Wyzga On Words

Traumatic Brain Injuries Are The Scourge Of Our Soldiers.

Did you know that for every soldier killed in war this year, 25 will commit suicide?

How is this travesty possible?

Like those suffered in the civilian world, traumatic brain injuries as a result of war are silent killers.  You can look pretty normal; and yet you may have lost intellect, cognitive skills, anger management, and the ability to care for yourself.  In the face of a dismal diagnosis and little assistance who wouldn't take a way out?

Lawyers and generals need to read the poignant and searing account of one war veteran who speaks for so many who are losing their minds in "War Wounds" as reported by Nicholas Kristof for the NYTimes.  Excerpt.

"Military suicides are the starkest gauge of our nation’s failure to care adequately for those who served in uniform. With America’s wars winding down, the United States is now losing more soldiers to suicide than to the enemy. Include veterans, and the tragedy is even more sweeping. For every soldier killed in war this year, about 25 veterans now take their own lives.

President Obama said recently that it was an “outrage” that some service members and veterans sought help but couldn’t get it: “We’ve got to do better. This has to be all hands on deck.” Admirable words, but so far they’ve neither made much impact nor offered consolation to those who call the suicide prevention hot line and end up on hold.

The military’s problems with mental health services go far beyond suicide or the occasional murders committed by soldiers and veterans. Far more common are people like Richards, who does not contemplate violence of any kind but is still profoundly disabled.

An astonishing 45 percent of those who served in Iraq or Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries, in many cases psychological ones. It’s unclear how many are exaggerated or even fraudulent, but what is clear is this: the financial cost of these disabilities will be huge, yet it is dwarfed by the human cost."

Iraq Vet With PTSD Finds Solace In A Film Role.

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, has seen its share of wounded military men and women.  Many have war-inflicted wounds you can see.  Many others have something not so easily detected: post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Sgt. Matthew Pennington is one such survivor.  James Dao brings his story to clear relief in his reporting for the NYTimes, "Acting Out War's Inner Wounds."

When I read the article I was reminded of the line by pre-eminent writer Zora Neale Hurston that I have embedded in my email signature line and on which I have written: "There is no greater burden than carrying an untold story."  I believe that what Hurston meant is when we share our stories we find we are very much alike.  I don't know whether the sharing or the reflection of our experience in that of another human being is where the burden lightens; but I can tell you that it does.

“We are lonesome animals.  We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome.  One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the Listener to say - and to feel - ‘Yes! that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.  You are not as alone as you thought.’” [John Steinbeck]

 The story continues:

"For Mr. Pennington, medications seemed to worsen his depression and therapy did not ease his anxiety. He seemed headed for divorce, isolation and perhaps alcoholism. And there his story might have ended, a case study on the intransigence of war’s psychological scars. But it did not end there.

In 2009, an unexpected opportunity landed in his e-mail inbox: a casting call, forwarded by a friend in Nashville, from an undergraduate filmmaker looking for someone to play a combat veteran who had lost a leg, had post-traumatic stress disorder and lived in Maine.

This is my life, Mr. Pennington thought.

So on a lark, Mr. Pennington — whose last appearance on stage was in middle school and who had become nervous in crowds and, indeed, avoided most human contact — decided that fixing his life depended on performing before a camera.

“I thought acting would be so out of the normal that it would force me to deal with things,” he recalled. “I wanted my life back.”

The struggle by wounded veterans like Mr. Pennington to reclaim their lives is the unfolding next chapter in America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2001, 46,000 American service members have been injured in combat, perhaps a third or more seriously. Those veterans now face years of rehabilitation at a cost of billions of dollars annually.

In the coming weeks, The New York Times will profile a few of those veterans. Their cases say much about the critical importance of high-quality health care and loving families. But as with Mr. Pennington, they also underscore the individuality of recovery, where the most effective therapies are often discovered by the veterans themselves."

I am not writing a happy ending.  That's not for me to write.  If one is written it will be Pennington's doing.  What strikes me is that yet again the story of who we are, where we've come from, what we've seen, how we have persevered will help all of us get home.

You might wish to click here to watch the story in video form.

After A Few Days Of Radio Silence, Sing Forth.

Ah, blessed silence.

Unless, of course, it is not yours by choice.

What if you want to help another speak again?  Would you get them to sing?  It does help.

Take a listen to the NPR broadcast: Singing Helps Stroke Patients Speak Again

And help make a joyful noise.

 

College Players Move Concussions Into Court.

For those of you who are football players, football player wannabees, parents of football players, spouses, children and siblings of football players, or lawyers who work on behalf of football players there is a surge afoot: a class-action suit claiming that, “The N.C.A.A. has engaged in a long-established pattern of negligence and inaction with respect to concussions and concussion-related maladies sustained by its student-athletes, all the while profiting immensely from those same student-athletes.”

George Vecsey writing for the NYTimes, "College Players Move Concussions Issue Into the Courtroom," details the story of a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on behalf of recent college football players.  Excerpt.

"The legal action comes after a five-year flurry of awareness of brain injuries in contact sports and follows lawsuits filed this year by dozens of former N.F.L. players who claim the league was negligent in its handling of brain trauma. The issue has moved from science labs to Congress and now to courtrooms, where the financial exposure of the sport’s governing bodies may be tested."

When folks say that lawsuits are frivolous, you may agree and then point them in the direction of those lawsuits that have given us flame-retardant pajamas for children, labor laws that protect miners who toil miles below the surface of the earth we walk on, paint without lead that we can use on children's cribs and playpens, seatbelts that keep us from hurtling through the windshield of our car, clean produce, better agricultural, educational, medical and social practices, and so on.

As Margaret Mead reminded us, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever does."

What This Country Needs For Inspiration: A Movie Showing Brain Injured Survivors Going The Distance And Making A Comeback.

While at the BIACal conference I met David L. Brown, the producer and director of a spectacularly hopeful documentary entitled, "Going the Distance - Journeys of Recovery."  It is the perfect timely message for those with traumatic brain injuries (in particular) but any handicapped person, survivors, families, friends, caregivers, and so on to see that there is a way to be "A Comeback Kid."  You need faith, family, friends, assets and resources.  

To introduce you to the man behind the viewfinder, following are two sites that tell stories about what motivated David Brown to take on the personal journeys of four people, strangers really.

Bay Area Filmmaker Goes The Distance. 

Brown Follows Injuries.

This documentary has all the elements of great storytelling and movie-making: love, romance, danger, pathos, hope, despair, triumph, loss, gain, and the indomitable human spirit.

The four featured survivors are a young boy who gets back on a surf board with a "helper" dog; a young Marine injured in the war; a young woman thrown from a motorcycle; and a young man who was the victim of road rage. 

You can visit this website to see the trailer:
http://www.goingthedistance.info

There is a companion website to help raise the last $16 grand needed by Thanksgiving to get this movie out into the world:
http://www.indiegogo.com/Going-the-Distance.

Please check it out, reach into your pockets for a contribution, and pass this message along.

The lucky ones get to the finish line - this movie is also to raise awareness of the on-going need for assets and resources to enable those who are not so lucky.

What better Thanksgiving gift than to help David meet his $16,000.00 matching challenge to get this movie out in the world for all of us, especially we who are temporarily able-bodied.

If they can do it, we can.

  

Mothers, Fitted Sheets, and Perseverance.

My mother died of cancer before she could teach me how to properly fold a fitted (or bottom) bed sheet.

I don't know how she did it; but I remember seeing them lined up with military precision in the hallway linen closet, sharp edges, crisply folded.  My sheets were rolled up bundles, the result of the frustration of having to deal with them.

Those sheets taunted me week in and week out as each set was washed, dried and sat ready to be folded.  Only to be rolled up and shoved out of sight.

In desperation I Googled techniques for folding those dastardly fitted bed sheets.  I paid careful attention as Part A was fitted into Part B.  And then ended up rolling it all into a big ball and shoving same into the closet slamming the door for good measure.   

As do so many folks who lose a guiding light early in life, you eventually learn to figure out things for yourself.  My mom loved perseverance.  She had affection for those who fell down 7 and got up 8. 

Juries and other decision-makers often decide a matter on the strength of what something means to them.  You can hear an example of this at a wake.  First, there is the list of all the achievements, a stack of facts if you will, of the deceased.  Where the room and the people really come to life is when we hear and talk about all the persons, places and things for which the deceased had affection.  Those are the moments we will miss and struggle to keep alive even as we miss them.

When you are writing the story that you want another to conclude with a decision or a verdict, pay attention to what is emotionally meaningful about the project, client, vision, and the like.   Sell them on that. 

To succeed we need beauty and imagination as much as we need knowledge.  As the poet David Ignatow wrote: "I wish I knew the beauty of leaves falling. To whom, to whom  are we beautiful as we go. To whom are we beautiful as we go."

In the grand scheme of life it's a small thing; but I did learn how to figure it out on my own.  The fitted bed sheet while not perfectly folded is square; it fits nicely on the shelf in the cupboard; and, even if no one else sees it to me it matters that I persevered.

Playing This Weekend In Napa, CA: Medical-Legal Conference On TBI.

The Brain Injury Association of California is hosting its annual Neuroscience of Brain Injury Conference November 4th and 5th at the Silverado Resort in Napa, CA.

The Conference Program--2011 is enticing.  We intend to come together to do good work.  Hope to see you there.