The last chapter of his life started with a persistent cough four years ago. Then his lungs started turning to bricks.

NOTE from Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org ... Use our search engine for more about Vietnam veterans ... here ...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=vietnam&op=and

And, for more about pulmonary fibrosis ... here ...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php
?q=pulmonary+fibrosis&op=ph

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Vietnam veteran who battled post-traumatic stress is now in his final fight

By Brian Albrecht

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/02/a_vets_last_stand.html

There was a time, before he was dying, when Tim Andrews found peace by sitting on the shores of Lake Erie, gazing at the wide-open horizon.

Out in that vast expanse, there were no tree lines like the ones he dreaded while serving with an Army artillery unit in Vietnam from 1967-68.

Waves of enemy attackers, charging from those tree lines, kept returning in bad dreams and flashbacks for the next 40 years. So whenever Andrews saw tree lines, he remembered the death and horror of war.

Those nightmares faded with counseling and therapy, but a new one has taken their place in the form of pulmonary fibrosis -- a terminal disease in which "your lungs basically turn into a brick," as Andrews, 63, described it.

Andrews is waging a final battle against a disease that has put him among an increasing number of dying Vietnam veterans, projected to top 100,000 this year.

His life has since shrunk to a one-room world on the second floor of his Westlake home; an area once devoted to exercise equipment that toned his 190-pound body, hardened by years as an autoworker.

A shadow of those days now sits in a recliner, wristwatch slipping to forearm on a thin 140-pound frame draped in the loose T-shirt folds of his former self.

For now, his last bastion consists of four walls, two windows and a door surrounding a bed, small refrigerator, bookcases, couch and dining trays.

His cat "Lucky" -- as in "lucky to be living here," as Andrews hoarsely joked -- tiptoes over tubing that spills across the floor in clear plastic coils, tethering Andrews to oxygen tanks.

The scariest times come in the morning when he can't catch his breath. It takes a concentrated effort of relaxation to calm his coughing anxiety until he can get some medication.

Until then, "you think you're going to die," Andrews said from behind the ever-present, eternally hissing oxygen mask that he wears like a pilot flying through unknown skies of razor-thin air, to a destination he really doesn't want to reach.

But the toughest thing about dying is not thinking about it.

"The hardest part is knowing that I've got this problem, and there's nothing I can do about it, and trying not to focus on the fact that I'm not going to get any better," he said. "I realize what's going on, but I try to maintain some sort of happiness for my own sake. If I just sat here and thought about it all the time, I'd probably go nuts."

So there are links to the outside world, via TV, computer and radio to lead his mind and interest elsewhere. Phone calls and visits also help.

Keeping busy staying alive.

Vietnam revisited: The last chapter of his life started with a persistent cough four years ago.

Andrews wonders if the pulmonary fibrosis is a result of exposure to Agent Orange defoliant sprayed during the war in Vietnam. At the time, he figured those planes were just laying down bug spray.

If there is a connection, it'd be one more unpleasant echo from the past.

On a recent afternoon when the tree line outside his window was blanketed in snow, Andrews flipped through an album of photos from Vietnam.

There were the usual Kodachrome snapshots of young GIs, shirtless and sunburned, grinning awkwardly into the camera. But the album also contained scenes of vehicles and artillery reduced to smoldering piles of twisted metal.

Once he'd hoped to be a vet of a different kind -- a veterinarian -- and had started saving money for college after graduating from John Marshall High School.

Then he got drafted, assigned to an artillery unit of the 25th Infantry Division, and sent to Vietnam. His outfit's fire support base was attacked his first night in the field.

"In the morning when the sun came up, I looked around. It was the worst sight I had ever seen in my life," Andrews later recalled. Dead enemy soldiers lay everywhere. "A dozer dug a trench in front of our howitzer and we threw bodies and body parts in the hole."

Prior to another attack at a different base, Andrews traded places in an ammo carrier with his best friend. "He died in my place," he remembered. "All I could find of him was a torso and a belt with his name on it." (Andrews would later name his first son for that soldier.)

During his tour Andrews was awarded two Purple Hearts -- one for shrapnel still embedded in his leg, the metallic version of mental wounds that also lingered.

Back home, he initially drank to forget the war. Slept with a shotgun at his side. "College was out of the question," he recalled. "When I got out, I was a wreck."

He found a job at Ford's Cleveland Casting Plant (Local 1250) in Brook Park, and buried himself in long hours of work. Got married and helped raise two sons. Restored old cars. Staying busy "kept my mind off of things," said Andrews, who retired in 2000.

A few years ago he finally sought help for the echoes of Vietnam that still surfaced in flashbacks and panic attacks. He joined a post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment program at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Brecksville, which included group sessions with other vets.

His wife, Nancy, said the counseling has helped him deal more openly with his war memories in talking to their sons Garrett, 29, and Craig, 26. "It brought them closer to him," she said.

Then his lungs started turning to bricks.

Though the diagnosis came as a shock, both he and his wife try to stay positive.

"Just take it one day at a time and be grateful for today," Nancy Andrews said. "That's always been my philosophy, and now it's being tested. It's inevitable, so we have to make the best of it. Just sharing a positive attitude makes him feel better."

He, too, wants to stay strong, even hopeful that "maybe a miracle or something, a cure, will be discovered, something, in the next couple of months," he said.

"I know what the outcome is going to be, but still, I have to keep pushing," he added. "I have to try. I'm not going to get in that bed and just lay there and say, 'Hey, cover me up.' I can't do that."

The caretakers: Tim Andrews may be losing his lungs, but he hasn't lost his faith.

A regular visitor to Andrew's one-room world is Father Joe Piskura, a retired priest and former Army chaplain who met the veteran at St. Ladislas Church in Westlake where they discovered that Piskura had served in the same outfit as Andrews, but left a week before Andrews arrived in Vietnam.

Piskura drops by to administer communion, hear a confession, or just share time with a fellow vet who now considers Piskura a good friend.

The feeling is mutual. "He's just a good guy. There's no anger, no bitterness," Piskura said. "You go there and you walk away feeling like you're the one who's been helped. I just wish when my time comes I can handle it as well.

"I just hate to see it," Piskura added. "He should have had another 10-15 years."

Jennifer Murray, a nurse with Hospice of the Western Reserve, has noticed that the group's clientele of veterans has gotten younger in recent years.

An increasing number of vets (now comprising 20 percent of 1,500 clients), also prompted the group two years ago to create its "Peaceful & Proud" program which utilizes staff trained in PTSD treatment, pairs dying veterans with vet volunteers, and gives patients a chance to share their military experiences through an Ethical Will program.

Some Hospice vets, like Andrews, carry the weight of war for decades, according to Murray. She remembered when she thanked one Vietnam veteran for his service and "he looked with me with tears in his eyes and said, 'You people are the first people who ever thanked me.'"

She wasn't disheartened when he died two days later. "He finally got to a place where he was valued and loved," she said. "He found his peace, and he went."

Final plans: A 1964 Ford Fairlane gathers dust in Andrews garage, awaiting the finishing touches of a restoration he'll likely never complete.

His son, Craig, will finish it. As Andrews said, "The dream gets passed on."

Same with a basement remodeling project. Hopefully his sons will pick up where dad left off.

"I'm trying to go through the house, each room, to see what needs to be done in case my wife has to sell the house," he said.

Andrews often mentions his wife of 30 years, whether as the high point of his day when she comes home from work, or her caring and understanding. Mostly, though, he worries about what will happen to her after he's gone.

"I don't want to leave her alone," he said. "I just wish I could hang around longer to be with her."

There are other regrets, but not about his service in Vietnam. "I did my time and I'm proud of it," Andrews said.

No, the self-recriminations are more about the time spent trying to drown bad memories in a bottle, or bury them under work. Time that could've been spent with his family.

His advice to fellow vets: "Don't waste a day of your life, because you never know when you're going to end up like this," he said, touching the oxygen mask that muffled his words, but not their intensity.

He'd like to get one last look at that wide-open lake horizon. Or visit another place that brought him solace: the Vietnam Memorial Wall, both the permanent one and traveling versions.

He'd usually visit around 2 or 3 a.m. when the memorial was quiet and deserted; tree lines hidden in darkness. That also was usually the time the enemy attacked, back in another time, another place.

At the Wall, he found the buddies he left behind in Vietnam. "There's nobody else there," Andrews said. "Just me and them."

In a few months they could meet again.

Perhaps there's some comfort in that.

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