BETHESDA, Md. – Amy Oppelt and her small children have been living at Fisher House in suburban Maryland for nearly two years. It’s a home where military families stay at no cost while their loved ones are cared for at Walter Reed Military Medical Center Bethesda.
It’s been a long road for the Oppelt family ever since Amy received the call that her husband, Sgt Lucas Oppelt, had been injured by an IED while serving in Afghanistan. Lucas lost his left leg below the knee and now wears a prosthetic.
“You don’t think as an outsider it’s something you can handle, but you just do,” Amy said.
Seven and a half month’s pregnant at the time, Amy knew that her unborn daughter would know a different kind of dad than her five-year-old son knew.
“It tests your resiliency,” she said.
On Monday, Amy and her kids received a welcome reprieve when first lady Michelle Obama visited Fisher House with her two dogs, Sunny and Bo, in tow.
“One of the reasons why I like to come to the Fisher House is to shine a light on all the great things that the Fisher House staff do here,” Michelle Obama said.
Obama’s visit is part of her “Joining Forces” initiative to provide military families with opportunities and emotional support. There are five Fisher House locations on Walter Reed-Bethesda’s campus and several other locations at military centers nationwide.
“You are all our heroes, especially our kids,” Obama said.
Fourteen-month-old Lily Oppelt put stickers on Mrs. Obama’s face while making Easter cards for the wounded warriors still in physical rehabilitation.
“I know that they give you guys a home away from home when you’re going through some of the toughest times in your life,” Obama said.
The Oppelt’s are among the 200,000 families served by Fisher House since its inception in 1990. It’s known as a “home away from home” for military families to be close to their military relative as he receives the necessary medical care. For Amy and her kids, that meant leaving rural Indiana for suburban Maryland while Lucas underwent surgeries and later learned to walk again on an artificial leg.
Fisher House was a sanctuary of sorts for Amy and her kids, allowing her to be around a support group of other veterans’ families in the same situation. But it was bittersweet, she said.
“It was hard to relate at times, “ Amy said, adding that she was processing different emotions than some of the others.
Families enter Fisher House at different stages in the rehabilitation process, and many had been there for some time. Amy was still reeling from the news that her husband was coming home with a significant disability.
Now, Sgt. Oppelt is looking forward. He plans to attend school in Colorado Springs after he is discharged from the military in June.
“It’s time to focus on the next chapter,” he said.