White River Junction
Ever since the doctors pointed out the black, cancerous spot on her husband Edward’s lung X-ray images two months ago, she’s had plenty to worry about.
The Trahans live in Littleton, N.H., more than an hour from the White River Junction VA Medical Center. When the 74-year-old veteran, who served from 1960 to 1963, is transported there for post-surgical care, Barbara Trahan wants to be close to her husband of 41 years, but she can’t afford a hotel.
“I’ve worked all my life,” Trahan said during a phone interview last week. “I worked in the high schools and the senior centers and now I volunteer here at American Legion.”
Edward Trahan is long since retired from a career as a concrete mason. When he was in his prime in the ’70s, she said, the job paid a lot less, and there were fewer regulatory protections for workers. For example, she said, he wore no mask while helping to dismantle an asbestos-laden hotel near Mount Washington, a prime example of the type of occupational exposure that may have led to his cancer.
Now, trying to fend off medical bills with a fixed income, adding the cost of one of the hotels closest to the center — advertised at $613 to $833 a week — is unthinkable to Trahan.
“I wouldn’t be able to do it,” she said. “I’d stay in my car or ask to stay there in the room, which they probably wouldn’t let me. But a chair would be fine.”
She said she’s also considering sleeping on the couch of friends who live between Littleton and White River Junction, but she doesn’t want to be too far from her husband.
The Trahans aren’t alone, according to Joseph Anglin, a spokesman for the VA Medical Center, which has 74 in-patient beds serving 25,000 veterans across the Twin States.
“The Vietnam veteran is really our more dominant demographic at the moment,” Anglin said. “Some World War II vets are seeking care, but their numbers are now diminishing. We’re also seeing younger Iraqi War veterans coming in for care.”
Veterans in all three brackets can live up to three hours away, and the burden of travel and accommodations adds to the hardship, he said.
“The local lodging is charging money,” he said. “We know that some of our veterans are strapped for cash.”
Anglin said some family members aren’t able to make the trip, leaving patients to face their medical treatments and recoveries much more alone than they would otherwise be.
“If someone’s going through cancer treatments or any other significant treatments, having these people available is important to their treatment and recovery,” he said. “It really does impact the quality of life of the veteran and the family, if the family can be here. We know this.”
Anglin said the VA has been busily working behind the scenes to try to address the issue, and is about to roll out a plan to partner with Fisher House Foundation, an organization that supports veterans.
If a local fundraising campaign is successful, Fisher House will build a housing complex on the VA Medical Center’s existing campus off Route 5 that will provide free food and lodging to the families of in-patient veterans.
Anglin said the details of the proposed house, including its exact location on the campus, are still being decided, but that it would have somewhere between 8 and 21 rooms, and will carry a total construction price tag of roughly $4 million.
“They will meet with us and based on the application we filed, they will really do a significant evaluation of what our future needs look like. That will determine the size of the facility,” he said.
Christy Husmann, the VA Medical Center’s Fisher House project leader, said federal regulations prohibit the VA from actively participating in soliciting charitable contributions.
“Typically a community champion is identified to lead the capital campaign for construction,” she said.
The foundation typically provides 50 percent matching donations for a local fundraising campaign, which would equate to a donation of $2 million if the $4 million estimate holds up. The foundation then conducts ongoing fundraising to pay for maintenance, housekeeping, and the cost of keeping the house stocked with food. The VA Medical Center will provide a staff person who will play a role “akin to a social worker,” according to Anglin.
He said local service organizations likely will be contacted in the early stages of the campaign, and that it will likely take a couple of years before ground is broken.
There are dozens of Fisher Houses providing similar services around the country — the organization says that, since 1990, it has built 71 Fisher Houses located on 24 military installations and 29 VA medical centers that have provided 7 million lodging days to 277,000 families.
The White River Junction site is one of 32 houses that are being planned or in the construction phase; another is at the VA Maine Health Care System in Togus.
Pallas Wahl, a spokeswoman for the VA Boston Healthcare System, said that a Fisher House serving its West Roxbury location has become a critical resource for families that would otherwise have to seek out a hotel in the Boston metropolitan area.
“Traveling in Boston is brutal,” she said. “The Fisher House is a beautiful place.”
The Trahans know all about the Boston Fisher House, because that’s where Barbara stayed with her daughter and son-in-law while Edward got his lung surgery. The surgery went well, and he will be transferred to White River Junction soon, she said.
The Fisher House was especially needed in Boston, she said, where the closest hotels were charging $280 a night, and the nearest hamburger cost $12.
The Fisher House protected her from those costs, she said.
“There are just no words that can describe how great it is,” she said. “The refrigerators are full. The cupboards are full. If you had not one dime you would not go hungry.”
The setting, which placed her in contact with other veteran families, also provided a different kind of sustenance.
“It was better there to talk to other people,” she said. “You found out you weren’t so rough. They were there for you and you were there for them.”
She said the company she found in the Fisher House helped her to be more present with, and supportive of, her husband.
“It’s a terrible thing to be alone,” she said.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.