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FRIDAY, MAY 25, 19731*899 35,Disabled veterans - w hat do you do when you have no feetBy ARNOLD B. SAWISLAK OP1 Senior Editor i {2m! of three) .WASHINGTON {UP]} — Jim Mayer was.' an Manky man, a grunl. He was 23 when a booby trap got him in Vietnam on‘April 19, 1969,He recalls: “When 1 came to, acKaplalri asked me where I was hit- I said that I had lost my right foot. He asked me'to look and I did and saw that both feet wore gone. ‘But son/ he confided, ‘you can slill have a family*,”Mayer,' a breezy, handsome young',man who walks without crutches or cane on two artificial legs, now is president of a relatively new but very active organization called- the National Association of Concerned Veterans. He travels across the country, talking about a better deal for Vietnam vets, especially in schooling and jobs.Mayer has had-his share of physical problems, but hasimmersed himself in his work.He tofd a magazine interviewer recently: “My biggest problem is people who don’t care. I know' that the .President cares and that the administrator of Veterans Affairs cares, but now. that I’ve been in Washington for a while, I find a lot of people who should care, butdon’t.” . • •Mayer’s attitude is distinctly upbeat, but what about the severely disabled Vietnam veteran's in VA hospitals or sitting at home?■ Just three years ago, the'VA asked its,hospital directors for their observations on Vietnamveterans coming ' into their institutions. The comments were mixed, but there were a number in this vein:—“Three out of five young veterans, inter viewed ... were emhittered, unsettled, generally distrustful and showed inability to find.meaning in the future.”. —“The Vietnam ' War exL periencc, with the conflict of statements for. and against the war by various social, political and educational leaders, has h ad a n , esperi ally brut alizing effect on many of the young, immature.'Vietnam veterans.nBut more recently, Dr, James C. Folsom,'director of Hie.VA’s' Rehabilitation Medicine Service, was asked It the severely disabled Viol vets had proved difficult to work with. His reply: “No. The ' dire predictions we had were not true ”For disabled veterans outside the hospitals, a lot depends upon the reaction to them of (hose who stayed home.Jim Maye,' 30, the president of the. Paralyzed Veterans of America, says “To some people, Vietnam veterans represent everything bad. They see us as drug addfcls, as men who went around killing babies.u.'This is net just M aye’s imagination. I^ouis Harris* in a 1971 public opinion survey, for the VA, found, that .“ihe whole question of treatment of returning veterans is'a serious burden on the conscience of the American public.”Dr. Marc J. Musser; VA's chief medical officer, and Dr. Charles. A. Stenger, .chief of psychology of VA hospitals, observed in an article last year that the Viet vet “is different because upon his return he has been treated very differently by the society he served. He does not return to the assuredrespect .and appreciation of his countrymen. Instead, he typically returns to indifference, disapproval and scorn — especially from peers who did hot serve.”Mayer notes other reactions: “Being handicapped, you see people who try to avoid you or to .give you a ‘buddy-buddy’ routine. I just want to gel across that.the disabled aren't different, they’re people.”Dr. Pcler Hofstra, director of the VA’s Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Service, says the attitude of a veteran often depends uponIhe place he left and the place he returned to: “If he came back to some small town and got a good, welcome, 'he is all right. If he came back to a big city where no one seemed to care, he may have a problem.”Essie Morgan, VA*s chief of socioccpnonmie rehabilitation for SCI patents, says the men she deals with usually come around to adopt an affirmative altitude about their situation: •From somewhere, they seem to garner the feeling.that they have done something' for their country.As a result of its 1970 study, the VA look some, steps to accomodate 1 their ■ rush of youthful patients- Vietnam-era veterans committees were established, new‘recreational facilities were set up and —one example’ —rooms in some hospitals were redecorated with modern or psychedelic print wallpaper.At one hospital visited, Castle Point near. Newburgh, N,Y.r there did not seem to be an effort to segregate the older VA patients from ihe Viet vets. Mrs. Morgan said there had been generation gap problems in only one * hospital, and in some the younger men seemed to regal’d the .older ones as “father figures.” YA is sensitive about this issue, being charged in a recent Ralph Nader report with failing to gear itself for younger patients and having been warned by its medical directors three years ago that some Viet vets feared VA hospitals as “old peoples1 homes.”The SCI patients who can — most paraplegics and a few quadriplegics —roll about the hallways at . Castie Point in hand - driven and powered wheelchairs. One young man, grounded” from wheelchair travel when he developed pressure sores from lying on his back, propelled himself around while lying on his stomach on a wheeled table.•Amputees have entirely different problems than veterans who arc paralyzed or otherwise ill. For them, VA has established a corps of “prosthetics representatives” — counselors equipped to advise veterans on oil their problems, but parties larly able to understand ihe needs, of persons wlm have lost arms .or legs. All prosthetics representatives are amputees themselves, and some of them have moved on to other posts in' the VA —the government’s largest employer .of handicapped persons.For paralyzed patients, there is team” treatment involving everyone dealing with the patient. One obvious-advantage of this is that hospital workers with less medical training than doctors can be given factual information about the. SCI patient's problems, and they inMON. 10 A.M. . 6 P Mturn can pass on to the doctors their own observations about the patients,Essie Morgan is enthusiastic about a two-yea r-old * progra m to move SCI patients whose medical conditions have stabilized from hospitals to their homes, where they are regularly visited by doctors, nurses and • therapists. 'This 'was started in -four - centers and could he expanded to eight more if funds are made available. Budget cuts this year make that unlikely. •One of the problems of paralysis that formerly was treated in whispers is the sexual function. Jim Maye asked a doctor about it when he was in a military hospital and was given a runaround. He concluded that no one wanted to discuss sex and “found out for myself.”Mrs. Morgan is determinedthat this subject, a prime anxiety of young men who have lost the use of (heir lower bodies, no longer will be sidestepped in VA hospitals.“This was a never-never land, she said. It was generally felt to be a taboo subject. But researchers found that hundreds of spinal cord-injured men not only could have erections and satisfactory sex, but could sire children.”Even in ils official literature, the .VA clearly has decided to squarely confront the problem of sexual function in SCf patients. A “Source Book” issued_ in 1972 said “the physician (nor anyone else) cannot from the onset of the injury forecast the future return of sexual functioning for any one patient,” but discusses the' possibilities in the most explicit terms. . The booklet published research findings thatvn ruin i, l J* 1 Slits. withJhu W egrCe3 of ’W wereable to have successful sex, andJimL 'In anotheruv’ J 5,t,Gd children, The publication also makes clear that for some . SCI' patients conventional” sexual relationsmay - be impossible, and itSE. aKerna,i™s .'at arefh^arSfge »lS0 is a problemthat Mrs. Morgan and her associates try to face, counseling both veterans and wives and fiances. She said it'was her experience that good marriages begun before theveteran vvas hurt tend tocontinue after the injury, and that breakups which occur would have happened anyway.” She and her counselors work as closely as possible with patients and their fiances who are considering marriage.(next: Outlook for disabled vets better than ever before.)SAVE UP TO $000 on Magnavox Color TV, Color Stereo Theatres and Console Stereo. Also enjoy tremendous savings, on. Black and White TV, Stereo Components and Radios. We must make room for our new 1974 Magna vox-.models ... so buy now . . .and save onC a m nloo rlt;l O Arc nvit-kf t /r* n r mn rlnlrt
Newspaper Details
Traverse City Record Eagle
Traverse City, Michigan, US
Fri, May 25, 1973
Page 48
Full Page
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USA 01 Feb 2022
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