Chapter 21 It's My Turn

 Chapter 21  It’s My Turn

In those days it was considered children in hospital were less fretful if they didn't see family members, or anyone they knew. So Mum and Dad reluctantly returned to the farm, just grateful their little boy was still alive. 

    Apparently, the doctor thought it was probable that a few potassium permanganate crystals had inadvertently fallen into the cuts when my mother was dealing with the bites on  Owen’s leg. Along with the snakebite poison, it had burned deeper into the leg wound and it took an extensive time to heal.

    Over the next few weeks Dad grew over anxious about Owen's condition and constantly rang the doctor for news, but the doctor became intolerant of his frequent enquiries and a misunderstanding developed. Because the anxious parents thought their son was ready for discharge, they drove to the hospital prematurely to bring him home. When they walked into the children's ward in Assville Hospital, Owen was sitting up in his cot. He had soiled his nappy and had spread the faeces everywhere: on his cot, on his legs, on his arms...

    To make matters worse, a young nurse was laughing with male patients on the verandah. The weather was hot and blowflies had soon become attracted to the smell. Mum was  furious. She cleaned Owen up and dressed him and they took him home, but on examining the wound later, Mum realized she was not equipped to deal with what she saw. 
   
    The next day they drove down to the hospital at Eadervale and spoke to the doctor there. Owen was admitted and once again they returned home silent and tightlipped. Two days later Mum answered a phone call from the Eadervale doctor informing her that Owen was fretting terribly and would need to return home.

     “I have complete confidence in you, Peg; I’ve seen your first-aid, and I’ll explain what needs to be done.” 

    I watched Mum work as she treated Owen's leg every day. She’d put him on a freshly laundered sheet on her bed and carefully remove the bandages. Under instruction from the doctor she had purchased stainless steel scissors and artery forceps, and before she started the dressing she sterilised them by boiling on the stove in a saucepan kept especially for the purpose. She used ribbon gauze to pack the wound, and each time, this had to be carefully removed with the forceps, and after swabbing and cleaning the gash with antiseptic, it was repacked with fresh gauze. Mum was a dedicated nurse, and I stood by, amazed at the long length she had to pack in to the wound, but gradually it shortened and the little leg healed. Owen still bears the scar today.

    The trauma of the snakebite and the length of his recovery took away his ability to walk. Everyday I took him by the hand and led him about the house, exercising his legs,  while Mum worked in the kitchen. She’d often leave him sitting down on a rug in front of the open front door where the breeze would keep him cool.

    Owen had fair straight hair and I adored his little baby arms and chubby face. One day I had him on my back giving him a piggyback ride and I ducked under a barbed wire fence near the dairy. Unfortunately I didn't duck low enough and a barb from the fence caught Owen’s bottom lip and gave him a small laceration, leaving a scar.
   
    Larry loved his little brother too and often spent time dressing him up and photographing him. There stands Owen with his little shorts down under his bulging baby pot stomach, and a beer bottle beside him! Or standing on the pathway, Larry’s jodhpurs almost consuming his whole body, and his little feet standing in Larry’s riding boots. On top of his head is Larry’s bush hat. 

    The brothers were 14 years apart, but always had a great love and respect for each other.

    Of course at nine or ten years old, I wasn't always a dedicated playmate. By the time Owen was walking well again, I was finding his babysitting rather demanding. It all got too much for me one day.

    Impatiently I said to him, "Go and see if Daddy is coming." 

    He loved to see his father arrive home. About half an hour later, I realized Owen was missing and I fearfully reported to my mother.  Owen wasn’t silly. He knew Dad would be returning from the bore and he knew which road lead up to the bore, so he had set out walking. We guessed what had happened and when we found him he had almost made it the two miles to where his father was working.

    One would have thought that because we lived an isolated life in the country we may have somehow avoided the childhood illnesses. But it was not to be. The diet must have had quite a big influence, because like every family of the time, we all ate large quantities of refined carbohydrates, such as sugar and white flour.  We drank white tea with two teaspoons of sugar, a thick layer of sugar on the cereal every morning --I think all you could buy was Wheat Bix, Vita Brits, cornflakes or rice bubbles--and every cake or biscuit recipe included cups of sugar. As a matter of fact, my parents purchased a large galvanised rubbish bin especially to be kept as a sugar bin. A ‘poley cup’ scoop was used for filling the sugar basins. Living on a dairy farm, we consumed copious amounts of milk and cream. I often wonder if I had an intolerance to cows’ milk, as my granddaughter now does.

     As a child I had perpetual swollen neck glands, and developed a constant cough. Blood tests revealed nothing. I remember Mum heating olive oil on the wood stove in the lid of a jar, dipping cotton wool into it, and squeezing drops into my ears to relieve the ache.

     And the only way she could relieve my night-time cough was to give me warm milk to sip. This entailed getting up in the middle of the night and lighting the Primus stove to heat the milk, otherwise my coughing could go on all night. 

    Eventually, at nine years old, my tonsils were taken out. I was in hospital with another little girl also due to have her tonsils out. In those days when you were admitted to hospital, even before you had any treatment, you were kept in bed. Precariously perched on the bed on a cold bedpan, I felt horribly embarrassed behind the screen. 

    The screen was a huge contraption on wheels, with two arms that swung outwards. The nurses lined it up at the end of the bed, and the two arms with the white screen covering them, gave you privacy along the sides of the bed.

    The day of the operation I was taken to the theatre first, but awoke from the anaesthetic last. I often wonder what went on in that theatre, after the smothering effects of the ether rendered me unconscious. All I remember is trying to wake up back in my bed, throwing myself around, my mouth full of saliva and blood, and surrounded by nurses in starched white uniforms.

    I was barely conscious when I heard one of them say, "Look at Dawny over their sitting up in bed being a good girl, and you're being naughty!"

     Naughty! I had excruciating pain in my throat, and when I finally was able to sit up, they brought ice cream for me to eat. I cried out in pain and refused to eat anything.

    I was in hospital for two weeks without even a visit from my parents and was agonisingly homesick. One day our farm neighbours walked up onto the verandah where Dawn and I were sitting. I thought they’d come to visit me, but they only waved and said hello and then sat down to talk to Dawn. They brought in pencils and a colouring book for her. I pretended I didn't mind, but I was crying on the inside. My parents had bought me Coles Funny Picture Book from the second-hand book-shop in Eadervale before they left me at the hospital, so I contented myself with that.

    The day my father arrived to take me home, my throat was still sore, and on the school bus the next day I couldn’t stand the elastic of my straw school hat pressing on my throat.