more than an hour or so at a time.
I started to see that he wasnât normal. It was like he had this itch he couldnât get to and it tortured him. I wanted to just wrap him in my arms the way I did with Philip, wrap him so tight, he felt safe and would settle down. I loved him so much, but I couldnât help him the way I could help my baby. He was beyond that. I didnât understand about his anxiety back then. Neither did he. When his name came up again, we went to the base together, all of us. His mother was there, and two of his brothers. His father had said good-bye the night before. Everyone was crying, hugging him, making him promise to come home safe. I had the baby in my arms, and God help me, I couldnât cry. I wasnât happy to see him go, not exactly. But I was grateful that he was leaving.
Sean left for a fourth tour. He was on a sweep for a target in a small village. There were eight SEALs on the mission. He was the only one to come out. A platoon of marines found him unconscious, his right arm blown to shreds. He was dragged to the safety of an armored tank. His arm was amputated at a field hospital. It was there that they gave him the treatment.
Â
Chapter Nine
Sean Logan became my patient exactly seventeen months before I began my work with the Kramer family. He was referred to me by a physician at the Naval Health Clinic in Norwich. This is the same doctor who sought Jenny Kramerâs records for her study of the treatment. She had followed Seanâs case closely upon his return. She had supervised his therapy sessions, allowing the hacks assigned to his case to misdiagnose him with PTSD. The symptoms were not dissimilar. Anxiety, depression, anger, suicidal thoughts. But this young man had been given a drug protocol in the field that was new and unpredictable. It was meant to reduce PTSD, not create it. And no one bothered to factor in his history with anxiety. It was not even listed in his records.
People wonder what is wrong with our health care system that we have fallen so far behind the rest of the civilized world. People blame it on our laws, or the drug companies, on the areas that have become âsocializedâ or the areas that are not âsocialized.â Excuses, excuses. I donât care what youâre getting paid or how hard youâre being worked. A patient sits before you. He has lost his arm in battle. He has lost his memory of the battle. Or, more precisely, it has been stolen from him. And now he has lost himself to his own mind. Is this man not worthy of your time? Is he not worthy of you taking a proper historyâthe kind I know you were taught in medical school, and again and again throughout your residency? There is no excuse. None at all.
Sean was asked one question: Have you or anyone in your family ever suffered from any mental illness? Sean answered no. He had never been diagnosed or treated for his anxiety and had spent most of his life believing it was just âwho he was.â Until he came to see me.
I am angry. There is no use continuing the story without making this additional confession. I am angry that Sean Logan suffered for nine months before he was sent to me. I am angry that Jenny Kramer was given the treatment and that I was not employed to observe her in the months that followed. Surely the Kramers would have sought my help sooner had they known that right here in their little town a doctor was treating a man who had been given the same drugs and suffered as a result. What might have come to pass? I will tell you what. Jenny Kramer would have studied math instead of techniques for ending her life. She would not have taken a blade to her soft pink flesh and cut into her skin and then deeper into her veins until her blood spilled onto the floor.
Looking back on the months between the rape and the suicide attempt, it all makes sense to me now. Everyone in Fairview knew about the attack. But the use of the treatment to
I started to see that he wasnât normal. It was like he had this itch he couldnât get to and it tortured him. I wanted to just wrap him in my arms the way I did with Philip, wrap him so tight, he felt safe and would settle down. I loved him so much, but I couldnât help him the way I could help my baby. He was beyond that. I didnât understand about his anxiety back then. Neither did he. When his name came up again, we went to the base together, all of us. His mother was there, and two of his brothers. His father had said good-bye the night before. Everyone was crying, hugging him, making him promise to come home safe. I had the baby in my arms, and God help me, I couldnât cry. I wasnât happy to see him go, not exactly. But I was grateful that he was leaving.
Sean left for a fourth tour. He was on a sweep for a target in a small village. There were eight SEALs on the mission. He was the only one to come out. A platoon of marines found him unconscious, his right arm blown to shreds. He was dragged to the safety of an armored tank. His arm was amputated at a field hospital. It was there that they gave him the treatment.
Â
Chapter Nine
Sean Logan became my patient exactly seventeen months before I began my work with the Kramer family. He was referred to me by a physician at the Naval Health Clinic in Norwich. This is the same doctor who sought Jenny Kramerâs records for her study of the treatment. She had followed Seanâs case closely upon his return. She had supervised his therapy sessions, allowing the hacks assigned to his case to misdiagnose him with PTSD. The symptoms were not dissimilar. Anxiety, depression, anger, suicidal thoughts. But this young man had been given a drug protocol in the field that was new and unpredictable. It was meant to reduce PTSD, not create it. And no one bothered to factor in his history with anxiety. It was not even listed in his records.
People wonder what is wrong with our health care system that we have fallen so far behind the rest of the civilized world. People blame it on our laws, or the drug companies, on the areas that have become âsocializedâ or the areas that are not âsocialized.â Excuses, excuses. I donât care what youâre getting paid or how hard youâre being worked. A patient sits before you. He has lost his arm in battle. He has lost his memory of the battle. Or, more precisely, it has been stolen from him. And now he has lost himself to his own mind. Is this man not worthy of your time? Is he not worthy of you taking a proper historyâthe kind I know you were taught in medical school, and again and again throughout your residency? There is no excuse. None at all.
Sean was asked one question: Have you or anyone in your family ever suffered from any mental illness? Sean answered no. He had never been diagnosed or treated for his anxiety and had spent most of his life believing it was just âwho he was.â Until he came to see me.
I am angry. There is no use continuing the story without making this additional confession. I am angry that Sean Logan suffered for nine months before he was sent to me. I am angry that Jenny Kramer was given the treatment and that I was not employed to observe her in the months that followed. Surely the Kramers would have sought my help sooner had they known that right here in their little town a doctor was treating a man who had been given the same drugs and suffered as a result. What might have come to pass? I will tell you what. Jenny Kramer would have studied math instead of techniques for ending her life. She would not have taken a blade to her soft pink flesh and cut into her skin and then deeper into her veins until her blood spilled onto the floor.
Looking back on the months between the rape and the suicide attempt, it all makes sense to me now. Everyone in Fairview knew about the attack. But the use of the treatment to
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