0:00

Announcer: Welcome to the Vets First Podcast, a research-based conversation centered around the VA health care system, its services, and patients. From Iowa city, Iowa, here's your hosts: Dr. Levi Sowers and Brandon Rea. Levi Sowers: Welcome back to the Vets First Podcast. As always, Brandon Ray is here with me. Hello. And today we're really excited to have a veteran and also a VA employee named Tim Hornick. He is a post-9/11 Army captain who served from 2002 to 2007 in Operation Freedom. It's a master's degree at the Palo Alto, VA and works for the Western Blind Rehab Center. Welcome to the Vets First Podcast. Tim It's really exciting to have you here. Tim Hornick: Well, thank you guys for having me on board. I'm excited to be able to talk about my experiences both in the military as a veteran and on the flip side in the V.A.. Levi Sowers: I think this is- the first question I ask everybody is where you grew up and how did you get involved with the military and I think that's an important thing for us to understand and kind of go from there. Tim Hornick: Oh, very much so. Because knowing our backgrounds and exactly why we joined our all volunteer force or those of us who joined after the seventy- seven seventy-eight timeframe, it's very interesting to see all of our different experiences. So I grew up over on the South Side, south suburbs of Chicago, and originally joined the military in a very interesting manner where I was applying for colleges and I was trying to go through the ROTC route because basically I wanted to have college paid for. So nothing of your standard, you know, due to- for a patriotic cause. It was the mid-nineties. We were going through the reduction of force at that point in the military, and we had all those great advertisements of, Hey, let the army pay the way for college for you. So that was my kind of more selfish motivation to join the military. Initially with a four year scholarship for ROTC for nursing, which did not exactly pan through, because I'm not a nurse, but it was a great experience. [Laughter] Levi Sowers: Well, isn't that what most college kids do anyway, is they go in thinking they're going to do one thing and come out doing a completely different thing. Tim Hornick: Exactly. And that's and that's a good summary of military experiences. You think you're going to go and do one thing and you find yourself all over the board based on different experiences, changing your perspective, your perspectives of life, your goals. And it's just it's great just watching how this changes over time. And it's just- I just love transition, so - and that's what military is. Levi Sowers: How old were you when you joined. Tim Hornick: You know, signed the Arts scholarship when I was 18. And then, you know, four years later, I was going to college. That's when I actually took my commissioning oath. So, you know, 22 years old. Levi Sowers: So the ROTC is a little different because you come out as an officer, right? Tim Hornick: Yes. Levi Sowers: So you're not and you're not enlisted, Correct. Is that correct? Tim Hornick: Correct. Yes. Yes. Levi Sowers: So we’re still trying to learn how the military works a little bit. But- so when you come out of ROTC, you're 22. You're probably a young go-getter and we're in a war in Iraq. What happened then? Tim Hornick: I went the complete opposite direction instead of heading over to the desert. My wife also was in ROTC with me, and she was commissioned the same time as I, and she got stationed over in Korea in 2002. And so I was working with Branch to say, “Hey, how can I get within the same locality as my wife? And so her orders center over to K 16, which is a airforce base for the Koreans south of Seoul and they're like, “Hey, yeah, we can get you, you know, pretty close to her.” So they put me up at Camp Casey in Korea, which is on the other side of Seoul. And like anyone else that's used to driving around a major city. Yes, the military did get us to in the same locale. If you look on the global status. But otherwise, we are about four or 5 hours away from each other. And at least on the same continent, for the first year and a half of our military careers. Levi Sowers: Yeah, go ahead. Brandon Rea: I was just gonna say it's a little bit crazy, right? Levi Sowers: Yeah. So I'm assuming you were in a combat situation. Tim Hornick: Yes. Levi Sowers: And so you didn't stay in Korea the whole time? Tim Hornick: No. Levi Sowers: What can you tell us a little bit about that, how you ended up where you're at now? Tim Hornick: Yeah, so the fun part is- with military and we see this a lot with dual service military couples as you're working together, they're working with the military to find locations that can fit both of your M.O.S. I was there defense and she was quartermaster. And so this brings us to our next location, which was in 2004, where we both agreed to go to Fort Hood at that point in time the first cav was already deployed to Iraq. And her unit was beginning to get ready to deploy in support of operations around the summer timeframe. And so we arrived there in September of that year. I deployed right away to Iraq, and she was getting her unit ready to deploy about four months later. And so I joined with four or five ADA, who was already in the middle and doing patrol joint operations along Route Irish, which is that major thoroughfare that goes through Iraq. That is all of our military convoy lines, and in particular, we were patrolling that part of the Route Irish there between the Baghdad International Airport, the Green Zone, and a little bit beyond that, which in that point was probably one of the most dangerous roads in the world, is one of the ways that the news usually framed that where you had something going off rather frequently going on. So that's kind of just how I got into into Iraq, into the Baghdad area, and into the situation that ultimately caused me to lose my sight, which occurred on of all days, November 11, 2004, where we were supporting the Iraqi National Guard with providing them with security as they were going in to a rescue Iraqi mosque, and at which point we did have a sniper in the area that we were unable to find. And let's just say that, hey, I am still here to this day, which I can't be more happy about, because it could have gotten a whole lot worse getting shot where the sniper drove, entered through the left temple, severed the left optical nerve and exited out the right eye, causing a ruptured globe. Levi Sowers: MAN Yeah, that's that's pretty intense. First time. Can I ask you a few questions about it? Tim Hornick: Oh, hell yeah. Levi Sowers: Are you comfortable? Okay. You're comfortable talking about it? That's fine. Tim Hornick: Yeah, I have it as part of the presentations I also give to ophthalmologists. Levi Sowers: Oh, very cool. So what would we be able to get a few of those slides to put with the blog and I'll share. Tim Hornick: Sure! Which ones you want? Levi Sowers: I haven't seen your stuff yet, so. Brandon Rea: Yeah, if you're willing to share? Tim Hornick: Oh yeah. Levi Sowers: The more information we can get out there. I think the better. So- Tim Hornick: Yeah, well, I have surgical photos. It’s the other reason I was asking that. Other than that I do got some photos that I was able to keep from my experiences there because I didn't get my camera back. When I came back- that got started somewhere. But yeah, I do. Got some photos. Levi Sowers: Your- did- did the helmet- you were wearing a helmet, I assume. Did it miss your helmet? Tim Hornick: Helmet ends. Bullet here. Levi Sowers: Oh, wow. Okay. [Tim laughs] Levi Sowers: Geez. I guess you're talking fractions of an inch, right? And, you know, you're-. Brandon Rea: Tim, that’s wild that you survived. Levi Sowers: Yeah, it is wild you survived. Also, did you- do you remember- do you remember getting hit? Do you- Tim Hornick: Oh yeah. No, I didn't lose consciousness at all. Levi Sowers: You did not lose consciousness? Oh yeah. Okay. Well, you know, I can't believe you didn't lose consciousness, actually. Well, it's. Tim Hornick: Just so it missed the entire brain. You didn't have any severe swelling. I mean, just think of the tissues that have passed through. There's not a whole lot there other than the overall blunt force of the impact itself. But then there's no mission critical area, cause, yeah, it passed in front of the house, in front of the home and everything and below the frontal lobe and everything. So, I mean, that's just all soft tissue. Levi Sowers: Yeah. So did you, you know, you immediately lose eyesight, obviously. Can you kind of explain a little bit what it was like to go from 100% visual to no vision in less than a day in a fraction of a second, really. Tim Hornick: So I also have a carry on that is I also regained eyesight to whoa. Because that was a piece on why I only said it. It ruptured the globe. It got stitched back together in theater. Levi Sowers: And so in the theater. Okay. Wow. That's really impressive. Yeah, you know, that's one thing that- it's been really interesting to me as I talk to more people in the field of medicine and war, war trauma is that these forward operating surgical centers are really driving forward or pushing how surgery is done on trauma. And it's really impressive that these forward operating, you know, surgical theaters are able to do what they do with patients like you. It's really impressive and very amazing that we're starting that- are not starting to do it- that we've been doing it for a long time is increase the survival rate of lots of people. Tim Hornick: Yeah so yeah I now walk through that entire experience. Levi Sowers: Yeah go ahead Go ahead. Tim Hornick: I don't know what you want to do. I'm a better lead in that one. I mean. Levi Sowers: You heard our. But you know, you can, you know, we listen to him. We're still trying to people tell us stuff like what you just told us. And I'm sitting here as a guy who has a Ph.D. who went to college and was drinking beer at the time. You got shot, you know, and like, I think about that and I try to process it myself and understand why it's hard for me to process to get that that happened to you. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, you're giggling, but it's true. Like I, I am still struck every day when we do interviews like this, you know, the perseverance and the fact that you can sit here and laugh about it, I'm like, that's amazing to me. Tim Hornick: And so that part is one of the more interesting part to think of any of these types of stories, including mine, is how do we get from point of injury to where we can laugh about that Because that's where we start seeing the true spirit of the individual come out. And as much as we talk about resilience as being a major healing factor, the good buddy of mine can like what he calls it better, which is transience, which is the process in which you don't just rebound, but you transcend where you were before to create a new you, to really have that sense changing all your outlook on life, your sense of self, your identities, your spirituality as just this broader, hey, just don't get to where you were. Just like anything else that's been injured. It is amazing to see what can happen when you when the three force entirely and transcend what it was previously. And that's why we're able to laugh about it. As we reached that point, we had that sense of overcoming not just disability as a condition and more importantly, overcoming the internal talk that we go through and really develop a much stronger sense, more well-rounded sense, even though we're asking for assistance or we may seem a little bit off, it's absolutely amazing. Just with the folks I work with even had gone through the same process and people that I know, it's amazing just talking with them, seeing, yeah, this is this is what they used to be, but they're much happier now than they ever were, even though they missed parts of their previous life in this, you know, do things, there is a deeper sense of happiness that I know I'm not doing it justice to explain it right, right now. But it's there and that's my- and I think the way I mean that's part of my grant is when people say thanks for your service, I say no problem. It was enjoyable to do it and even more enjoyable nowadays. Yeah, I just because I don't regret it, I don't regret anything that I did. I don't regret the entry because it transformed me to who I am today, which is being able to share and talk about it. More importantly, doing what I do to help others in the same situation that if I didn't have it, I would I would not have these experiences to be able to share or have some tools that I have learned to help others overcome similar things and adversity. Levi Sowers: Yeah, of course. I think an important thing you just said is that we shouldn't let one incident define our lives. Right? And that's kind of what you're getting at. And that's a subject we talked about last season quite a bit with you and Sadler and Doctor Kirby. You know, is this perseverance and this sort of belonging and service nature of service that I think veterans carry on beyond their actual time in the military. And it's really cool to me. I think it's really neat. I really like that translation. So I'm going to be translating. It's great. That's a great time. So back to your- you had just got shot. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like? I guess I don't know. Like I don't even know where to go from here. Tim, Let's be honest. Oh, yeah. Tim Hornick: No problems. Yeah. Levi Sowers: This is the easy part. Tim Hornick: Cause. Yeah, because this is just pure, simple situation on what happened. So first off, what is it like to get shot over there in the temple? Well, just imagine getting punched in the side of the head. It's pretty much the same thing. I mean, it's hurt. Think Goins nine that one death. It definitely makes you go and rethink. Wow. Ouch. What's going on? You do lose a good stance on, you know, just everything that is going in and around you. And so with me, yeah, I did go blind right away. And at that point I'm sitting there, I went to I went to this is going to sound bad, but I was in a Bradley, so I went to the bottom of the turret I had was sticking out of the Bradley trying to find a sniper and didn't have any success trying to find him any more than my gunner did. So, uh, yes, I was in a very, very nice and heavily armored vehicle and get shot in the head because my head was not inside the vehicle. Yeah, trust me, it's a good punchline that I really I do get to have fun with. So. Levi Sowers: Yeah. Yeah. Tim Hornick: Um, yeah, but I also looked at it as, you know, the lieutenant in the unit is the weakest link. And yeah, we're, we're the most expendable. It's really our soldiers that really are the ones that do all the real work. So I look at my loss being, yeah, I'm replaceable easily. My actual soldiers, they're not replaceable at all. Their experience and everything are really the ones that gets us through everything and gets me through the next probably about 30 minutes, which is the length of time that it takes for my my guys to get back up in the Bradley and to roll over to the to the hospital. They're in the Green Zone, which did have that wonderful HBO series call that was in Baghdadi. Ah, so yeah, so that entire experience is yeah, sitting there in the bomb turret, I hear my gunner come over to radio because I still have the headset on, being able to communicate, saying that I was down and I'm sitting there feeling the side of my head kind. It's like, Hey, yeah, no, I know there's a hole right here inside my head and just doing a self-assessment just to make sure that it's like, Yeah, I'm all here still type thing. nd that's when my gunner was able to get the rest of our our squad back up in the Bradley. And his name was Sergeant Nick Ly. Fantastic guy. He went through this experience two too many times. I was the second lieutenant that they had in that position, and both of us went down and that's then I had started more. Who was my one of my second sergeants pulled me all the get back and, and and a couple others back there. I don't know who was doing what at that point in time. To me, I started to administer first aid and I'm sitting there trying to figure out like, why are they wrapping my my right eye with gauze and everything? The hole is on the side of my head, on the left side, not on the right side, because I just didn't realize cause no, I didn't try poking my missing hole on my right side yet I just knew that there was a hole in the left side and I didn't realize any of that because, you know, you're still in a little bit of state of shock. Levi Sowers: Were you not feeling pain? So there’s not a whole lot of pain receptors in that area, which is the other fun part, I think, of that. Yeah, there's no major pain, nerve endings. Your eye really doesn't have much. You have some over there on the side of the head. There is no major cranial swelling or anything like that from the bullets trajectory because of well, there's a lot of dead space there behind the eyes for any type of major swelling to occur. Tim Hornick: So it's. Yeah. Oh, no, not really. Not really. Yeah, I'm just. Yeah, just imagining that that part of it had to dissolve itself that's there. And. Well, hey, I have a lot more hot air. My head than I thought I did. So that. How do you help cushion everything back there? So. Yeah, but yeah, no. So we roll over in there doing all the praying because it's like, Oh crap, what is going on with me? I get over to the hospital over there, they pop me up on the gurney. One of my counterparts to take one of his guys there about an hour and a half before I got there because of a similar situation with one of his dismounts getting shot. He meets me over there just to check up on me so he can report that to our commander and everything. And I'm staying there, getting real. The nurse and the doctor, they're rolling me in almost like, Hey, am I dying? I'm feeling cold is what I'm actually asking them. And they're like, No, we just hit you with. Yeah, they started my IV line for sedating me. And that's like, Oh God, yeah, that's what that is. Okay, just want to make sure. And they also told me at that point that fully naked because they should be down that quick and it's like, Hey, now I know I'm cold and goodnight, See you in the morning. So woke up the next day they will call my wife. We were able to get her to understand that, hey, I was alive. I was going to have a pretty good birthday because my birthday is November 12th and I was going to be coming home shortly because at that point, the only thing that she heard and you know, y'all can tell me your thoughts is, hey, your husband was shot in the head. He's coming home. Levi Sowers: Yeah. Oh, you freezing. Freeze. Freezing. Tim Hornick: So, yeah, yep, yep, yep. So the fact that it was only being told out over the phone and not the traditional way is kind of the thing that told her, Hey, he's okay, but hey, there's something missing here. So the fact that she was able to hear me the next day in a slightly sedated form, talking over some VIPs, personal cell phone there was absolutely fantastic. So, yeah, it was able to get some good care, you know, winter launch tool or a quick, quick seconds where I had a couple of friends that I went to school with our nurses over there and went over to Walter Reed where I had some more friends I went to school with that were nurses over there able to take good care of us and very thankful for the help that they were able to provide and kind of one of the hard parts with ocular traumas, especially when they're just ocular trauma, is in the military, is that there's not a whole lot of places to stick us. You know, Walter Reed, you have what, the burn center there. You got the empty center, you get spinal cord. There's not really a good spectrum. We got a whole lot of folks that are visually impaired with just injuries, with ocular trauma. Yeah. And, you know, this is one of those commonalities that hasn't changed too much that I think when you spoke with Time's. I'm curious about that. He was able to mention several times that where do we have these ocular trauma center excellence type situations? Then at that point you thought there really weren't a whole lot. And so I get there, I get stuck up over on the OB-GYN floor because all the other units are all and I'm kind of blind to that. They just need a place to stick me for the four days I was there before I get sent over to Wolford Hall over there at Lackland Air Force Base. That's closer to us there at Fort Hood. And not to mention they have a pretty good Eichler center that does all the Air Force trainings. And so I had some pretty good care in that process. But yeah, just no really good center points like we do see with other injuries or where to provide our treatment. Levi Sowers: So is that do you know if that has changed since the time you were injured? You were injured in 2004. Tim Hornick: Ah, so cool thing that was recently released by the association is that the military is finally standing up the Ocular Centers of Excellence with the first ones coming online here in the near future. That was part of the- not this past year NDAA, but one the recent ones. And so hopefully by being able to get these types of centers of excellence up and going and fully stabilized and moving forward, you know, we can have it's not better treatment treatment's been fantastic. I think more comprehensive treatments at singular entities is going to be tremendous because one of the things that I was missing in this entire part is there's not a whole lot of us blind folks wandering around. And so trying to find peers has always been difficult because, well, it's hard to find people when you’re blind, much less trying to find people with similar injuries because, you know, we're all cast to the winds to provide the services. So there's not a whole lot- not a whole lot of places where we can join together like we do see with some of the other disabilities who do have these lawyers of Excellence and Treatment center and said, hey, here's the burn center. And, you know, they have constantly folks coming in and out here in Palo Alto. We got our trauma center. That's fantastic with being able to treat a wide variety of trauma injuries and be able to work with folks and while they're in these centers, they are able to meet their peers and more importantly, their caregivers, spouses, family are able to meet your responses of families going through similar things. So you're able to get a whole lot of sharing going on and a lot of those action therapeutics that are instrumental to all of the heavy lifting that the doctors are doing. We're trying to stitch us or put us back together, which is supporting the family in supporting the mental health, supporting that next phase in life. And so I'm hoping to see that change here in the future. Levi Sowers: Interesting. Yeah, that's great. That's good. So can you explain to me a little bit what it was like, that transition from, you know, 100% site, two to nothing? It came back and started to do rehabilitation. Can you talk a little bit about that experience? Yeah. So it's. Tim Hornick: You know, using stages of loss, you spend a whole lot of time, either you or my case going through depression, going through denial. First year. Yeah, about first year. I just put my brain in autopilot, which is the army- just whatever someone told me related to my care. I just said, Yep, Roger board doing as best I could. Did blind rehab in Waco, where I learned some of my initial skill sets, but I wasn't quite ready for blind rehab yet and I wouldn't be for several years later. Other fun part of my story is that I did remain on active duty. This was 2004. I didn't get out of 2011, so I had seven years where I stayed in the military. I went back to my units when they redeployed, where I was able to get some useful vision, as well as training on adaptive technology from Wake Up Blind Rehab center able to remain fully engaged with work. But once again, I was in autopilot mode doing things I already knew I was still in the identity of what I previously had as being who I want to be as an officer in the military trying to move forward. So once again, the sight part was probably the easiest thing to figure out and get over because even though my sight was rollercoaster, improving, going down and nothing improving, going down, nothing, because there's only so much you can do with a stitched back- stitched up globe as well as an eye that's missing a lens, natural cornea, its iris, and it's retina just being held together by sheer force of will that, you know, that was probably the easier part for me to deal with more than me trying to cope with who I wanted to be. And that would be probably three years, three years, three and four years after my injury. There's probably one more point in my life because once again, you know, the state laws and the ups and downs of state laws with being able to see and what my brain is able to do is one thing, being able to cope with that, Yeah, going on autopilot is not a good thing. Anytime someone to talk to me, I gave them a response like, “Yeah, I’m doing absolutely fantastic.” Social workers that did the follow up stuff for those of us that were injured- they all looked at me, like, you know, “Fantastic story. You're able to stay in the military, you're still doing a lot of good things!” and you're thinking, “Oh yeah, no, I'm going to tell you everything that you want to hear because I'm not ready to deal with the internal peace yet.” Brandon Rea: But when you're talking about how blind rehab or you're getting ready for that, how did you- did you come to that point like that? What was the thought process? How did you get to the point that, like I'm ready to really do that? Tim Hornick: And so this comes with a fun transition point of my life. So the first time I just got sent there because, yeah, you need to send someone like me there, if that's possible, to help you get it up on your legs and moving forwards. And that's why I did it. I knew I knew what I needed to take from blind rehab. I just wasn't ready to deal with blind rehab. The second time I went, there was 2010 when I went up to Hinds. At that point I just finished with my master's in social work. I was getting ready to come back over from university life because the Army sent me there for social work. And I was getting ready to go back to what, at that point, was the Wounded Warrior Education Initiative, which was the Army Wounded Warrior Program, not a project, but the actual AW2 ran by the U.S. Army at that time. And at that point I was like, okay, I actually need to know how to be a blind guy. Finally, I was finally able to accept. I was able to use the cane and have no problem with it. I was able to have all my speech synthesizers and text speech stuff, talking, and in the office without having any care if anyone heard it. Because before it, you're trying to conceal as much as possible. I tried to be a sighted blind guy. It didn't work out too well. I was able to do what I needed to do. But after going through the social work program, after being able to spend a quick minute not trying to be me, but trying to learn who I was, that's when I was like, Okay. Levi Sowers: What you're talking about a little bit is like acceptance. Of what had occurred and what your life will be like, right. That you really- you mentally had to come to an acceptance point before you were able to to really move forward, it seems? Tim Hornick: It. Yes. And that's the hard part. We all hit it at different points in times. It's a no, it's not a vicious cycle. It's kind of a never ending cycle where we go back and forth over the course of our life when we're ready, we're not ready, we're ready, we're not ready. And so I just need to find when I was ready. And that was it. I was finally ready to, uh, to accept it and move forward. Levi Sowers: Would you say that you were in because you said you were trying to hide- hide it as much as possible? Were you embarrassed by it? Was it- Tim Hornick: Oh yeah, because- yeah. Well, one of the common ways anyone that's injured or can't do a job is considered a broke soldier. And that has a whole lot of negative connotations. And, and that's where it's like I'm trying to go and show the face of me that is not broke. That's actually the normal part. But yet I have this negative self-talk running both that, which is what I personally believe the military was, or at least the military culture was telling me verses what the military culture was actually trying to tell me to different things. So I believed I was broke, therefore useless unless I'm able to do things. Whereas the actual military culture that I was around that I was not able to see was actually trying to support me and I was not ready to see how they were trying to support me. They didn't care that I couldn't see as much as they cared on what I was able to do for everyone. Levi Sowers: Interesting. Tim Hornick: And so that's where we got the difference between what we think the culture is and what the culture is within the military. And what I thought it was was not what it was. Levi Sowers: So then so after this acceptance and going through blind rehab, how long was it until you started working with the VA? Tim Hornick: So there's a nice, lovely, long timespan. And, to quickly summarize, I got out in December 2011 because my wife and I felt that the military was not the right place for us anymore. I did have a couple of awesome potentials. I had carry-on orders that would take me to some fantastic experiences. I actually made the selection board to be promoted to major, if I would have stayed on for another couple of months and so I did have my military career moving forward at the time when my wife and I made the decision to get out, which was because we had a young daughter. My wife was- my wife and I both agreed that we were just a wee bit overwhelmed with what was going to be coming up with the amount of moves, especially with trying to do multiple moves in a very short period of time with a young family, with me still coping and trying to become who I needed to be. And so that's when I got out. 2011, started to go back to school, went through a Ph.D. program over at the University of Kansas Occupational Therapy Program for Therapeutic Sciences. I didn't finish it, but I got a lot of good lessons. So during the entire process, I was looking for opportunities to become a social worker within the VA. Nothing really materialized until 2020, when actually in late 2019, when a buddy I was working with over at the VA, named Jared, said, “Hey, there's going to be a position for patient advocate popping up here in the near future. Can you please fight for it?” Because him and I were working on a bunch of different things together and he was the patient advocate over at the Kansas VA at that point in time, and just wanted to see if I'd be interested in trying to apply for it. I did apply for it and that's how I got my first foothold in the door was as a patient advocate there in Kansas in January 2020. A whole lot of things have changed since then with you guys, I think covered a few times. [Laughter] Tim Hornick: So yeah, it's been a very interesting experience and another opportunity came out around the same time- about a year later, after I was there as patient advocate, where a position came up to be the Admissions Coordinator at the Blind Rehab Center, and it's like I talked to my wife, I was like, “Hey, you want to try California? If I'm able to get it.” She was like maybe we could test it. And both of us thought there was no chance that I was going to get it. And lo and behold, I was selected for the position. Super happy, because I always want to start be able to give back to blind rehab in one way or another. As a person that had received a lot of tremendous benefits from blind rehab. A lot of awesome people have come along and helped me through blind rehab services like when I was out at Hines, the chief there, Jerry Shutter, was fantastic and Denise Lovering and several others did a fantastic job with helping me, mentor me, mature me- because that was needed where I was and I just wanted to- Levi Sowers: I still need it all the time, Tim. Tim Hornick: Yeah, we all do though. Levi Sowers: But I'm a 37 year old child in it. Tim Hornick: You’re always gonna be there. [Laughter] Tim Hornick: No. So yeah, I've had some fantastic mentors along the way and so I was happy to finally be able to give back to them by coming on board. And it's one of the things I hope to be able to continue going forward is finding some way to either work within blind rehab services or partnering with blind rehab services to continue to impact the lives of veterans with visual impairments through this process. Levi Sowers: Very nice and how do you- how do you think the VA's handled blind rehabilitation? You know, I think from my very limited, very, very, very limited experience, I think they tend to do a good job. These coordinators and services they provide are actually pretty good in my opinion, but I could be totally off on that. Tim Hornick: No, no. So it's the entire lifelong continuum of care that blind rehab is able to do by that actually is one of I think is one of the most impactful services that the VA has to offer. It would be fantastic if other service lines were able to develop the same type of programs, especially rehabilitative services within the VA. That rehab has come to come because truly there is no other services like it in the world. Well, we can go and talk about blind veterans in the UK, which is, ya know, another fun conversation to have, but- Levi Sowers: We're actually going to be talking to Renata Gomes. Tim Hornick: Yep. Cool. Levi Sowers: No, no - we actually talk to her this week, right? Brandon Rea: Uh, 18th, coming up. Levi Sowers: In a couple of weeks. Tim Hornick: Yeah. No, there's, yeah, there's really no other services like this and especially for visual impairment here in the US because no one else is able to provide these types of full wraparound services from regular case management, outpatient rehab, in-home visits to inpatient rehab and even daytime rehab for visual impairments. Here in this country, we have a lot of nonprofits that are providing blind rehab, but that's more of a fragmentary system. We have state services for the blind, which once again is also a fragmentary system that relies heavily around folk rehab and other types of entities to provide the assistance that's needed. VA Blind rehab is truly the only one that does everything from case management, basic rehab, advanced rehab, complex care with dealing with multiple conditions and injuries and traumas. Here at Palo Alto, we're the only ones that have a comprehensive, no logical vision rehab program and the blind rehab services that's dealing with a whole lot of TBI related visual impairments due to a multitude of situations, not just trauma from war time, but strokes and other types of acquired. Tbis aura and similar types of visual impairments caused by a brain injury. Yeah. Name Naomi. Any other service that you guys can think of or any of your listeners I can think of that provides that type of wraparound services and yeah, we'll come up short very quickly because it just out and so you know the VA line up service it's fantastic. Levi Sowers: Yeah and you know I think nonprofits like the VA pushing you know nonprofits for veterans do a lot to push care for veterans. And I think that's been a really eye opening thing to me is that when you want something done in government, you have to, you know, lobby for it. And I think that nonprofits have done a really good job of that in particular, improving care for veterans and especially blinded veterans in this case. I think it's really interesting. Tim Hornick: They really have and without the Blind Veterans association- because they've been the leaders in making sure that blind rehab services is able to be around to this day. They've been the ones that've been pushing for the expansion because when blind rehab services initially started and you can get this from a wonderful article, series of articles that Dr. Greg Goodrich wrote along with Tom and a few others, and that collective. Yeah, I mean, you go back to the 1940s when Blind Rehab started to be developed. I mean, that was just all in-patient rehab centers. It wasn't until the sixties and seventies with blind veterans associations, continuous efforts that we got the visual impairment services team coordinator to provide the case management. And then again in the eighties, when we got the visual impairment centers to optimize remaining sight and visual impairment services, outpatient rehab centers throughout the country. That's able to provide all of this type of blind rehab in-patient one day settings, in-home care that now we would not have this without without folks like the one Veterans Association, and they're continuing to make sure that, you know, we don't lose any of our blind rehab centers because you know what's going on right now in the VA other than that wonderful report that's talking about realignment and how that happens within the VA and it's like, you know, we didn't need our voices being captured. And so that's just- that's the one piece. The other piece is rehab services are the good job with right into rehab care. But we need as individuals, it's going back to that notion of trying to balance the overall say about not also being or not being around other individuals with visual impairment for, you know, the majority of my recovery period, it was it wasn't until Engagement Point and Veterans Association that I started to meet other veterans with visual impairments and working with them, going out, doing fun things like going to their convention, doing kayaking, going hiking, doing some of these fund therapy type items, went outside the VA until, you know, getting to know the Blind Veterans Association of of more developing based on my own support groups for a couple of minutes there when I was going through school just bringing people to help out with learning things like technology and just general life, all that is thanks to you as a like minded association to bring us together because otherwise, you know, there's blind veterans all over the place. I ain't going to know that one bit. It just was one of his duties here and there, especially. I know most of this most of my story takes place in Kansas when I got all the military and yeah, there's a whole lot of space just like you all have up there in Iowa City. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of space up there between people. Yeah. And so you don't you don't meet others unless it's large national organizations working to bring us together from throughout the country. Because that's where we need that's, that's where we have the best method to be able to pull us all together is a large, large entity that is trying to help each of us based on all us being the ones helping. So going back to the entire, you know, visually impaired veterans helping other veterans with visual impairments, I mean, that's truly the key piece in all of this, is can we help each other in that? Yeah. Levi Sowers: We just got a couple of more follow up questions and. Then one of them is the one I like to ask everybody. So that's the- what do you do for fun, man? What does Tim do for fun? Tim Hornick: That's- what I do for fun is spend a lot of time on bikes. So for, for some odd reason, there's a couple of races over there in Kansas because just like y'all have up there and I've got a bunch of proper roads that a lot of people don't use enough. I love gravel cycling races, so I think a lot of my buddies are getting into it. So over the last six years or seven years, I've been spending a lot of time riding bikes long distances on gravel. I've done the former DKA, now called Unbound, 200 mile gravel race here many times. Next one coming up on June fourth. Hope to have my third finish over there in their ten in the category. I'm glad they're also able to get their Paralympic category set established so that yeah- Levi Sowers: Yeah yeah it's also going to be cool. Fantastic. And then one last question because you just blew my mind. You ride with another rider, did you say tandem? Tim Hornick: Yeah. Oh yes! Yes, yes. Well there is awesome person, Sean Kessler is totally blind - the Army paramedic that had just finished going across the country on a single by using headsets and human guides so that we're riding with her across the country and she is next getting set up to do the Continental Divide, which is the wonderful ride that takes you from Canada down to Mexico on the Continental Divide trail. Levi Sowers: Wow. That's really cool. Your story has been really cool, man. A great interview. And well, hey, I just want to really thank you again. Brandon Rea: Bye! Tim Hornick: Bye Brandon, bye Levi! Announcer: This concludes today's Vets First Podcast. For questions or comments relating to the program, please direct email correspondence to [email protected]. Thanks for listening!