Reflections Upon a Blessed and Exciting Life – No.8: Primary School: Physical Health

My memory is that I was a healthy strong boy. Of course, I together with my siblings and friends had all the usual childhood illnesses, none of which was considered dangerous. We had the mumps, measles, chickenpox, red eye and scarletina. I don’t think any of these were serious enough to have to go see our family physician, Dr. Wedemeyer. But Mr. McGuiness, the druggist in the 55 residents-town of Walburg, regularly filled our prescriptions.

There were, however, 3 specific health issues that stick with me to this day.

The first is a tooth filling. My cousins who drank “Walburg water” never had decayed teeth. There was something in that water that discolored their enamel but preserved their teeth. I was not so fortunate. I had to have a tooth filled (probably hastened by the reality that as a child I never brushed my teeth).

My memory is that in the mid-1930’s the dentist used no anesthesia and the drilling was painful. But that’s not what was the most painful. What hurt most was that the after-school dentist appointment came on the exact date that Zion school played softball against another school – a rare event. I simply could not believe that my parents thought it more important for me to go to the dentist than it was to play this softball game. I knew my team would miss me. I knew my substitute at the shortstop position, Wimpy K, could not play up to my standard.

So it was with mixed feelings that I learned the results of the team having to play without me. We won and all the students said that Wimpy was a great shortstop, made 2 great plays and hit a double. (As stated above, this was nearly 70 years ago and I remember it still. (And Wimpy grew up to be called ”W.A.”, was a successful banker and married my cousin Genelle.)

Second health memory. We went barefoot all the time, except that we needed to wear shoes when we went to church on Sunday. There are consequences of always going barefoot. The soles of the feet become hard as leather, but not hard enough to avoid being pierced. We stepped on glass which lacerated our feet. We stepped on nails protruding from boards and they pierced our soles. We would come home from the cotton fields with thistles embedded in our feet. We dug them out with needles or tweezers. Mercurochrome treated the wounds and if there was a slight infection we had a famous “black salve” that cured everything.

But some 15 years later a surprise reminder of those barefoot adventures suddenly was revealed. I played college football and broke my ankle. The doctor who examined the x-rays noted the break but had a more interesting question. “When did you step on that needle now firmly embedded in your heel?”

The last time I had to have that ankle x-rayed was when I was in my 60’s. The needle continues to rest comfortably.

My mother always worried that the needle would move, get to my heart and kill me. I ignored it. In 1958 I played basketball in Hong Kong, had an x-ray and heard the doctor asked in Cantonese, “Where did that needle in your heel come from?”

My third health episode was the most serious. I think I was in the second grade. When I complained about a “stomach ache” my parents assumed I was getting the measles (as 3 of my siblings already had them). But the pain got worse and my skin didn’t get red.

Finally Mom stayed behind with the measled kids and Dad and Uncle Reinhold took me to King’s Daughter’s Hospital in Temple, Texas. There I had a moment of extreme embarrassment. When asked to provide urine sample I simply could not urinate lying down. So they had me stand. Then I couldn’t stop. How ashamed I felt.

But the diagnosis was serious: appendicitis. And when I was under ether and opened up the severity of the situation raised a serious alarm. The appendix had ruptured. Peritonitis was all over. There were no anti-biotics yet discovered. My condition was declared “extremely dangerous”. Three tubes, each a foot long were inserted to drain the puss. I survived. Survival brought with it 2 wonderful extra benefits: a relative brought me a beautiful 10-inch play sailboat. And I had a nurse named Ms. French. She told me I was handsome, so handsome, she said, that she would wait for me to turn 18 and then she would marry me. I believed her and then doubted, but I did not share my doubts with her. I recovered but my mother said that I never ran as fast after that surgery as I had earlier.