Jan.22 2007
Hits and near misses
When I think back over my life, I am amazed that I have made it this far! I started out a nice healthy baby who didn’t walk until after a year but otherwise developed in a normal fashion in a normal family and was perfectly happy and easy-going. So when I came down with Scarlet Fever which I got from attending Rufus Holland’s sixth birthday party, in Jan of 1928 in Watertown, NY, this was my first encounter with illness of any sort outside of the usual assortment of runny nose problems. (I’ve never had an earache in my life) I was banished to the little bedroom in Grandma’s house and had to stay upstairs in bed for what seemed forever. However, I was very proud of the fact that I had a Quarantine sign on the door. Even my poor father and grandfather were banished from the house as they had to go to work so they stayed with my aunt.
As I lay in bed, I looked out the window often, seeing nothing but roofs and chimneys, and since it was just after Christmas, my mind wandered to Santa Claus and wondering how he could land on all those roofs, then all the roofs in Watertown, then all the roofs in the world, in just one night. So I asked the font of all knowledge, my mother, who set me straight, thus incurring the wrath of my father who wanted me to keep on believing for a few more years.
We then moved to FL for about 6 months where I broke my elbow very badly while roller skating and right after that I got Whooping Cough.
This encounter with Scarlet Fever left my immune system weakened so I was a ripe candidate for Brite’s Disease, or Nephritis. This is a Kidney Disease which generally killed in those days before Penicillin. This showed up in Oct of 1928. I was VERY ill and I guess it was touch and go for awhile. I had to stay in bed for what seemed years and this is when I honed my reading skills. I finally recovered and when strong enough, I went to stay with my grandmother as my mother had to work in our store.
At my grandmother’s, I was awakened early one morning by Grandma and Mother and given two sugar cubes to eat, enjoyed a ride in a taxi, and taken to a nice house which I didn’t know was the office of a Dr. I was taken upstairs, an innocent lamb going to the slaughter, where they made me lie down on a table, and made me smell this horrid stuff (chloroform) and when I woke up in a bed in a strange room, I had a VERY sore throat. They had removed my tonsils. I was told not to talk but I could have all the ice cream I wanted. My mother only allowed me to eat Vanilla, but that was okay. Later, toward evening a taxi took me home and a few days later my mother went back to Gloversville and I stayed with my grandparents until the next Sep.
Grandpa had a fabulous garden, I was not allowed to eat meat, but they had plenty of fresh vegetables and fruits. Every so often I had to make a visit to the Dr. where I was thoroughly checked over and pronounced recovering well. One day, when she served a boiled dinner, I sneaked a bit of ham under a cabbage leaf. The next day when we visited the Dr., I confessed to eating that piece of Ham. Grandma was aghast but the Dr. laughed and said it apparently hadn’t hurt me a bit and from then on I was allowed to eat meat. (Never have been much of a meat eater anyhow) and in Sep. I went back home to Gloversville and to school.
There I got Mumps and before I got back to school, I got Measles. Chicken Pox got in there somewhere as I remember itching and being warned not to scratch. Measles in those days relegated you to a darkened room. No reading. At least we had a radio. My Daddy read the comics to me every night and Sunday.
I had just nicely recovered from these childhood diseases when I got out the roller skates again and was skating all over the place when my skate came off one day, at the end of a long hill, and I sat down with a bang. This broke my Coccyx and dislocated my tailbone. In those days they didn’t know what to do so the Dr. took wide tape and pushed my tailbone into place and held it with tape. Eventually it seemed healed but left me with a stiff walk. Guess I was lucky I could walk.
Because my father considered me accident prone, I was not allowed to ice-skate or have a bicycle. I felt I was a social outcast. Meanwhile my mother signed me up for swimming and dancing lessons. I became a so-so swimmer but a good dancer---not ballet, not tap, just free-style.
While in High School, I developed chest pains just before Easter. It got so bad, every step I took hurt. My mother called the Dr. When he came in, he noticed I was on my back and had my right leg was pulled up slightly. He pushed back the covers and pushed on my abdomen on the right side. I had Appendicitis with no pain o the right side, just chest pain. The appendix was just short of rupturing. I was whisked off to the hospital and had surgery just in time. Fine way to spend Easter Sunday.
Well, for several months before this came to a head, I began to have a complete loss of appetite, no energy, and to the consternation of my teachers, I vomited with great regularity every morning at school at about 9:30 A.M. I did not then know this was an unfailing by-product of pregnancy. I can now imagine what the conversations were about in the teacher’s lounge, especially since I had not yet started dating and several of the teachers knew my parents well. Luckily, the hospital was next to the High School and for an Abortion a girl had to leave town so I guess they had to find a new subject to gossip about.
Okay, graduation over, all crises met and conquered.. Except for the terrible Sinus Infections I developed in my Senior Year that caused me to miss a lot of school until the Dr. drained it and I never had another problem with it. So, after going off to school for awhile, landing a job as a private secretary and being bored by the whole thing, I went to Watertown to live with my grandparents and work at a War Effort job, making thermometers. There I broke my right ankle with a compound factor and was unable to walk without a limp until 5 months later. I’m sure by now my father was ready to confine me to a bed and chair to keep me from inflicting more punishment on myself. No, I did NOT have brittle bones. I just got myself into ridiculous situations. So I won’ttell even my Blog how I broke it.
Eventually I married a soldier and, just before he left fo Europe, I found I was pg. My great joy didn’t last long, as, after 3 months in bed as a precaution, I still lost my baby boy. And I suffered slight Arsenic poisoning from eating fresh fruit without washing the spray from it.
After the return of my husband, I suffered another miscarriage and began to sonder if this was a pattern. I also contacted Mono from a cousin of my husband and was VERY sick from that. Again I beat the odds.. . Both miscarriaes led to having a D and C each time, both requiring a few hours stay I the hospital. I was getting mighty sick of hospitals. But I marvel at how fast I bounced back from all of these mishaps.
Soon I started having babies with great regularity, having problem carrying only the boys both of whom I nearly lost. .The next years were pretty uneventful as far as my health goes . Losing Paula was a terrible shock but that’s life------ and death.
One time we were traveling to FL from WI with all our goodly possessions in a trailer my husband built, when the trailer over took the car and nearly tipped us and car onto the highway. Suddenly the good Lord put out his hand and snapped the trailer hitch, leaving the car free and the trailer to smash all over the road. Again we were saved.
Once the Dr. decided I MIGHT need a Hysterectomy so that was done. Turned out it was pre-cancerous. My eyes were tested for Glaucoma. They were fine. Next year my pressure was out of control. After several years of all kinds of drops and a great loss of sight in my left eye, I had surgery to reduce the pressure. Worked fine. Again I had been saved.
For years I was able to work out in a gym and I did, knowing the benefits of exercise. Now it is impossible. My Osteoarthritis is now so bad, all I can do is swim once a week. I can no longer dance which I did at least 3 times a week. I can’t drive. Lost too much vision. I was a Gourmet cook. Now I can’t stand up long enough to cook a meal. Can’t garden. But my brain still works, I can use the computer. I can run the Gardner DNA page. I can read, kind of. Hard to do with one eye. But just LOOK at all the things the Lord rescued me from, all the things I have learned, all the things I have done. I’m relegated to the back burner at church but I know what I HAVE done and the Lord knows. I have been so blessed and I always wonder how many situations I’ve been saved from, I don’t even know about. Lots of mistakes here and I’m so tired, I don’t even care. .
.
|
