April 23, 2008

Living with PTSD

Scenes of one veteran's experience living with post-traumatic stress disorder.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Lucky Sands watched for the water to turn murky with toxins pulled out of her system from an Ion Cleanse Monday, April 21, 2008, at the Center for Massage Therapy in Cape Girardeau. Although the procedure is expensive, said Sands, who has been unemployed for the past year and lives off of savings, it is worth it if she feels better either physically or mentally. The 43-year-old has suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder since returning from Iraq in 2005.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Lucky Sands served dinner as her medications sat next to the stove at her Cape Girardeau home Monday, April 21, 2008. Sands seldomly cooks at home because she lacks motivation and energy. She goes to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in May to have a variety of physical and mental issues addressed, some perhaps stemming from post-traumatic stress disorder.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Lucky Sands watched her daughter Ceylon Herath, 11, play with their rabbit, Thumper, Monday, April 21, 2008, at their Cape Girardeau home. Sands, in her third year with PTSD after a tour in Iraq, said that if she didn't have her daughter, she doesn't know what she would have done to herself by now.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Lucky Sands has worn a variety of wigs for the past several months after losing her hair over the last year for unknown reasons. Sands served 15 months in Iraq, returning in 2005. Since she has experienced an array of physical and mental problems, including PTSD.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Water turned to a dark brown Monday, April 21, 2008, after an Ion Cleanse at the Center for Massage Therapy in Cape Girardeau. Lucky Sands has begun looking to alternative medicines in hopes of combating the fatigue and mental instability of post-traumatic stress disorder.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Lucky Sands normally only cooks when the whole family is having dinner, like Monday, April 21, 2008, at her Cape Girardeau home. She divorced Steve Sands, center, a while after returning from Iraq in 2005. However, he and Ceylon's biological father, Scott Morton, right, are still very involved with the family, normally all dining together at least once a week.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Lucky Sands cooked spaghetti Monday evening, April 21, 2008, which seldom occurs at her Cape Girardeau home. With PTSD, she normally doesn't feel like cooking.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Lucky Sands signed out her daughter Ceylon from after school care Monday, April, 21, 2008, at Eagle Ridge Christian School in Cape Girardeau. She is in a photo from her tour in Iraq on the sign next to her. Although Sands has had many problems receiving medical help, that has not lessened her love for the Army at all. "I love the U.S. Army," she said. "It has brought so many things to my life."

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Scenes of one veteran's experience living with post-traumatic stress disorder.

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