Having never been to war, I can only speak from my experience as a Caregiver and parent to someone who has but one thing is certain about coming home from war, it involves far more than stepping onto that aircraft that flies you home. Bringing the physical body home is easy, bringing the whole person home can be a struggle.
During these years I have learned a lot, I have grown, and I have met a great many wonderful people. Today I would like to speak of one person and honor her memory.
While attempting, with everything I had in me to assist my veteran in navigating the cold stiff oceans of molasses that can be the VA Healthcare System, I had reached a point of near despair. We just were not getting anywhere, nobody was listening and if they did listen it seemed they often heard something other than what we were attempting to say, until one day the phone rang and on the other end of the line was a lady named Julie Ferguson. She introduced herself as the OIF/OEF Case Worker at the Albuquerque VA that we had been frantically fighting our way through.
I liked her immediately. She came off warm and caring and so enthusiastic. You could not help but believe in her sincerity. I liked her even more when we went up to meet her the next day. She began working hard for my veteran right away, and she kept us informed always of what she was doing. Within a short time she had established a bridge for us to stand on while we waited for that far in the future appointment. Along with these things she offered other avenues of help. When she learned we had dropped out of training our veteran’s service dog, for financial reasons she jumped right into that and begin reaching out to our trainer and to Wounded Warriors to try and procure funding to complete the training. She was like a worker bee, flying about from place to place, searching under every rock for the way to get past the obstacles. She was relentless.
She and I talked a lot on the phone. We felt at ease with each other, and even talked about getting together outside of work and establishing a friendship. I often doubted the VA, doubted the system, and doubted the doctors…..but I never once doubted her. Her sincerity and desire to help were a rock you could stand on. I remember when the bridge she worked so hard to build for us began to crumble, and I was so upset, so at the end of my ability to cope with it all, I was talking on the phone with her, I was crying and I said “Julie, I don’t doubt you for a second, but there is only so much you can do, I feel I need to come down and protest, need to call Channel 7 news, need to do anything and everything I can to make this stop!”………and she got quiet for a moment and then she said.” Donna, let me work on this, if I cannot fix this I will go to Channel 7 with you.” And I believe she would have. As it turned out she was able to fix our crumbling bridge and make it secure enough to walk across.
On another occasion just before she passed away, we were talking. She was saying how much she loved her job, how much she truly desired to make a difference for her veterans. I was telling her things from my side and some of the experiences these young men had gone through who have fought for us, the things they have done, their courage and sacrifice and she asked me “Donna, what can I do to get to know their side better? I have ordered every book I can on PTSD and TBI and I try to stay informed, but how can I understand their side better.” I told her about some war memoirs I have read and she was so excited, and wrote down the names so she could order them and read them. She was going to order House to House and Outlaw Platoon! She truly wanted to understand as best she could what war is like, what the veterans who come to her for help have been through. The things they carry. My respect for her went even higher.
Because of the struggles we had faced in getting the care needed for my veteran both I and he were somewhat disillusioned and distrusting. Julie would always encourage us. She wrangled an appointment with a doctor that she wanted for my veteran, telling us how she really trusted this doctor and really believed in her. She would tell me how she longed to move time forward so we could just get to the appointment and meet the doctor and be at peace about the care our veteran would receive.
The day of our appointment arrived. The appointment the day before with another provider had not gone well, so we were not expecting this one to either. I had emailed Julie two or three times and she had not responded, which was very unusual. I assumed that she was ill or perhaps on vacation and since I arrived to the VA ahead of my veteran and with plenty of time I decided to go up to her office to see if she was in.
Her door was shut, so I assumed she was out of office and turned to walk away when a lady asked me quietly, “who are you looking for?”, and I told her “Julie”. Her face fell and her voice quivered as she said “I am sorry to inform you that Julie passed away on Sunday”. I cannot even put into words the feelings that coursed through me, sorrow, and loss, even guilt that all our conversations had been mostly about me and my veteran and our struggles and that I hadn’t gotten to know her better.
We went to our appointment apprehensive. We left hopeful. First impressions seem to indicate that this doctor is everything that July said she was.
Julie Ferguson made a difference in our lives. I am pretty certain that she made a difference in the lives of others also. She was not expecting to die. She had plans, big plans, and she was constantly working on how she could better serve her veterans. Her life is a lesson to us all and there are several things that she taught me in our brief friendship.
- Never lose hope.
- Never stop working.
- If you don’t understand someone’s perspective work to understand. Invest the time to understand.
- Be a light in the darkness.
- Love big.
- Network to make things better.
- Live like today is your last day. It very well might be.
Julie gave us a piece of her heart; I expect she gave a piece out to everyone who came to her for help. I think she had discovered the secret that when one gives out a piece of their heart to others, although it might hurt to so invest yourself, you find that your heart does not diminish, instead it grows larger.
Julie left us, on Sunday the 4th of October, we will miss her greatly, but before she left she turned the lights on. Where we had struggled through a maze of darkness she switched on a light, plowed through obstacles and opened the door to hope.
You were right Julie. She is a great doctor and I think we are going to be okay now. You get a huge piece of that, we would not have made it had you not been there switching on the lights.
Go with God Julie Ferguson. I cannot thank you, so instead I will endeavor to love big, to never lose hope and to be the kind of person who works to turn the lights on for others.
Rest in Peace
Julie Ferguson
OIF/OEF/OND Nurse Case Manager
New Mexico VA Health Care System
I do not have a photo of Julie so I felt the next best thing would be a photo of Florence Nightingale “The Lady With the Lantern”