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?
