How I Lost My Hand But Found Myself

Sunday, Sep. 24, 2006 By MICHAEL WEISSKOPF
Final Notes: Weisskopf holds the last scrawlings of his right hand in his notepad from Dec. 10, 2003
JAMES NACHTWEY / VII FOR TIME
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I broached the subject, setting off a debate on the definition of marriage. I became angry and defensive. The room got close. I insisted I had never intentionally deceived her and said I needed support now, not doubt. "Listen, are we not friends?" Rebekah asked, locking her eyes on mine. I nodded yes."Then we'll get through this," she said.

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On Jan. 8, 2004, i was released from the hospital and returned to my Washington home. My kids resumed their half-time life with me. Victor Vorobyev, a Russian emigre hired by Time as my driver, chauffeured them to and from school. I overcame my nightmare of not being able to produce peanut butter sandwiches, with the help of technology from Captain Katie's OT kitchen. A sheet of sticky, rubbery material held the jar in place while I twisted off the top with my good hand and scooped.

Skyler and Olivia had no adult notions of loss or judgments about helping me. Not long ago I had tied their shoes. Now they were tying mine. I had patched up their cuts and scrapes; now they were changing my dressings. Their sweetness permeated the house. Before Iraq, I had thought of parenting as another job—a lot of work with little payoff. Now it was a love affair. Skyler and I picked up our running chess game. Olivia helped me cook dinners—"one-handed spaghetti" was our specialty.

A blizzard plowed into Washington one day in late January. We packed into Victor's car and went sledding. I stood at the bottom of the hill and watched. The sun sparkled on their snowsuits like tiny stars. They laughed and called out: "Watch this, Dad." "Did you see me, Daddy?" I waved and wept at these beautiful sounds, realizing how close I had come to never hearing them again.

Why did I risk it? I had scrutinized my motivation for picking up a grenade, but not the reason I had put myself in range of it. My rationale for going to Iraq as a career milestone no longer struck me as truthful. I already had scrapbooks full of big stories and enough money in the bank. I realized that something else had driven me, an old problem of self-worth: I was good because of what I did, not because of who I was. I had important roles as father, brother, lover and son. But without achieving in some material way, I felt empty and unseen. Journalism had provided a regular opportunity to reinvent myself. I had gone to Iraq for another fix.

Like any junkie, I thought only of myself, taking on a dangerous mission as if others didn't deserve a say, as if the chance of success for me was more important than the certainty of fatherhood for my kids. I didn't weigh the risk to them until I lay bleeding in the bed of a humvee, too late to spare them the fright.

It had taken a major loss for me to understand what I meant to others. Relationships rescued me. They got me out of Baghdad, into Walter Reed and back home. I received that help not because of a grade I had earned, a story written, or lives saved; it was for being me. I resolved to return the love by being less self-absorbed. I promised my kids I would stay out of war zones. My brother-in-law, Michael Flesch, came for a three-day visit, the longest time we had spent alone together in years. We hung out at Walter Reed by day and frequented Washington haunts by night.

And then there was Rebekah. I had finally realized why the divorce flap was so upsetting. Relationships meant everything to her, and I had shortchanged her on candor. The open heart she had brought to Walter Reed deserved better. I apologized in a couple of long phone calls to California, promising full disclosure as the bedrock of our relationship from here on out.

The arrival of my myoelectric arm in the first week of February was more exciting than a new pair of shoes—but no more comfortable to wear. Just getting it on was painful: my stump was still incredibly tender. If my former right hand had floated lightly, the fake one moved like a dumbbell—fat, clunky and heavy. Its 21/2 lbs. were concentrated in the electronic hand—the place farthest from the half-forearm. I kept bumping it into things. I named it Ralph, after the clumsiest kid in my grade school.

Ralph didn't work any better than he looked. The thumb and first two fingers opened and closed like a claw, the grossest of motor skills. The third finger and pinkie, which are employed by natural hands to carry things, were frozen. Ralph's wrist didn't bend. Despite weeks of training on a computer, I had difficulty with the basic functions: my stronger outer forearm muscle kept flexing and involuntarily opening the hand—even when I was trying to close it. I had no more success with the mechanism to rotate the wrist. The simultaneous contraction of both muscles was unnatural and hard to remember in real time. When I did it right, I couldn't keep the hand from spinning 360 degrees, an annoying loss of control—and embarrassing in public.

My disillusionment with Ralph grew. By the fifth day I was so frustrated I was ready to quit, thinking I'd be better off with one hand. On Feb. 11, I was invited to meet with my rehab team of eight people. Lieut. Colonel Paul Pasquina, medical director of the Army's amputee-care program, cited a few options to the myoelectric arm, including a body-powered prosthesis. They were lighter, unencumbered at the elbow, and ended in a hook. Pasquina said I might adopt a hook as a trademark that people would come to respect for its straightforward honesty.

I bristled. I wanted a prosthesis to disguise my deformity, not spotlight it. "The circles I travel in wouldn't be amused," I told Pasquina dismissively. I still was banking on an easy-fitting, lifelike substitute.