Remembrance of A Childhood Illness – Part Two: In Which I Almost Go to Heaven

After applications of cigarette smoke, hot water bottles and warmed “sweet oil” drops in my ear did not reduce the discomfort, I was taken to see a doctor. I don’t recall what treatment he prescribed but, since neither penicillin nor sulfa drugs were available for civilian use (both these came into major production during World War II and were used in field hospitals for the treatment of military wounded), I know I did not receive any sort of what we now call antibiotics. Whatever it was, it was not effective, and my ear aches became more and more painful, and I had a constant fever.

By the early spring of 1943, I was very sick, being taken to the doctor almost weekly. It was determined that I had a very severe ear infection (duh!). Eventually the infection became so toxic that it paralyzed the muscles that controlled my left eye and although my ability to see was not affected, I could not move that eye from the straight ahead position, and I had to keep my head turned constantly to the left and use my right eye to be able to see what was on my left side.

This development concerned the doctor, and over a period of several weeks he took a series of X-Rays of my head, perhaps a dozen or more; I don’t know whether it was for diagnostic or treatment purposes. The practice of medicine has changed a lot since 1943. (Long-term effects of many X-Rays in a later post.)

I became gravely ill. My father was called to come home from his base in Grand Junction, Colorado. I was given a blood test and my white cell count was over 30,000 (4,800 – 10,000 is normal in children.) The doctor announced that he suspected that I had mastoiditis, a severe infection of the “mastoid process” which is part of the skull behind the ear. The doctor instructed my parents to take me to the hospital immediately as I was to undergo surgery that evening.

I remember being held in my father’s arms while my mother drove the car, and Daddy carried me into the hospital. I don’t remember anything else until I woke up, sick as a dog from the effects of the ether that had been used as anesthesia during my surgery.

The operation that was performed on me is called a mastoidectomy. In my particular case, the left side of my head was shaved (my hair grew back, but has never since “behaved itself” in that location), an incision was made behind my left ear, and all the infected bone, quite a large amount, actually, was surgically removed (scraped off my skull.) There being no antibacterial solutions to wash the area before the incision was closed, carbolic acid was used as a disinfectant. Ugggh!

I was still very sick for several days. During one of the doctor’s visits, I overhead him telling my parents that had he not performed the surgery when he did, I would have been dead in twenty-four hours.

Last installment tomorrow

Remembrance of A Childhood Illness – Part One: Blowing Smoke

I woke up a few days ago with a slight ear ache. By the time I'd had my coffee and surfed the Internet, it was gone, but the twinge in my ear reminded me of a long-ago time during which an ear ache played a major role in my life.

I’ve written in earlier posts about living in Las Vegas, NM in 1941, and about Pearl Harbor and my father leaving home immediately afterwards to work for the United States Army. Out of economic necessity, Mother needed to get a job, and as there was no suitable work in the small (at the time) country town of Las Vegas, she applied for and was hired by an electrical supply company in Albuquerque as a secretary and bookkeeper.

We stayed in Las Vegas until school was out in the spring of 1942, then moved, lock, stock and barrel, to Albuquerque, using the Southwest Trailways Bus Line as both our means of transportation and moving company, shipping boxes of necessities in the luggage compartment between the wheels of the bus. I have to think that our furniture was conveyed in some other fashion, but I have no recollection of that process.

Mother had rented a small house near the downtown area, only a few blocks from her place of employment. I don’t recall very much about the house other than it had a floor furnace and a piano, which was a great delight to us, and we three girls spent hours sitting on the piano bench, playing “music.”

In the fall of 1942, I started the second grade at Lew Wallace Elementary School, which was within easy walking distance of our home. Sometime around Christmas, I began to experience very painful ear aches and to run fever. I was kept at home during the feverish periods, and returned to school as I was able. I do remember that after a while, it seemed I was at home sick more than I was in school.

One of our neighbors was a man we called “Shorty.” I know he was not a young man, at least he was old enough to have escaped the military draft. I believe Shorty had already served in the navy or merchant marine, and might even have been retired, and we children thought he looked like Popeye, since he had many tattoos on his arms and shoulders. Shorty evidently became a friend of the family, because he would sometimes come over to visit in the evenings when I was sick with an ear ache. Shorty smoked Camel cigarettes, and while he ordinarily did not smoke during his visits to our home, he declared that cigarette smoke blown into the ear would help alleviate the pain. I remember him lighting up, inhaling mouthfuls of smoke and blowing them gently into my ear. He would burn up a whole cigarette just blowing smoke. It didn't help.

To be continued tomorrow - I promise. It's already written.