Wounded Marine says "I don't allow crying in my room"

With mother at his side, a wounded veteran fights to stay positive
Tampa Bay Times
Caitlin Johnston
Times Staff Writer Friday, October 25, 2013

Chris Ott laughs with her son, J.T. Doody, after he cracked a joke at home. “I don’t allow crying in J.T.’s room,” she said. “There must only be happiness and laughter.” The Marine was injured in Iraq and was on the mend when an infection set in.
Photos by CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN | Times

When asked what gets him out of bed every morning, J.T. Doody's response is simple: Jesus, football and women.

His morning ritual involves an hourlong process in which the 30-year-old Iraq War veteran depends on his mom or a nursing assistant to do everything. Brush his teeth. Scrub his body. Wash his hair.

Doody spends his life in constraints, paralyzed because he contracted a hospital-borne infection while under treatment for injuries suffered in Iraq.

His days consist of a series of movements between his hospital bed, a 375-pound motorized wheelchair, and a sling that transfers him from his bed to his shower. But Chris Ott refuses to let her son's limitations define his life. They eat at restaurants, check out bikini-clad girls at beach bars, host football parties every Sunday, even go to strip clubs.

"We try to make his life as normal as possible," Ott said. "Especially important is the socialization. You can't meet anyone if you're sitting in front of your TV."

While Doody possesses the technology and support to get out of bed, his will to want to move, to live, distinguishes him. It's one of the reasons the SouthShore Chamber of Commerce will honor him at its annual Ruskin Seafood Festival this weekend.

Nursing assistant Sheri Womble said that many wounded veterans simply stay in bed, glued to their televisions, no interest in an outside world they can't participate in.

"He's the only person I've met in his condition that really leads a normal life, and it's because of her," Womble said of Ott. "He does normal, typical 30-year-old guy stuff. It's a normal life, he just happens to be in a wheelchair."
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