the ongoing
struggles, Trimble said she wouldn't have it any other way.
She'll be by her son's side for as long as he needs her to
be.
“He's my son. Caring for him ... I couldn't ask for
anything more special.”
More photos available in frame below
By Elaine Sanchez
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2011
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