Mother was the first to push for a trip to the hospital. Dad resisted – he hated hospitals and did not trust doctors. He also worried about cost and didn’t believe in borrowing money. By the time he agreed to undertake this journey I could not walk at all and had to be carried into and out of our caboose, and from there into the hospital. Because my brother and sister were too young to leave at home they came with us. Although we had a car, by then winter had closed in and roads were impassible. The caboose and our horses were now our only means of getting into the village. For me it was an extremely painful ride over the bumpy frozen fields – but not a cold one. Cabooses, little shacks set on runners, were usually equipped with small stoves. A warm livery stable awaited the horses in town and when they returned home a warm barn with a manger full of feed greeted them.
At the hospital the diagnosis was swift – advanced blood poisoning. On a daily basis I received shots of penicillin and sulpha. Conveniently for me, these life savers had been released for civilian use soon after World War II. They probably saved my life. The lump in my leg was lanced, drained and the wound regularly repacked. Needles were nothing compared to this procedure. The nurse was the most skilled at this process. I always fervently hoped the doctor would be unavailable when the next dressing was due.
It had cost $3.41 for me to be born at the cottage hospital in Watson, circa 1935. These little hospitals dotted the prairies in the 30’s and 40’s. Spalding was the nearest when I needed help. I never found out how much it took to keep me alive eleven years later. How did my parents pay for my medical expenses? Probably in installments. How do I know about the $3.41? Mother kept everything and when she died all of her mementos went to my sister. Celeste then passed most of them on to me.
I forget how many books I read, I kept up with my schoolwork, chatted with visitors and with the nurse when she had time. I didn’t see my parents often – six miles by caboose being quite a chore.
The Spalding Nursing Home was small, not much bigger than our little farm house. It could deal with childbirth, broken limbs, sports injuries, farm injuries, tonsils and blood poisoning, and probably many other afflictions that I wasn’t aware of. Some things it could not fix. Hospital walls were thin and when one of our neighbours gave birth to a stillborn child I could hear her cry out during the delivery, and I could hear her mourning for many days after.
Eventually I returned to school. A year later we moved to the Melfort Experimental Station where Dad had been hired as foreman in animal husbandry. Rather than selling our farm it was rented out. That was a good decision. My Grade Eight was spent at Vaughn, another one room school just outside of Melfort, better equipped than Rosebush with an inspiring young teacher who never needed to use the strap that rested in the lower desk drawer. After Vaughn I attended Melfort High School for Grade Nine.
I never ever played soccer again! At Vaughn I prevailed in a wrestling match. Back in Spalding and in Grade 10 I won the high jump medal in my category in the township track meet. In Grade 12 at Regina College I learned to skate and at the age of 30 in Burnaby, B.C. I learned to swim. There were no more sporting mishaps, or thankfully, none nearly as serious as the soccer incident.
