Reflections on Life, Love, and Events That Shape Them

By John Wysner

Reflections on Life, Love, and Events That Shape Them

This book is a departure from the books I've published in the past, which are mostly on business history and processes and several collections of poetry. This book of essays combines reflections on my own life experiences with thoughts on subjects including a look at what I see happening in our country today, thoughts on God and religion, the life of Anne Frank and her continuing influence today, directions in medicine and treatment, and several other topics. It also looks at my background in sports and how it exposed me to a broad range of people and events that fueled my knowledge and experience to support this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984542458

Book preview

Reflections on

Life,

Love,

and

Events

That Shape Them

JOHN WYSNER

Copyright © 2018 by John Wysner.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2018908728

ISBN:           Hardcover        978-1-9845-4247-2

                     Softcover          978-1-9845-4246-5

                     eBook              978-1-9845-4245-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/13/2018

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Why a Book of Essays?

I’ve written a number of books over the past twenty-five years: eight standalone works and a number of entries in poetry collections. Now, I am growing older with my family, my dear Elaine and our little girl Gretchen, our thirteen-year-old Chihuahua. In my immediate family, I am also honored to include my stepmother Mary, who’s really more like a slightly older sister, and last but certainly not least, Mike, a true friend of forty years whose friendship Elaine and I cherish.

First, I’d like to mention why I chose the essay format for this new book. In the past, the books I’ve written and published have addressed individual topics in the world of business where most of my professional experience resided. Having said pretty much all I had to say on this subject, I checked it off as inappropriate for further examination at this point.

Next, I considered poetry as a format for this book. I’ve written two books of poetry. And I’ve had individual poems published in nine collections. At the time these writings were published, I was pretty proud of this little collection.

Now, after several years of new experiences and observations, I reevaluated my poetry with new, humbled eyes. After doing so, I came to the conclusion that it was at best high average.

So I went through an inventory of where I was in the course of my life. I’d come through a few bumps in the road but as a result was perhaps better equipped to say something of value and saying it in a format I hadn’t used before but one that seemed very appropriate: the essay.

I look back over seventy-three years of living, a life filled with a wide range of interesting (I hope) experiences, some fulfilling, some enlightening, some satisfying, and a few very disappointing. A mix of experiences that could enable me to speak with a learned, experienced, and honest voice.

Thinking about where to begin, I reflected on a most interesting book that I’d finished recently—an autobiography of Burt Reynolds, a man with a most interesting life. The book is titled But, Enough About Me. As you might expect, Mr. Reynolds presents his life with a sometimes painful but always honest and highly entertaining look at the times, events, and people who shaped him (and that he helped shape in return). As he presents his story, he is, at all times, a fascinating, honest, and entertaining storyteller and observer of the lives around him.

Personally, I like to define things I do, particularly in my writing, by creating lists that spell out the most important things that make the subject interesting and meaningful to the reader. For this project, I began by trying to list the characteristics that the reader would most likely want to know about the subjects. Here are the things I came up with the subjects and content for this book of essays.

• The subject of the essay should be a topic that is most likely to be important to the broadest range of readers.

• The writer must know and be able to communicate these subjects to the reader.

• The writer must be as interested in each of the essay subjects as the target audience.

• The writer must not only know but also feel the essay topics.

• The author should not be afraid to confront his/her target audience.

• The author’s knowledge, experience, and ability to effectively present the key issues on each topic should be impeccable.

• The author must not be afraid to confront as well as educate and (if appropriate) entertain the reader.

• The writer must be strong enough to face rejection as well as agreement.

One final thought, returning to Burt Reynold’s autobiography: As much as I’m sure Mr. Reynolds wanted to satisfy the above requirements I set for myself, this is the type of perspective I very much wanted to attain. And similarly, I wanted to tell my stories mostly through the experiences and eyes of others I’ve known. I wanted to share pent-up stories and, in doing so, make them interesting and entertaining to the readers.

OK, enough said. Here we go. Enjoy.

Essays

Reflections on

Life,

Love, and

Events that

Shape Them

Essays by

John Wysner

Book Overview for Reflections on Life, Love, and the Events that Shape Them

This is a departure from the books I’ve published in the past, mostly on business history and processes and several collections of poetry. This book of essays combines reflections on my own life experiences with thoughts on subjects including a look at what I see happening in our country today, thoughts on God and religion, the life of Anne Frank and her continuing influence today, directions in medicine and treatment, and several other topics. It also looks at my background in sports and how it has exposed me to a broad range of people and events that fueled my knowledge and experience to support this book.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Why a Book of Essays

• Understanding and Coping with Illness Today

• The Voice of Anne Frank

• Family in a Changing World: Memories of My Father

• The Little House on Troy

• Thoughts on God

• Elaine, One of a Kind

• A Very Special Dog

• Jake

• Tribute to a Wonderful Woman

• One True Friend

• Carol’s Paperbacks Plus—Plus So Much More

• Our Country Today

• Thoughts on Life and Its Possibilities After a Stroke

Essay

A Proposal For

Understanding and Coping

with Illness Today

John Wysner

April 2017

A Proposal for Understanding and Coping with Illness Today

Tremendous progress has been made in all fields of medicine over the past two decades. That’s certainly good news. So what are the concerns that prompted me to write this essay? There are many areas throughout all fields of medicine that contain barriers to the successful implementation of these gains in knowledge and application. This essay presents a plan for realizing consistent, ongoing application of medical science at all levels of application and making diagnosis and treatment available to people regardless of income level.

A Proposal for …

I’m not crazy,

I’ve just been in a

bad mood for the

past 40 years.

—Weeza (Shirley MacLaine), Steel Magnolias

Throughout my life I have lived with genetically transmitted bipolar depression. I was born on April 29, 1945. My long-term memory (which is thankfully still functioning well today) holds pleasant thoughts of my mother, aunts, and uncles. Mom was born in 1918 to a family of fourteen children. Growing up as part of this wonderful family, I still recall many things about my mom, aunts, and uncles that I have learned were symptomatic of severe depression. For example, becoming withdrawn socially at times, experiencing explosive angry behavior, and feeling mentally and physically down. I still remember several of my aunts and uncles talking about their perceived suspicions of behavior of friends, coworkers, and even other family members and neighbors. Things that today would be called paranoia and obsessive-compulsive behavior by psychiatrists and psychologists.

As a youngster, watching the people I most loved going through these debilitating problems, I was often confused and afraid. Like any youngster would, I wondered if I was somehow the cause of the disturbing and scary behaviors of the adults I loved and spent my childhood with.

The root of these things that happened to my family began in one of the most difficult times in modern history: the turbulent times of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Korean War. During this period, very little was known about depressive mental illness and how it was carried genetically through generations. Even less was known about concussion-induced brain disease and the depressive behaviors it caused.

Today, long after the first classification and diagnosis of depression mental disorders into bipolar type I and II depression, psychiatrists, psychologists, and neurologists have come a long way in understanding, diagnosing, and treating these illnesses.

In the past twenty years, another area of brain disease has made great progress in being analyzed and understood. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) resulting from concussions has come under scrutiny, particularly because of the breakthrough work done by doctors like Dr. Bennet Umalu, Dr. Diane Stoler, and other specialists in the fields of neuropsychology, neuropathology, and other psychiatric specialties.

Dr. Umalu’s work in this field is the result of his work in analyzing brain disease caused by concussive brain injuries in sports particularly in the sport of football but also in other contact sports such as boxing and soccer. The results of his research have been well documented in his landmark book Play Hard, Die Young - Football Dementia and the Academy Award nominated film Concussion starring actor Will Smith as Dr. Umalu.

Several other physicians specializing in neurological disease have also responded to the current focus on brain injury caused by concussion. One of the most significant is Dr. Diane Stoler, a neuropsychologist who wrote a book called Coping with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. Dr. Stoler is particularly qualified to address concussive brain injury as a person who has suffered several concussions herself.

At the same time the spotlight has focused on this area of brain disease, progress has been hampered by two roadblocks. In the case of bipolar depression and genetically transmitted depression, a major roadblock has been the isolation of medical specialization and the difficulty of patients getting medical coverage from private insurance providers. And in sports-related brain disease, an obstacle is the reluctance of management of professional sports teams to respond to supporting research in understanding and treating concussive illness. The best example is probably the hesitancy of the National Football League in taking financial responsibility for players suffering from concussive brain disease, particularly an illness called chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE. Thus, profit motivation and communication disconnect have slowed progress in diagnosis and treatment when it is needed the most. And while the science needed to address these issues is evolving very rapidly, it simply is not being supported by the necessary funding and professional communication to move forward.

Without referrals from general practitioners to specialists, patients are being refused medical coverage for the specialist MDs they need to consult. And this situation is the source of another failure by medical insurance companies—their refusal to cover the costs of many of the most current and proven medications needed to treat these problems. Again, profit motivation is blocking access to the best doctors, hospitals, and medications.

The government-funded source for coverage of medical care for seniors, Medicare, a part of Social Security for retirees, is potentially under attack by political change at the federal level. Without referral from general practitioners to medical specialists, patients don’t have access to the qualified help they need. Unlike Medicare, private insurance companies will not approve medical billings where there may be no profit. This is one more example of the failure of private health insurance providers to answer the needs of their customers. Problems with doctor and hospital bill coverage is not the end of private provider shortfalls. The third area of failure is their refusal to cover many of the most current and successful prescription medications prescribed by physicians because of the high costs of these drugs. Once again, profit prevents patient access to the most needed tools for cure and recovery.

Let’s take a closer look at the value of Medicare as an insurance provider for senior citizens. Medicare typically covers about 80 percent of the costs of doctors and hospitals (Parts A and B). The cost of Medicare to the insured is between $100 and $120 per month, deducted from the Social Security check. Private companies offer Medigap and Medicare supplement policies for about $75 to $250 a month. This is meant to cover the balance of medical bills not covered by Medicare. For an additional charge of about $60 a month, seniors can sign up for prescription drug coverage. Part D of Medicare/Medigap supplement coverage helps expand medical insurance access for seniors, but as it currently stands,