Lying in bed thinking about writing about my health problems over the years I had a hundred things running thru my mind. My asthma, gynaecological problems and more. Which one would I write about first?
Suddenly I remembered something I hadn’t thought of for years. It was visiting the dentist as a child.
The dentist we went to, use to be upstairs above Big White’s in Ipswich. The doorway at street level was non descript and most people would pass it without even knowing it was there. The doorway led to steep dark varnished stairs that were never well lite. This in turn had you going down an equally dark hallway to the dentist’s room
The room itself was also dingy looking from memory. I can’t remember any natural or bright lights of any kind in this building. But it also wasn’t somewhere you were scared of.
Now this might sound very strange but I loved going to the dentist. Not because of the nerve tingling drill, or the crunching of a tooth as its being ripped out of your mouth but because of the music.
Yes that’s right, the music! I always knew if I sat there long enough – and with 3 of us kids to see the dentist you knew for certain that you would – you would always hear the song Puff the magic dragon.
Every time it came on I would get all goosebumby and my body would fill with sadness for Puff when Jackie Paper went away. As a child I always thought Jackie Piper had died but as I got older realized that it was that he grew up from being a little boy that played and believed in dragons.
Now back to my health.
As a child I was fairly active. I played a lot of sports – tennis, netball, softball all in primary school and in high school those sports plus I had the school record for shot-put and discus.
Being so active I was a fairly healthy child. The only problem I ever had was my asthma. I can recall 2 occasions where it interfered strongly with what was happening in my childhood.
The first one was when I was 7 I had to go to hospital to have my tonsils out. It was St Andrews in Ipswich and the children’s ward had the old iron rail beds and everything was white with no other colour in sight. Each room opened thru French doors to a wide-open hallway.
I went in the afternoon prior to the operation. On the morning of the operation I remember them coming in to give me a needle in the bum. I can guarantee they never saw anyone as strong as me!
I held onto the sides of the bed screaming that I was not going to roll over for this shot. There were 2 nurses and a doctor or wardsman trying to get me over. But I wasn’t budging.
Due to the fight I put up I ended up having an asthma attack and I recall the doctor saying I couldn’t be operated on that day. I was so relieved!! It was put off until the next day.
To this day nearly 40 years lately I can remember waking up the following morning wishing that I would have another asthma attack so that I didn’t have to have that needle again. But that didn’t happen and I had the operation.
That feeling of absolute terror of having that needle has stayed with me and for years now I have only have needles in either my arm or leg, never my bum.
The second time that asthma played a strong part in my life as a child was when I was in year 5, so around 10 years old. This time I wasn’t wishing it would happen but angry that it did. This was the time at my primary school that we got to learn to swim.
I was so excited. I could see myself on the first lesson, diving into the pool and swimming as smooth as a dolphin through the water. For days before I had my towelling swim bag packed with my togs and towel ready to take to school on the big day.
Well that Friday I woke up with extremely bad asthma. No matter how much I begged and yelled my mother wouldn’t let me go to school so no swimming for me that day. I was devistated and spent a lot of the day crying.
The next week I had to listen to everyone say how much fun they had and some of the shine went out of going for me as going on the second week just wasn’t the same.
I do have to say that I have never dived in smoothly or swam like a dolphin. I was more the biggest belly flop and come last in races type person. But I still loved swimming
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