Page 897 - Total War on PTSD
P. 897

I did have a Military Working Dog for six months while on Active Duty. Her name was Cyrus and she was a Cadaver Dog. She passed away in theater from cancer before I had a chance to bring her home.
Normally sports were my way back. When I was a teenager, I couldn't afford a car until I was around 25 years of age...so I rode a bike all that time. I even rode a bike when I did have a car. You know how it's like gridlock getting on and off a base? Well, it's a lot easier and faster to get on and off base with a bike, parking my care at a supermarket or someplace like that. Well, when I got hurt, I felt like I lost the one thing I really liked doing. Then all of a sudden, they wanted me to do rehabilitation. They said I couldn't use my left arm because I had really bad neuropathy. Literally the only limb I had working at the time was my right arm. So, they said they were going to strap me onto this little hand-cycle and try it out. Well, it used to take a half- hour for my wife to load me up into the car, an hour drive to the VA, then sitting in a four-corner room hearing people complain how the VA sucks...things like that, then going and hand-cycling. They realized it wasn't helping me psychologically. So as part of rehabilitation they told me that they could get me a home hand-cycle so I could do it at home. It would be $10 to $11,000 and would have a Bluetooth connection so it could communicate with my doctor to let him know how my session went. Well, my wife said that she found out about a foundation called Ride to Recovery. They were a local organization that had three rides a week and they have people who will push (motivate) Jerry, whether he is only to go one mile per hour of fifteen, and start challenging himself and going on longer rides. I ended up going on one of their rides and borrowing one of their bikes for it...and it was awesome.
I was only able to go five miles per hour and only did three miles that time but I slept well that night, had a better attitude the next day and was like...I really have to do this. So, my wife went
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