AFTER AFGHANISTAN
After brain injury, Houston veteran rebuilds his life
By Lindsay Wise
www.chron.com
June 13, 2009 - Mark DeJaico hit rock bottom late last year at a Houston nightclub.
He had just worked up the nerve to chat with a cute girl when her friend interrupted them.
“She said: ‘What are you doing, talking to him? He’s kinda slow,’” DeJaico remembered. “Like I couldn’t even hear her.”
The 30-year-old Army veteran had developed a severe stutter after being knocked unconscious during a mortar attack in Afghanistan in 2006. Doctors diagnosed him with traumatic brain injury and generalized anxiety disorder.
Just getting his own name out of his mouth could take DeJaico half a minute. Every time he tried to talk, his heart thudded in his chest and his hands shook as his throat closed tight around the words. Sometimes he just gave up and wrote things down.
For a military communications specialist who describes himself as talkative and happy-go-lucky, the impediment was devastating. “That’s why I didn’t talk to anybody anymore,” DeJaico said. “Especially civilians.”
A RAND Corp. study published last year estimated that out of 1.6 million troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, about 320,000 may have suffered a brain injury during deployment. The Department of Defense reported in March that the number with brain injuries could be as high as 360,000, based on health screening programs that show 10 percent to 20 percent of returning troops experienced at least a mild concussion, most often caused by roadside bombs. Of those, 45,000 to 90,000 veterans have persistent symptoms that require specialized care, according to the Pentagon.
Earlier this year, DeJaico graduated from Project Victory, a collaborative program by Houston’s TIRR Foundation and TIRR Memorial Hermann, which helps service members recover from traumatic brain injury.
But the greatest challenges may still loom for DeJaico as he leaves military life and structured therapy programs behind and adjusts to his new identity as a civilian.
Lifelong aspirationBorn and raised in Chicago, DeJaico wanted to be a soldier for as long as he could remember. Both parents had served in the military. He enlisted at age 24 and deployed to Afghanistan in 2006.
His unit was stationed in the mountains along the Pakistani border, where it was so cold that DeJaico’s eyelashes froze together.
He doesn’t remember much about the mortar round that fell just feet from his guard post one snowy night in late October. The blast flipped DeJaico head over heels. His skull slammed into a patch of black ice. He has disjointed memories of people yelling, sticking him with needles, of seeing red as his eyes, nose and mouth filled with blood.
“I thought I was blind, to be honest with you,” he said. “They tell me I went into shock.”
He was evacuated to Germany. During the trip, DeJaico had his first seizure. He was sent back to the U.S. in January 2007 for medical evaluation and treatment in Texas, but within a month, his symptoms had become so debilitating that he dreaded leaving the barracks.
Depressed and embarrassed by his sudden stutter, he stopped socializing. He couldn’t sleep, plagued by battlefield nightmares. When he ventured outside, the light stung his eyes, igniting excruciating headaches.
“It was a sharp pain to where I could hear my heartbeat in my eardrum,” he said.
Particularly unsettling was the short-term memory loss.
“I’d go to Wal-Mart and forget where I parked,” DeJaico said. “I’d literally look like a fool with the cart, going up and down the aisles. And I’d repeat stuff. My friends would be like, ‘Mark, you told me this already.’ ” He constantly had to request replacements for passwords and PINs he’d once known by heart.
“This isn’t happening,” he thought. “This isn’t me.”
Like thousands of other “walking wounded,” DeJaico shows no outward scars, but his disability is no less real than an amputee’s, said Dr. Gerard Francisco, Project Victory’s medical director.
Doctors don’t fully understand the unique consequences of brain injuries caused by blasts, the relationship to post-traumatic stress, and the brain’s mysterious healing process, Francisco said. One thing is certain, however: There’s no quick fix.
“It’s not realistic to expect that once they’ve completed their treatment that they’ll be cured,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is minimize the impact on how this affects their daily lives and how they interact with their families and friends and the community and at work. It’s symptom management. We need to say we can control the symptoms to the point that they can function and lead productive and meaningful lives.”
Treatment, dischargeMonths of intensive speech therapy at Project Victory reduced DeJaico’s stutter so much that it’s hardly noticeable anymore. New prescriptions halted the seizures and headaches. Counseling banished the nightmares. But DeJaico’s progress couldn’t keep him from being medically discharged from the Army in February, even though he fought hard to stay.
These days, the young retired corporal finds himself at a loss for how to fill the hours. He keeps his small apartment in west Houston spotless enough to pass a white-glove inspection. His dress greens hang pressed and ready in the closet.
DeJaico still wakes early, thinking it’s time for pushups and a jog with his company. In the afternoon, his internal clock tells him when it’s time to report to formation for roll call.
“I can’t let it go yet,” he said. “If the Army was like, ‘OK, Sarge, you’ve got the green light, come on back,’ I would say yes. … I got a whole bunch of friends that’s in the fight. I want to be there in the fight with them.”
It would be easier to move on if finding another job weren’t so hard. For now, DeJaico works as a security guard at a River Oaks apartment complex to pay the bills. He applied months ago to the Houston Police Department, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Border Patrol, looking for an echo of the camaraderie and sense of service he loved in the Army. But he’s still waiting for answers, pending the agencies’ medical evaluations of his condition.
“They just want to be on the safe side,” he said. “I can’t hide on my papers it says medical discharge.”
Deciding what’s nextProject Victory has offered continuing therapy and training at its clinic near the Texas Medical Center, but DeJaico says he’s done with being a patient. He doesn’t want to think about his injury anymore, if he can help it. His focus is on the future.
“I have to start a new life, basically,” he said. “I never did any of this before. I have no choice but to do this.”
It’s a change DeJaico didn’t want, but he accepts his new reality. Every day, he practices vocal exercises and breathing techniques in the shower. He rehearses for job interviews in front of his bathroom mirror. He writes himself notes to remember to pay bills and take all 11 medications on time.
“I’m not back to where I was when I got in the military, but I feel like myself,” DeJaico said.
Last week, he picked up an application for the University of St. Thomas. He’s thinking maybe he’ll take advantage of the new GI bill, finish college and reinvent himself.
“I need to do something,” DeJaico said. “I can’t just sit. I won’t let myself just sit.”