Going Deaf In Middle Childhood, Part 3

Our mother,while a wonderful,kind and caring woman did not react well to illness. She had lost a sister to kidney disease when the sister was just 15 years old and I have always felt that this trumatic childhood experience left her feeling helpless around anyone who was unwell. Any major medical crisis knocked my mom for a loop.

My brother, who is 4 years younger than I, must have been in kindergarten. I do not remember those little details, I do recall that there was a very long incubation period before I came down with them myself. In those days diseases did not have a "nationality". They were just mumps, chicken pox, or measles (or a snotty nose). Except for Small Pox, there were no inoculations. We jumped into all of our medical emergencies cold turkey, expecting only to get well and hurry back into circulation. I recall as a child that there were many nights when I was put to bed with a hot water bottle, which was soooo comforting and was supposed to solve "whatever ailed you" overnight.

I got through the measles seemingly okay and was returned to school, where I promptly passed out. My parents came and took me home of course, and from then on for about 2 weeks I remember very little. My dad was still a farmer, my mother not yet working for Nabisco, there was no money for medical emergencies. I fell into a deep coma and after time passed my parents started searching for a doctor who would come to the house. The only one they could find left in the middle of a high school graduation ceremony to come and tend to me.

This was in 1943. There were new wonder drugs coming onto the market every day. This doctor, his name was Dr. Skinner, decided to use Sulfa to try and save my life. Sulfa was brand new at the time and the proper dosages probably had not yet been created . But Dr. Skinner, with his coke bottle glasses took his job seriously.

The last thing I remember hearing was my brother asking my mother if I was going to die.

And I awoke much later to my mother writing messages to me with white chalk on our toy blackboard.

To be continued