Thoughts about Childhood Diseases

At the NC State School for the Blind in the 1950’s, it was very common to catch all sorts of cold germs and childhood illnesses. There was an infirmary on campus where we lived while in school. Most of us enjoyed a short stay in the infirmary if we were not too sick to enjoy it, where we could lie in bed, listen to the radio all day long, and drink juice and eat chicken soup. I think back now on my times in that particular place.  

 

In the second grade I wrote this childish poem:

 

I had some little measle bumps as pesky as could be.

But when I started to scratch them the nurse caught me.

She put me into bed and gave me an old pill.

All day long I felt very ill.

It was late at night when I started to cough.

I went to get the butcher knife to cut those measles off.

But the nurse heard me and spanked me instead,

Took away my butcher knife and put me back to bed.

 

My second-grade teacher, Ms. Ethel Lewis, liked the poem and encouraged me to keep writing, although this is the only early poem I kept.

 

Anyway, back to childhood diseases. Lots of my friends and students at the school were there because our mothers contracted measles during the pregnancies, resulting in the germ settling in the eyes of the unborn child. Today it is usually mandatory by physicians for expectant mothers or, in fact, everyone, to get the measles vaccine.

One night after spending a weekend at home, I told my housemother that my brother had the mumps over that weekend. Immediately arrangements were made for me to be sent home before the disease spread all over campus; it was too late. My friend Ann, ended up in the infirmary a day after I left for home, and  I had not been home but a few days before my face swelled and I ended up in bed while there. For some reason, the doctor in that day thought a good dose of Milk of Magnesia was in order. As Mom prepared the dose, for the first time, I thought it might be better to be at school in the infirmary. Anyway, I fussed and spit the laxative right back at her, for which my Daddy was furious. Even though he was not supposed to get close to me, he fixed another dose and forced it into my mouth. I swallowed the awful stuff and Daddy came down with the mumps. He got over them quickly, just in time to get chicken pox. The small town local paper thought this worthy of an article.

Of course I got chicken pox too. Even though this disease seemed to be less threatening, it seemed to always last an entire week. I didn’t write a poem about the chicken pox, but I do remember being in the infirmary. One of the teachers, Miss Agnes Ellis, visited me. She brought me a book with large pictures. The book was “The Ugly Duckling.” Thinking about it now, even though it was a gift of love and I did enjoy it so much, I smile when I realize surely chicken pox can cause anybody to appear as an “ugly duckling.”

In 1955, we had to get written permission at school to be given the Salk vaccine for polio. There were quite a few students at the school who had suffered polio in early childhood and had some permanent effects, mostly those of limping and some wearing braces. This was one disease nobody wanted to get, and my parents very willingly gave their permission for me to receive this new immunization.

Even though there were what we called diseases such as “three-day measles,” poison ivy/oak, colds, flu, sore throats, whooping cough, no really serious diseases seemed to penetrate our little school world. My mom and daddy were positive I had whooping cough when little, leaving me with a chronic cough to this day. As a small child the housemother gave me horehound candy many nights to try to soothe the throat and cough. It tasted like kerosene smells to me, yet, even today, it is widely used for medicinal purposes, and many people enjoy its taste. Check it out on the web; it has quite a history all its own.

They performed tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies at the infirmary. My parents gave permission for me to have my tonsils removed, with the condition that they be notified when it happened. They were notified after it was over. Mama mailed a package to me with the most beautiful doll I ever had, and she even had a change of clothes. I wish I had kept her; to me she was prettier than Barbie.

My daughter, Christi, did have chicken pox, and I think Kevin has now had the chicken pox vaccine. Kevin had scarlet fever resulting from a Strep throat, immediately cured with Penicillin.

As I think back now from when my mother was young in the 1920’s through today, it is amazing to see all the treatments for serious childhood diseases that have been developed. Yet there are horrible diseases still in our world both in children and adults. Maybe in another hundred years more cures will be found, in fact, more cures than diseases, especially those that affect children.