Feb. 14, 2004 - 18:39 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Back Then

As a little child, just becoming somewhat aware I remember a day now and then when the world was totally awry, nothing seemed right and unhappiness ruled, I was completely discontented.

I was too young yet to know what sick is, but that is what it was.

First thing I remember is something they called Croup. Coughing, hard to breathe, and noisy to breathe. and things like that. Mom putting the kettle on to boil and when things seemed the worst to me, Dad giving me a dose of Ipecac which loosened my breathing and caused gallons of spew. Now Ipecac is a sweetness that is intolerably upsetting to the stomach.

Occasionally I would have an illness which caused fever, the times in purgatory of hallucinations were torture to me as nothing good showed up in delirium. As I grew older the periods of delirium were accepted by me as nightmares of sickness. But it took quite awhile for me to progress that far.

I remember having Whooping Cough too. Mom and Dad would get medicine for me when I had that. Croup and Whooping Cough were fatiguing to say the least it seemed to take so much effort to breathe and cough along with it. I rember my loathing of that home made cough medicine made with onions, sugar and Yuck !

I was pretty young when I had the flu, those days they called it Grippe, as I remember it that was another time of delirium for me.

Can't remember having Chicken Pox but remember Mom telling me in later years her problems keeping me from scratching. I was pretty young when I had the measles, they wouldn't let me read or look at pictures, kept the room dim and me being crotchety through the whole thing.

Seems to me that before Vicks began to be used Mentholatum was the stuff that was smeared indiscriminately on my chest, throat and just under my nose.

Can't remember my ailment, maybe Scarletina when Mom and Dad laid me out on the kitchen table and put a home made Mustard Plaster on me. Terribly uncomfortable it was. Just looked in Taber's and see that it is used as a counter-irritant, but it didn't say what for and oh, it did burn to the extreme. Seems to me that one of them blistered me a bit.

What can a kid do to communicate and explain he is sick ? That he hurts when he doesn't yet know what pain is ? I remember once trying to tell Mom and Dad what was wrong and telling them, "My ears are doubled," maybe a better term would have been, "My ears are folded over." I think that it was the same problem that I have when as a passenger in an airplane I can't pop my ears when descending from altitude, or coming back from the mountains. Didn't hurt then, doesn't hurt now but it is very bothersome.

When one of our kids was little and I suspected illness, Heather was the one who could figure out what ailed the child. She comes from a large family and some of that she learned watching her mother tend her younger brother and sister when they were ill. It was easy for me though to see that something was wrong and made me long for the day when a progeny could tell me where it hurt, how bad it hurt and all those little things that can clue a parent on how to make a child more comfortable while sick. I remember when as a little tyke I would cry when the world turned sour and I didn't understand a darn thing about it, just thought if Mom and Dad couldn't fix it I was in trouble.

Thinking just now, we men have it made for the most part. Wives take over when Mom's leave off nursing us poor, sick, pitiful men. They are the best at giving TLC.

Medical science has made great strides since I was a little boy coming up with new medicines and of course the combination OTC medications that can clash with a prescription medication or result in an overdose of some component if taken with another over the counter medication. There were fewer medications of any kind. Sheesh, now you can get Tylenol Sinus, Alka Seltzer Cold, and all those combinations that have many of the same chemicals, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But to a person looking back to the time of becoming aware, it was difficult Back Then . . . . . . . . . .

Blog