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Ty endured multiple surgeries. His left forearm and three fingers on his right hand were amputated—the thumb, index, and middle. He was kept sedated most of the time. Then, after several weeks, the doctors removed the bandages. "Bits of his face looked like him, only burnt," Becky says. "I can't describe the color—charcoal, brown. No ears, no nose."
Later operations, including one that used a muscle from Ty's back to cover the exposed part of his brain, changed his appearance even more. For a few months, he wore a lacrosse helmet to protect the area, until a molded prosthetic was inserted and his skull stitched closed. "He went through so many stages of healing that I just grew into how he looked," says Becky, who says she was more concerned with Ty's emotional well-being than his physical appearance.
After Ty survived the first critical weeks, his father and brother flew back to Metamora. Becky and Renee stayed behind, moving into a suite at the local Fisher House. The women rotated shifts at Ty's bedside. They fed him and helped him shower. They stretched his remaining two fingers—both badly burned—to increase their range of motion. "I remember days I'd think, I can't walk in that room and put on a happy face," Becky says. "I don't know how I did it. I just did. My kid."
Ty, his perception fogged by sedatives and painkillers, only gradually became aware of his disfigurement. Following the doctors' advice, Becky didn't volunteer details but waited for him to ask. One day, when he wanted to blow his nose, Ty remarked, "As bad as I was burned, I'm surprised I still have a nose." Then he saw the look in his mother's eyes. "No nose?" he said. "I must really look like an alien."
Once, as they entered a treatment room, Becky wasn't able to block her son from a full-length mirror. It was the first time he got a good look at himself. Remarkably, he seemed more curious than horrified. As Ty healed, he and Becky made forays into San Antonio to shop and eat, and Becky would stare down gawkers. If Ty was bothered by the attention, he rarely let it show.
That May, Jeff came to visit and brought Becky a ring with three diamonds—past, present, and future—to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. They strolled on San Antonio's River Walk and took in the sights. Becky had been living at Fisher House for five months. One more anniversary would come and go before she got back home.
Becky's Background
She'd never spent much time away from the patch of country outside Peoria where she was raised. The eldest of seven children whose parents separated when she was a teenager, Becky learned to be independent and hardworking and to put others first. She waited on tables during high school and later took a courier job at the hospital where her mother was a registered nurse. She married Jeff at 20, and they bought her grandparents' old house, which is still her home.
"I never could have imagined living somewhere else and not having family and friends around," she says. But her 19 months in San Antonio opened up "the little box" of her world. "Now I can go anywhere and make friends and find family."
Terri Fulkerson, whose daughter was also in the burn unit at Brooke, would sit with Becky in the gazebo outside Fisher House after long days at the hospital and "talk mom." "That girl could find humor in a rock," says Terri. "She has a way of pulling laughter out of someone even if their dreams are crashing down around them."
Becky also became expert at dealing with medical personnel. "I would never have dreamed of arguing with a neurosurgeon before," she says. She supported the decision to transplant Ty's big toe to his right hand to create a thumb, though doctors warned it might not work (it did), and stood by when they fitted him with a prosthesis for his left forearm and hand. When he became an outpatient and moved in with Becky and Renee at Fisher House, Becky watched therapists retrain him in skills such as making a bed and loading a dishwasher.
Becky was delighted to see Ty moving toward independence. Aside from headaches, he showed no signs of lasting brain damage. He was as blunt and stubborn as ever and had inherited his mother's wry humor: He regularly rattled young medics by pointing to himself and warning, "Don't smoke while shining your boots."
With Ty making progress, Becky took some time for herself. She walked for miles on a track near the hospital. On the "your-son-getting-blown-up diet," she shed 60 pounds. She let her short blonde perm grow shoulder-length and dyed it auburn.
"I was finding me," Becky recalls. "I felt better about myself." She even began doing public speaking to raise support for Fisher House. Then finally, in July 2006, Ty and Becky headed home.
Taking On a New Role
After Ty got married, his mother enrolled in the college courses she'd looked forward to for so long. Even after Ty and Renee separated, Becky held on to her new freedom. Ty stayed in the white clapboard bungalow he'd lived in with his wife. He'd been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, but medication helped lessen his anxiety. He spent his time roughhousing with his boxer pup, tinkering with his truck, and noodling on his guitar (he'd learned to drive again and to pick out tunes). At night, he'd hit the local bars with friends and even dated a bit.
Then he was struck with a severe sinus infection, which led to two ER visits. The second time, it was the day after Becky had had surgery for a tear in her shoulder. She called Ty and got no answer; Jeff went to check on him and found him dangerously dehydrated. Ty was rushed to the hospital. Jeff suffered a suspected heart attack and landed in the ER himself.
Zach sent an e-mail to Becky from Iraq, where he'd been deployed the previous fall: "What was God thinking? Why does all this stuff have to be happening to us?"
Becky typed back, "Because we can handle it."
There'd be more to handle. Becky and Jeff couldn't wake Ty up at his home one evening; at the hospital, he was diagnosed with seizures—a previously undetected result of his brain injury—and prescribed pills to keep them at bay. Yet a few months later, a neighbor found Ty lying semi-conscious in his driveway; there was another trip to the ER, where his medication was adjusted.
Becky surfed the Internet researching seizures and has now learned to recognize the warning signals. When Ty began to nod off—a red flag—over breakfast at his grandmother's recently, Becky persuaded him to come home with her. Hours later, he woke up and asked, "Would you feel comfortable taking me to my place?"
"Honestly, I wouldn't," she replied.
Ty complained to Jeff, in mock irritation, "She's holding me hostage." Still, later that night, he allowed, "When I'm at your house, Mom, I know everything will be fine."
Reflecting on Life
At dinnertime, Becky and Jeff are hanging out, waiting for a pizza delivery. The phone rings: Ty asking how to defrost a hot dog bun. Chuckling, Becky imparts some motherly wisdom.
Sometimes—not often—she feels almost overwhelmed by the hand life has dealt her, and she worries. "What if something happens? What if I don't get there in time? It scares the hell out of me." She finds comfort, though, in her circle of loved ones and her "second family" of wounded vets and their parents. She tries not to dwell on what she can't change.
"Ty asked me once if I was angry about what happened to him," Becky says. "But who would I be angry at? The bomber? He's dead. Ty? I'm proud of him. I couldn't pick anybody to be angry at, so I wasn't angry."
Her studies on hold, job offers let go, Becky fully expects to pick up where she left off sometime in the future. She imagines the day when Ty will need her less, even marry again. "The woman who ends up with him is going to be lucky," she says. "I can't wait till he has his own kids.
"I don't expect to be at Ty's beck and call for the rest of my life," she adds, curling up on the sofa where her son often sleeps. "But you're never done being the mom."
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