(Thanks to Dr. Anderson, I get to keep use of mine. This one is for a Wounded Warrior who wants a competitive alternative to his utility/walking prosthetic.)

I can hear the merriment down at poolside- for the first time in a decade, the pool opened without without a plunge by yours truly.

“Marco!”

“Polo!”

I will get to how this all happened presently- I did not plan it like this, but no one outside the cast/brace/prosthetics desk at Walter Reed National Military Hospital would have had it this way. I was there by mischance. Many of the others were there because of war.

I can’t get to that today, since I am woozy from the drugs that got me through surgery and just pleased to be home. Perhaps tomorrow we can get a start at describing The Process for what it is like to be in the blur of the New Walter Reed, a glimpse of kids who displayed real heroism in combat, and every day since, and will do so every day of the rest of their lives.

I need to tell you about some amazing medical professionals at work in a sprawling facility that is ingesting kids no more than a few dozen hours from combat trauma half a world away.

I stand in awe. These are real Pros who make a real difference in the basic fabric of life every day.

I will try to convey, succinctly, the measure of claustrophobia that comes with the hospital bed, and how nuts it made me after only 72 hours. Imagine confronting the idea of the rest of your life in one.

Unless you choose to get up and fight again each morning.

I will try to tell you of something magical I observed- about the power of friendship and love, and of the fragility of this existence we share, however briefly.

What a week it was. Damn, what a week it was.

Some of you have pointed out that it was long past the time to take this all seriously, and some of my choices were ill chosen. I agreed, even if I could not quite bring myself to do the right thing.

I tried last Wednesday. I flogged the Bluesmobile up the parkway and across the American Legion Bridge in the direction of Bethesda. Ten weeks since the accident and things were not getting better. They were getting worse. I was determined to see an actual Orthopedic physician, and the question was whether I could bend the system to my will. After all, I had tried before, and then been swept away in other matters.

I had no idea that what was about to transpire would both uplift me spiritually and cast me down physically. Yet what I saw on the faces of those young Vets who have had their bodies blown to pieces and who are, matter-of-factly, putting themselves back together, marching up the passageway on their walking legs, carrying the their sleek competition legs for sprinting.

For me? The cost is only a little inconvenience, but I had access to what is unquestionably the most experienced combat orthopedic physicians in the world. For the heroes, it is about the rest of their lives. I wish you could come with me next week when the staples come out and take a look at what heroes look like.

I will be an a wheelchair for a while, not long, and the Docs say no full immersion in the shower, much less the cooling, soothing waters of the deep end of the Big Pink pool for at least four weeks, eight more of them to something like recovery.

The streak is done, gone the sun. That is all fine. I will tell you more about the adventure later. In the meantime, I hear the sounds of: “Marco?”

Thus starts the summer of healing. More on The Process tomorrow.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com