I was standing next to an examination table in one of the rooms of the medical center at a Coast Guard training school in Virginia. I was in hellacious pain. I arrived a week before to attend tech school for marine science after waiting two years as a lowly E-3 at a search and rescue station in Florida.
I was excited but uneasy.
Two days before the road trip from Florida to Virginia in my dinged-up Chevy (that my shipmates routinely teased me about), my lower back went out for the fourth time after slipping on a boat ramp a year before.
The drive was excruciating, but my trusty Chevy eventually got me to Tracen Yorktown. During room assignments and orientation, the pain only progressed. Ridiculously simple things like sitting down were embarrassingly becoming more of a challenge.
A week later, it gave up the ghost.
There was a quiet knock on the exam room door. A young male lieutenant entered, quickly followed by his health services tech.
“I’m sorry I have to give you this news today,” he said looking me straight in the eye through his military-issue frames, “but it looks like your back has gone out too many times within a year and I just can’t recommend you for further service.”
Funnily enough, relief was my first reaction. I was in so much pain that no longer being expected to perform was a weight off my shoulders, but devastation hit soon thereafter.
I spent the next year at that training center, waiting on the interminable process of separation. The Coast Guard graciously still allowed me to go through tech school so that I could be a part of the group and make E-4 by the time I got out.
For 10 weeks, 5 days a week and nearly 9 hours a day I stood in the back of the classroom (still couldn’t sit without pain) learning what marine science techs do.
Because I used up all my strength to get through classes every day, I had none left over to be social with my fellow classmates. I spent the weekends laid up in my rack, fighting a good amount of outer and inner anguish while many of them left the base to see the sights.
After being honorably discharged and given a medical retirement due to disability, I headed back to Houston to convalesce at my parents’ house. It would be another year before I would be able to sit comfortably again. It took a lot of physical therapy and even a desperate out-of-pocket treatment expense: stem cell therapy.
When I finally started feeling strong enough, my thoughts shifted toward my future. With the GI bill, I could go back to school. But what to study? It actually took me some time to decide between biblical studies and inspector training school. Yikes. Only now do I realize just how much I am not built for either of those things.
However, when I allowed myself to reflect on my life before the Coast Guard, I remembered that I initially wanted to join to be a public affairs specialist. I had always enjoyed writing and communicating, but none of my recruiters informed me that the waiting period for public affairs school would be four years minimum. That is far too long to be an E-3, but public affairs would have fit me like a glove.
So, once I found out that UHCL offered a bachelor’s degree in communication, it was a no-brainer.
Once again I found myself standing in the back of a classroom. This time, full of college freshmen who were all at least 10 years younger than me. It was the fall semester of 2019 and UHCL was at least an hour away from where I lived at the time. The pain had begun to creep back up again over the summer and sitting in class was difficult after the long drive.
I knew standing in the back of all of my classes could be considered a distraction, so I took the advice of one of my professors and requested a disability accommodation from the university, which was fairly painless to acquire.
For the entire semester, three days out of the week, I drove two hours and stood in class for nearly six hours. At one point, my back went out completely the night before I had to be in class at 9 a.m. to take a test. I’m happy to report that the professor was very kind and understanding and gave me an extension.
I began wondering if I had made the right decision. If I couldn’t even sit through class, what was the point? Besides, even before I signed the dotted line, my college grades had been abysmal. What if I wasn’t even cut out to complete a secondary education?
During these highly stressful and discouraging moments of doubt, the only thing I knew to do was to simply keep going. Then, slowly but surely, I found myself in a new rhythm; a new pace that my body, with plenty of patience and modification, eventually adjusted to. I tried to do all that was in my power to do. I moved closer to campus, kept up with physical therapy, walked every day and made sure to hand in my assignments on time, even without the structured supervision I had come to depend on in the military.
Even to this day, I still fantasize about becoming well enough that they would let me serve again. I miss so many things: search and rescue missions, maintaining small boat engines, the unshakable comradery with my shipmates and heck, even standing watch. But now I just count myself blessed to have had those experiences. There is always another chapter.
Looking back, I’m glad this was my journey. It was uniquely mine and with it, the potential to have a unique impact. The same is true for everyone’s journey. Now, by the time this story is published, I will have graduated from the University of Houston-Clear Lake with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Truly, there is always another chapter.
