Doctor Mama

My brother, Dale has had MORE than his fair share of misadventures.  From breaking his collarbone in kindergarten to shoving his hand through the storm door and running through hot ashes, his life seemed to be filled with medical emergencies!  While I haven’t been quite as misadventurous as Dale, there have certainly been moments in my life where it was helpful to have a Mama that was also a doctor.  Don’t misunderstand, Mama never attended medical school.  Her knowledge is gleaned from experience and common sense -- and innate wisdom, but for all of her kids and now grandkids it has come in handy and it is often Mama that we seek when we have health questions, and now that she is gone, it is Mama that we miss calling on to solve medical mysteries large and small.  

It is no wonder that she loved medical shows on TV -- from Marcus Welby to Quincy, ME back in the day to HOUSE, Diagnosis Murder, and NCIS episodes more recently, she would find herself fascinated by the medical knowledge.  Mama was smart about many things.  This is just one, but there were certainly times when her practical knowledge came in very handy.  Here are a few of mine:


The Bicycle Accident

We were visiting friends Don and Joyce Meredith for vacation.  As I remember it, it was our last morning there and Joyce was going to make toast for breakfast, but was out of bread.  She sent her daughters, Donna and Susan to the local store to grab a loaf of bread.  I was younger than either of them, idolized them both, and did NOT want to be left behind.  Susan graciously allowed me to ride on her handlebars.  Not the greatest decision.  As we were riding down a gravel road, Susan hit a bigger rock, which cause the bicycle to careen off course.  We toppled, wobbled and SPLAT!  It was a tough and very painful tumble. For me, an apparently very dramatic 6-7 year-old it was quite traumatic. In fact, I remember running down the road screaming, "Help me, help me, I'm going to die!"  Bless the woman's heart who came to our rescue.  I guess Donna or Susan must have given her their phone number (pre-cell phone days).  Our parents came and rescued us and had to take us to the hospital.  We required bandages, tetanus shots and concussion watch.  I remember Mama was proud of me because Susan cried for her shot and I didn't.  I came home from vacation with bandages on my right wrist, elbow, and shoulder, along with my left knee and left ankle.  It was quite an ordeal! 

What we DIDN'T know was that I had brought back something else, too.  Over time, as the wounds began to heal, Mama noticed the one on my right wrist didn’t seem right.  There was a darkness in the wound that didn’t look good -- and it sounded/felt like bone scraping on bone.  So she took me back to the doctor and he said it was just dirt in the wound and that my body would process it and deal with it -- nothing to worry about.  I don't remember, but there may have been another doctor’s visit -- maybe a couple more. Nonetheless, Doctor Mama didn’t believe that doctor.  She kept watching my wrist and began applying some home remedies.  I was 6 or 7, so I don’t remember all the details. . . .I do remember an Irish potato poultice to draw out whatever was in there.  I think there were some other steps, too.  Over time, it became clear that there was something in my wrist.  The potato poultice drew it up enough that Mama could tell it was pieces of gravel.  Eventually she did "surgery" with tweezers and peroxide and ended up removing 3 small pieces of gravel from my wrist.  We taped them to a piece of notebook paper and kept them for years.
While no part of that experience was enjoyable, I was thankful then and for all the years after to have had a mom with such great instincts, wisdom, and steady hands ;-)

I also had a couple of additional misdiagnoses --

In 7th grade my doctors missed a mononucleosis diagnosis and sent me home with a wrong answer.  I was so sick.  Fever spiking to 104 and higher.  I almost passed out and felt so bad I thought I seriously might die.  Mama's tenacity and knowledge ended up paying off again, as they put me in the hospital for 11 days and a diagnosis of mono after all.  My sister was about 6-7 months old, so Mama couldn't stay at the hospital very much, and Daddy was working so I stayed in the hospital by myself, and eventually healed up good as new.  I think that was at the very end of the school year.  I know my 7th grade teachers, Mrs. Hooks and Mrs. Shearin sent me flowers in the hospital.

My sophomore year in college at SCC, the doctor had said to my mom that I had cancer and it had already spread to the lymph nodes.  As it turned out, it was merely cat scratch fever, and I lived to tell the tale. But for the 3 weeks - 1 month that things were uncertain, every time Mama looked at me she would cry, thinking I WAS dying. . . 
Even as adults, we have all called on Mama to identify rashes, look down our throats, make medicine or folk remedy recommendations -- for us, our spouses, our pets. . . .
All of us in the family have had circumstances where Mama was a better doctor than our doctors, and we have been incredibly blessed to have her as medical caregiver and as Mama.