When I awoke from my long and treacherous coma and found my mother writing to me on our little blackboard with chalk I lacked just 10 weeks of being 10 years old. I had just completed the 4th grade. I was still very much a little girl.
My mother continued to scribble quick messages, "Are you hungry?" "Do you feel like getting up"? "Grandma is here, do you feel like chatting with her"? And ALWAYS, "Can you hear me YET??" The answer to the later question was always, "No".
My own reaction? I cannot recall any! Later on when I asked Mom how she knew that she had to write to me instead of speaking verbally she replied that I kept telling them that I could not hear, over and over and over again while I was in the coma. Somewhere in my subconcious mind I had accepted this fact and did not feel the need to ask any questions to appease any curiosity. 'Strange how the mind works.
Dr. Skinner had only 3 words of advice. "Never, never allow her to ride a bicycle, and send her to the State School For The Deaf." AND of course since he did not know for sure what had caused my deafness, he told us to keep me away from Sulfa. I might be allergic to it and if it was used on me again, who knows what harm it might do next?
But first, I had to LEARN TO WALK. I had been ill for a very long time. My inner ear had a great deal of damage. I was terribly weak and then there were those horrible noises in my ears! Crickets, frogs croaking, screeching violins, you name any roaring, obnoxious sound, and I had it.
I went deaf during the last week of May, Memorial Day 1943. My mother spent that summer dragging me from doctor to doctor hoping to find a "cure. " Of course these practitioners were more than willing to take her money when they knew darned good and well that nothing could be done. Looking back, it was very sad for my mother, but her kindly and caring gesture did give her some peace of mind, knowing that what she was doing was right. My mother felt guilty to her dying day for sending me back to school too early.
Gradually life returned to some resemblance of normal. My brother and I share an August birthday and this time the family gathered at our farm to celebrate. "Grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, cousins! Food! Laughter and merry making. What great fun to be back in circulation again! The day went normally until the evening when my grandpa started playing his fiddle. Everyone was stomping and yelling and singing to his lively tunes. I had been raised to the sound of my grandpa's fiddle.
I escaped into our only bathroom and locked the door.
To be continued
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It's awful that you had to deal with your health problem especially you were a little girl.
ReplyDeleteI am surprised how stupid the doctor said that you were not allowed to ride a bike. Maybe, I was thinking that your doctor doesn't want you to ride it when you were sick at that time because you were 10 years old.
The medicine that might be too dangerous and probably not suitable for young kids to take it. I assume that the doctor was right.
Gee. The rabbit farm... My grandfather had a rabbit farm and a chicken farm. What a disgust business! My mother was a little girl, and she had a best friend - a chick that always came to see her. Well, her father didn't listen to her that she wanted him not to kill it for a dinner. She never ate it, and she never forgave him what he done to her. Sigh.
I'm glad that I ate a chicken veggie instead of a real one.
I, too, wondered why the doctor said you couldn't ride a bike, because it didn't make sense to me that simply being deaf should be an issue. But then it occurred to me that perhaps the doctor was concerned that the same thing that caused the hearing loss might also have severely affected sense of balance. That can happen sometimes (eg, if the chemical fluid in the cochlea or the air bubles in that chemical fluid is affected). Did it, in your case?
ReplyDeleteThough it had been my understanding that people who develop balance problems learn other ways to compenstate for it, so I'm still not clear why the permanent bike prohibition. Maybe in the beginning when you were still learning to compenstate (if that were an issue), but why permanently?
As I mentioned in the blog, I had received a great deal of inner ear damage, and yes my balance was/is extremely poor. I cannot go out at night unless I have someone guiding me.
ReplyDeleteAir bubbles? Well many people have told me that I am full of hot air!
Thanks to Dr. Skinner, I never did have a bike until I was an adult and purchased my own.
Thanks for responding,
Lantana
Lantana
Oh I see about your balance situation. Gee. Full of hot air. I see a hot balloon above my house. That could be you.
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