Walter Reed Army Medical Center - Run, dont walk: the curious and chaotic life inside Walter Reed Army Medical Center

T he phone rings in the amputee clinic and it is one of Darcys patients. He is on a ski trip sponsored by Disabled Sports USA and wants to tell Darcy that he just went down the ski slope on a mono-ski (seated ski). Its his first trip away from the hospital since an improvised explosive device (IED) in Iraq blew his legs away four months ago.

His exhilaration is reflected in Darcys face. She downplays it when she hangs up the phone, but I can tell shes secretly thrilled. Getting these phone calls, hearing these stories, are huge victories. It is what we live for as physical therapistswhether its seeing a patient head back to the ski slope, or, because we work for the U.S. Army, back to combat. Its what makes the long hours and the physicality of our work worth it.

Wasnt that sweet? she says to me. That was Joe Davie calling to tell me how much fun he was having skiing.

All of Darcys patients seem to pick up her good nature and cheer.

Youre lucky, Sergeant Hernandez jokes. If any of my patients call, theyll be calling to yell at me. Im falling on my face over here! What the hell did you teach me in PT? I cant walk. I cant ski. This trip is a total joke!

It was spring 2009 and I was a physical therapist in the most famous military hospital in the world: Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Id been there for four years, and Id go on to work there till its preplanned closing in 2011part of a congressional budget base realignment and closure (BRAC) decision. In the amputee section where I worked, there were ten physical therapists and, in the course of the day, more than a hundred patients. We were squeezed into a disproportionately small, glassed-in gym on the top floor of Walter Reeds Military Advanced Training Center.

It was a strange idea, putting us under glass. On display for the rest of the world, but otherwise leaving us to our business. The glass wall allowed the tour groups to walk by without disrupting the patients. Three to six groups came by every day, often with celebrities in tow. But nothing distracted a patient more than looking up to see Angelina Jolie or an openly weeping congressman staring at him through the glass. My coworkers and the patients would joke that this must be how it felt to be an animal at the zoo.

I spent most of my evening hours swimming, so to me our facility felt like an aquarium. We were fish in a bowl.

That day began like any otherat 0700. We gathered in the Fishbowl to go over the medevac list with our supervisor, Major Tavner.

Maj. Tavner looked over the list of new patients and then asked, Okay, guys, whos ready for a new one?

The other PTs and I skimmed the names as fast as we could, clamoring to see over her shoulder. Some of my colleagues wanted the big, complicated cases. Theyd gone to graduate school specifically for this purposeto serve as physical therapists to the nations war woundedand no challenge was too great for them: triple amputees, open abdominal wounds, fractured spines, broken pelvises. No problem.

Some wanted the prizesthe Special Forces patients, the West Point officerspatients who had been overachievers before and, they hoped, would carry that motivation through their upcoming rehab.

And some of my colleagues wanted a certain type of amputation.

Ill take the double AK! my friend and co-conspirator Darcy passionately volunteered. When she saw that Id burst out laughing, she added for emphasis: I love double AKs. They just cant cheat.

A double AK is a person whose legs have both been amputated above the knee. They cant cheat because they literally dont have another leg to stand on. And because both of their legs are amputated at the thigh, they wont have an easier amputation on the other side like a BK (below-knee amputation) to favor. Darcy had worked with these challenges many times before and considered herself something of a specialist. I made fun of her for it, but to a certain extent, we all played favorites, especially in our morning sports medicine sick call clinic. Oh, I got an elbow. I hate the elbow! Whatd you get, an ankle? Ill trade you.