Despite being a premmie I wasn't a particularly sickly kid I don't think.
As far as I can recall I had the usual skirmishes with classic childhood illnesses like Chicken Pox, Measles and maybe Mumps.
My worst medical emergency was a near-to-bursting appendix. I was rushed into hospital and had the pesky innard removed within half a day of arriving. This was 1970 or 71. The lad next to me wasn't so lucky as his had gone and burst. He was in a bad way and no amount of my lucozade would have improved things.
I say my lucozade because the kid on the other side thought it was his and kept pouring himself a glass! I knew the lad well. He was a mate of mine. Vinnie. We shared Action Man uniforms on many occasions but this did not extend to nicking my lucozade!
Still, my folks knew how to cheer me up. They came to see me one day with a prezzie, a minty new Ideal Zeroid no less! It was the bronze brown jobby with the blue trailer box. I adored the thing and it lead with me in bed until I was discharged by Matron. They nearly removed his motor by mistake! Ooo er!
Although I still have my appendectomy scar to remind me of going under the knife it wasn't the most painful medical entanglement.
Entanglement is the operative word here as you will see. It was one Saturday tea-time circa 1973 and I was having a tinkle on the upstairs loo. My older brother shouted from the bottom of the stairs ' Woodsy, hurry up! Its Doctor Who on TV!'. I loved the Doctor at the time - John Pertwee I think it was - and hurried up the final arrangements to get down to the TV room. Alas, my final arrangement was just that, final. I'd caught my Mister Benn in my fly and when I say caught, I mean badly!
After my Dad carefully cut off my favourite Oxford Bags on the landing, apart from a neat rectangle around the zipper, I was hospitalised.
I was also traumatised, prodded, poked, jabbed like a chipolata [that was the worst!], and locally anaesthetised.
I was, eventually, 'unzipped'. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!
Thus ensued the most painful fortnight of my life. Being such a sensitive region it did not take too kindly to what had happened and reacted as such. If I was to say 'very large blister' and 'popped' you'll get the picture I'm sure! We are talking the mother of blisters, as big as a haggis!
I couldn't have anything touching me - pajamas, trousers, even bedclothes. It made it nigh on impossible to sleep until my Dad re-modelled a fire guard so that once placed over my midriff it kept the blankets offa me! Genius. I slept dead still and didn't freeze after that.
The only good thing about this emasculating predicament was that I missed school for two, even three weeks.
Named after a famous race horse at the time, it became affectionately known as the Dickler Experience in the family!
Still, I got a Zeroid out of it!
Were you sick or injured as a kid?
That's a high price to pay for a few weeks off school!
ReplyDeleteI was in hospital as a kid to have my tonsils removed. My uncle by way of my father gave me an electric motor boat as a gift. Now my obvious question was what can you do with a heavy metal toy boat requiring two U2 batteries, not supplied, when you're stuck in a hospital bed?
I suspected one of my older cousins who I rarely saw was given it and rejected it. When eventually tried on a pond it was so slow that the slightest breeze changed its course.
Never had my tonsils out Terran. I've heard the op was even carries out on kitchen tables! Yuck! Was that a pond in London where you tested the metal vessel?
DeleteThe National Health Service were obsessed by tonsils.
DeleteThe nearest natural pond to me growing up was in Queens Wood, Highgate, London N6. I think it may still be there a stone's throw from one of London's plague pits. The pond was where one went to get frog spawn for school science projects.
Blimey... thankfully nothing like the horrific gore fest you've just traumatised us with, Woodsy. It reads like a scene from a Pan Horror novel, ha ha. Still, at least no one made inconsiderate remarks concerning the name of a popular character from 'Rainbow'. That would've been below the belt, so to speak :D
ReplyDeleteha ha, leave Bungo out of it Tone! Or did you you mean Geoffrey! Thats it. There's no flies on me. Cheers, Zippy.
DeleteI didn't have the best of health as a child, and by the time I was fourteen I contracted chronic bronchitis. This had two positive outcomes as far as I was concerned; it meant that I was medically unfit for sports and PE [both of which I absolutely hated with a passion!] - Secondly, it gave my voice a resonance that it would not have had otherwise, which gave me a serious advantage in broadcasting.
ReplyDeleteSo unwittingly, it kick-started my radio career.
Sounds a burden for a kid Bill but I'm glad you got something out of your illness. My Missus had bronchitis as a kid and her family very nearly moved from the City to the coast for the sea air. They didn't as for some reason it got better. Did you ever consider moving to the Welsh mountains or the sea?
DeleteHa ha! My family home was in a mountainous area some five miles from the coast! Sadly this was a one of those illnesses which perodically dogged me for decades.
DeleteI suppose I lived in a similar position in Preston. Few miles from the sea on the Ribble Estuary and the Pennines not too far away. Not as dramatic as Wales though Bill. My own small family started off its life in Llanfairfechan. Talk about feesh sea air with a hint of Puffin!
DeleteNearly died of Measles at 3 or 4, but wasn't hospitalised till I was 5 for suspected Whooping Cough.
ReplyDeleteSpent a whole week in an isolation ward before they worked out I'd swallowed a chip down the wrong way !
Still, got the "Dr Who and the Daleks" (movie) Colouring Book out of it.
Mish.
That sounds bad Mish, nearly dying. Kids have to endure so much and come back fighting don't they. As for the chip, did it go down sideways? Ouch! That book sounds like my Zeroid, a well-earned sickness prezzie. Do you still have it?
DeleteNot sure how the chip went down. Just awkwardly, I think.
ReplyDeleteAs for the colouring book, long gone I'm afraid.
Mish.