For JP and Crystal Lane, it was “googly eyes” at first sight. Crystal was at the gym with her cousin when the cousin noticed JP working out across the way.
“And I said, ‘Yeah, he’s cute.’ And I didn’t know that he was on prosthetics yet because there were so many machines around that area. So we continued our workout and he came up to me and complimented our work out on our cable pulldown machine. And he said, ‘You’re doing better than half of the men in here.’”
When JP walked away, Crystal noticed JP’s two prosthetic legs, the very expensive souvenirs of a massive IED that nearly killed JP in Afghanistan. Crystal didn’t know it, but JP had been praying for a cute gym girl with curly hair who wouldn’t be turned off by his injuries.
“The rest is history,” Crystal said. “I mean, from there it was like googly eyes back and forth from the gym.”
Crystal moved to San Antonio, Texas to be closer to JP just two weeks later, and they were married in six months. That timeline may seem fast, but the couple embraces life with a fervor. JP is medically retired from the Army, and they could take things slow if they needed. Instead, Crystal acts as a caregiver for JP as he plays for the San Antonio Spurs in the National Wheelchair Basketball Association, they work together on a podcast and social media channels, and he’s recording his first Christian music album.
Luckily, his book is already published and his motivational speaking trips don’t get in the way too much.
But JP is open that he nearly quit it all during his initial recovery.
“During my deployment in Afghanistan, our job was to search for IEDs and clear the routes and make sure everyone else could go safe,” he said.
“I was blown up on three different missions, three different days,” he said. “The first two were actually kind of fun for me.”
“But July 2nd, 2011 was a different IED blast that changed everything.”
“I sustained a lot of damage in that moment, but people always ask if I remember the actual initial blast. And I will never forget the initial blast.”
JP suffered a skull fracture, double amputation of his legs as well as the loss of a finger, numerous broken bones, and being “pretty much broken in half,” as he puts it.
At his worst, JP contemplated suicide.
“But after the 12th attempt where I wanted to take my life, I heard a voice say, ‘Do you go to a war zone with just one soldier?’ I was like, ‘No, that’s not how you go to war.’ And I believe it was God telling me, ‘Exactly. So why are you trying to do this by yourself?’”
JP started painstakingly piecing his life, and himself, back together. While doing so, he found the staff at the Joint Base San Antonio Army Fisher House to be a lifeline.
“It was such a blessing having the people around me that were put in my life at the time. I’ll never forget Denise at the Fisher House, that she would just be in a ball of joy every morning, and I would be rolling to therapy at the Center for the Intrepid. Before I would leave, she would just pray.”
JP’s dad traveled to be with his son, but he had to also care for his wife, JP’s stepmom, who was going through cancer treatment in Wisconsin at the same time.
JP’s family and his friends at Fisher House were essential to his eventual recovery.
“I am so grateful for the Fisher House,” Crystal said. “My father-in-law said it best when he said that, ‘I was so worried and concerned about where my son would go, who would take care of him in this new normal for him. And I didn’t have to worry about that anymore when he was at the Fisher House.’ And that was, very moving for me, you know? And so I’m very, very grateful for the Fisher House.”
And if JP or Crystal need Fisher House in the future, they know it will be there for them.
“I’m so grateful that the Fisher House is all over the nation,” she said. “Wherever JP needs care, they’re there. And I just love that I don’t have to worry. It takes a weight off my shoulders to know there’s a place we can call home.”
