Six Weeks of Silence

The Book

What the dark gives back

In November 2018, a routine dental procedure triggered bacterial endocarditis that destroyed my mitral valve and sent me into a coma that lasted forty-six days. I was a chiropractor, an Army veteran, a doctor who had spent his career telling people how to heal. Then I became the patient — and I couldn't remember any of it.

Six Weeks of Silence is the story of what happened before, during, and after those 46 days — the Tarpon Springs boyhood, the Army band at Fort Drum, the chiropractic career, the coma itself told through the people who watched over me, and the long, uncertain road back. It is also a story about what the VA system does and does not do for the men and women who served, and what it means to be both a provider and a patient in that system.

This book is for anyone who has survived something they didn't think they would. For their families. For the nurses and doctors who stayed. For every veteran who has sat in a waiting room trying to explain what they've lost.

The Project

Three Books, One Story

What began as one memoir became three books — each written for a different reader. The full account for those who want the whole story, the view from inside the silence, and a practical guide for the families and veterans who find themselves where I once was.

Book One · Memoir

A Coma, A Coming Back

The full memoir. Before, during, and after the forty-six days — the boyhood in Tarpon Springs, the Army band, the chiropractic career, the coma told through the people who watched over me, and the long road back. The complete story, kept whole.

Status: In production · Coming soon

Buy link coming

$Cover of Inside the Silence by Dr. Matthew Karcher$

Book Two · Interior Memoir

Inside the Silence

What Six Weeks of Being Gone Was Like — and the Man Who Came Back

A short, intense account of the coma from the inside: the ship, the command, the burial at sea, the calm — and the re-tuned self that surfaced afterward. The part of the story I cannot prove and cannot let go of.

Status: In production · Coming soon

Buy link coming

Book Three · Practical Guide

Forty-Six Days

Surviving a Coma and Critical Illness — A Physician's Guide for Patients, the Families Who Wait, and Veterans

The guide I needed and could not find. Practical, plainspoken help for the patient, the family in the waiting room, and the veteran navigating the VA — checklists, records templates, claim steps, and hard-earned guidance.

Status: In production · Coming soon

Buy link coming

The Author

Dr. Matthew W. Karcher

Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) · Diplomate in Acupuncture
U.S. Army veteran · 10th Mountain Division Band, Fort Drum
Certified Chiropractic Sports Medicine Specialist
VA Chiropractic Physician · Audie L. Murphy VA, San Antonio
Coma survivor · Veterans Day 2018 · 46 days

I grew up in Tarpon Springs, Florida, a drummer before I was anything else. The Army taught me discipline. Chiropractic school taught me the body. The coma taught me everything I had missed.

I now practice at the Audie L. Murphy VA Medical Center in San Antonio — as a chiropractor and, still, as a veteran navigating the same system I serve. This memoir is the book I needed when I woke up and found that no one had written it yet.

The Story

Forty-six days

Before — Tarpon Springs, FL

Grew up on the water. Played drums before I played anything else. That rhythm never left.

1988–1991 — Fort Drum, NY

Served with the 10th Mountain Division Band. The Army shaped how I understand discipline, structure, and the cost of service.

1990s–2017 — Chiropractic Career

Private practice in Clermont, FL. Army civilian role at Fort Gordon's IPMC clinic. Thirty years learning how bodies break and heal.

November 11, 2018 — Veterans Day

A dental procedure. Bacterial endocarditis. My mitral valve. My heart stopped. I did not know any of this for a long time.

November 2018 – January 2019

Forty-six days. Augusta University Medical Center. The people who watched over me tell this part of the story — because I cannot.

2019 – Present — The Return

Relearning. Rebuilding. Returning to practice at the VA — this time understanding both sides of the exam table.

Six Weeksof Silence

What the dark gives back

Three Books, One Story