Another mass shooting was over. The country had moved on. But inside one house in Oregon, a family w

[riversedge]

Well worth the time to read.




A survivor’s life
Another mass shooting was over. The country had moved on. But inside one house in Oregon, a family was discovering the unending extent of a wound.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/12/05/after-a-mass-shooting-a-survivors-life/


Story by Eli Saslow
Photos by Jabin Botsford
Published on December 5, 2015




ROSEBURG, Ore. — She approached her daughter just as the doctors and psychologists had suggested: calmly, deliberately, stepping on the carpet so the floorboards didn’t squeak, picking her way around the wheelchair, the walker, the sagging balloons and wilted flowers. She held her arms out in front where her daughter could see them. She announced her arrival so as not to surprise her. “It’s just me, your mom,” she said, and then she reached out to place a reassuring hand on her daughter’s back, making sure to touch below the bullet wound and away from the incision.

“I was thinking, if you’re ready for it, maybe I’d make a quick run to the store,” said Bonnie Schaan, 52.

“Wait. For how long?” asked Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, 16.

“Not long. Are you ready to be alone? I’m not sure.”

It had been 20 days since the last time Bonnie left Cheyeanne by herself — 20 days since she was shot along with 15 others in a classroom at Umpqua Community College. Nine people were killed that day, adding to the hundreds of Americans who have died in mass shootings in recent years. And seven people were wounded but didn’t die, joining the ever-expanding ranks of mass-shooting survivors. There are thousands of them. Fifty-eight gunshot survivors at the movie theater in Aurora, Colo. Three at the Washington Navy Yard. One at a church in Charleston, S.C. Nine in Colorado Springs. Twenty-one in San Bernardino, Calif. And seven more in Roseburg, Ore., where Cheyeanne had been sent home from the hospital to a flea-infested rental with reinforced locks and curtains darkening the living room........................