...from “I’ve Got To Write a Book!”
by Ira Wiggins
Doctor’s Days and Nights (part 3)
Winter was a most interesting time to drive in Michigan. I did a considerable amount of it both day and night and became quite adept at traversing icy roads. I vividly recall one dark night returning from the hospital in Hillsdale when I had to make three running starts at a slope in the highway in order to get to the top before my wheels started to spin. Another night about 2:00 a.m. on the main street of Hillsdale, when returning from a delivery, I attempted to scribble a brief reminder note. As I looked up, the thought flashed through mv mind, “What the hell is the rear end of that car doing right in front of me?” It had to be a flashed thought I would not have had time to say it before ramming the rear end of the parked car. No seat belt but, fortunately, my speed was slow. Two bruised knees were minor compared to my humiliation and embarrassment. The judge, bless his heart, was full of compassion and the milk of human kindness. He certainly was entitled to charge me with reckless driving but, instead, only gave me a ticket for “driving in the wrong lane”. I’d never argue with that!
*****
Another winter night I was departing the home of an ill child. On starting to back out of the driveway mv wheels began to spin and I was stuck in the snow. I took the shovel from the trunk and began to work, cursing the snow and winter in general. The curtains were drawn on the house. At one point a beam of light came out as the man drew the shade aside to see what was going on. A quick look was sufficient; the shades never parted after that. I suppose he had his own troubles and I was being paid wasn’t I? Well, wasn’t I??
*****
We had been renting a small apartment but, after a year in Jonesville, when Betty became pregnant we decided it was time to buy a home. We found one on West St. (a good neighborhood) with a single-car garage, full basement, large backyard, two stories and two bedrooms for $7,000.00. It was our busy, happy home for about five years before we purchased a larger place with three bedrooms, large den, fireplace and all hardwood floors for $19,000.00. That amount of money wouldn’t even buy a run-down shack these days. Ah, inflation!
*****
It was in the latter house that one of my “little harmless practical jokes” backfired. Our neighbor, Mr. Glasgow, had killed a male red fox in the orchard on his farm and was showing it to me when the bright idea “wouldn’t that be funny” popped into my mind. Betty’s two unmarried sisters, Mary and Berna, were visiting our home this cool fall week and it would be a good chance to give them a little scare and have a bit of a laugh. Mr. Glasgow willingly loaned me the carcass. Mary and Berna were sitting in the living room. I quietly sneaked in the back door. Holding the fox by the scruff of the neck and the rump I slowly thrust the muzzle then the forepart of the head around the doorjamb, meanwhile uttering guttural growling noises. Exclamations and squeals of fright and surprise came from the living room. The joke was a success. I laughed heartily as I emerged into full view carrying the limp carcass. It was then that I noticed the urine dribbling from the fox. He had not been dead very long and the bladder sphincter had just relaxed. Now during the “guttural growling” process I had been holding the fox over the floor register of our hot air heating system and most of the contents of his bladder had been emptied down the register. For those of you who might not be aware of it I will mention that the urine of a male fox kas an odor approximating that of the skunk. In a warm register it is most pronounced. I will leave to your imagination the amount of effort involved in cleaning the heat pipes. Neither will it take much imagination for you to realize how deeply I was in the doghouse with Betty. The register was in the kitchen yet!
*****
We lived two blocks from the high-school. One New Year’s eve we had a party at our house with a moderate amount of imbibing. One of our guests and a good friend was a teacher. About the middle of the evening he put on his coat, silently walked out the front door and in a few minutes returned smiling.
“Where in hell have you been, Dick?” someone queried.
“Oh, I went down and pissed on the school building. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.”
*****
Two doors from our home was “The Manor School for Boys”, a privately owned and operated most excellent school for retarded boys. Being the school physician was, for me, a most interesting experience. The 20 - 30 boys were well loved and well disciplined. The non-teachables were housed and cared for. The teachables were taught as much as they were able to absorb, even if it was only how to make a bed or set a table or to dress themselves. Reading, math, etc. were taught to those more capable. Occasionally a student would “graduate”. I know one who for many years has been self-supporting, by doing various kinds of odd jobs. Be still exchange letters at Christmas time and I prize his friendship.
Certain types of congenital mental deficiencies are accompanied by a lowered resistance to infection. Down’s syndrome (Mongolism) is one example. One such boy developed scarlet fever and died in the hospital as a result.
Because of their lowered resistance these youngsters were very susceptible to influenza and I often was called to see four or more of them at a time. When one became ill the others followed suit. The problem was largely solved when I started giving the entire staff and students “flu shots”. Twice a year Betty and I would carry the necessary equipment to the school and inoculate the entire group of students and most of the staff. There was one young man who, when it came his turn, would invariably start shouting, “I gotta tinkle! I gotta tinkle!” Thus he delayed the inevitable for a few precious minutes while he was allowed to go to the toilet. The patience of the staff was amazing. If humoring or reasoning would work they never resorted to force. It was indeed the rare case that had to be forcibly restrained for the procedure.
*****
It was at Manor School that I was privileged to observe two cases of “idiot savant”, a rather unattractive name for an interesting condition. These particular two boys were about 12 and 13 years of age but mentally at a kindergarten or lower level. Each had a special talent, however, which the average high-IQ person would find very difficult to duplicate. One took great pride in asking a new acquaintance the month, date and year of his birth. He would then proudly announce the day of the week on which that person had been born. He was seldom wrong. The other made it a point when meeting someone new to obtain that person’s birth date, address and telephone number. On a subsequent meeting, even weeks or months later, he was able to recite back the statistics without error. I was amazed.
No one has a really satisfactory explanation for these unusual cases.
*****
Although work dominated my days and nights, there were hobbies and vacations to be enjoyed too. Flying (see chapter on “Flying Days”) was a delightful source of relaxation and invariably improved my state of humor, perhaps because I was free for a time from the menace of the telephone. I did not realize I was becoming chronically grumpy until one day our six year old, Nancy, said to her mother, “I wish daddy would go flying more often. It puts him in so much better mood.” That caused a bit of sober reflection.
*****
Nancy was at about the same age when she became ill with a fever. After a day Betty said to her, “I guess if you aren’t better tomorrow we’d better have the doctor examine you.”
Her eyes brightened and she said, “You mean my daddy, —-or a real doctor?”
*****
Fishing the small lakes and streams in Hillsdale county was another of my delights. The small bass, bluegills and occasional trout were scrappy on the light line of a fly-rod and were delicious to eat. Of course when I would arrive home there was often as not a pressing home-call awaiting me and I would quickly wash, change clothes and rush off, leaving Betty to clean the fish. This was not a job she especially enjoyed. Nor did she relish searching the bits of cooked fish to remove tiny bones before feeding it to our two small youngsters. To this day she has an aversion to eating fish unless it has been prepared and cooked by someone else.
A visitor one day asked of Nancy, “So your daddy likes to fish, eh?”
“Yup. Likes to sish.”
“What kind of fish does he catch?”
“Baby sish.”
Brat!
*****
My wife declares that during my 20 years of active practice in Jonesville I had little time for family life and I guess it is true. I was fatigued a good bit of the time and had more work than I really would have chosen. I didn’t fully realize this until I started to write a chapter in this book entitled “Raising a Family” and found myself without sufficient material to make a decent chapter. Now that’s sad.
Oh, I recall playing with the children, teaching them to balance standing on my hand when three or four months of age, etc. but I seldom changed a diaper or got up with a fussy child at night. Thus I seldom helped with any of Betty’s work. She, on the other hand, was frequently in a situation where she was forced to help out with my work. If my regular nurse suddenly fell ill she would fill in. If I was not at home the patients, knowing she was a registered nurse, usually asked her for advice about an emergency or their symptoms or their medications. Knowing that I was chronically fatigued she tried not to worry me with problems of her own.
Think it would be great to be a doctor’s wife? Forget it. It ain’t easy.
*****
One evening at the supper table our three year old, Tom, who had been taught to say “please”, said, “Please pass the God damn potatoes.”
Betty and I looked at back other in alarm but said nothing and passed the potatoes. We never heard him repeat the word. I suspect that, if we had raised a fuss and delivered a lecture, he would have certainly remembered the word and looked for places to use it in the future.
It was at about the same age that, after hearing us praise a certain food on the table, he tasted it and made his own pronouncement: “It’s lelicious (another word he didn’t know), ———- I don’t like it.”
Enough of the “cute sayings” of children. I won’t try to compete with Art Linkletter.
*****
When Tom was about seven, one of his many small injuries resulted in infection about the ankle with an angry, red area from which ascended telltale pink streaks. I started him on antibiotics at once.
“Tom, do you know what doctors call what you have?”
“No, dad, what?”
“That is called ‘cellulitis with ascending lymphangiitis’.”
“Wow! Can I tell the kids at school?”
“Of course.”
So Tom practiced until he could say “cellulitis with ascending lymphangiitis” in a single breath. His friends were duly impressed.
At this point nine year old Nancy was feeling a bit left out of the picture. Of course, Dad, who knew everything, would have the answer.
“Dad, haven’t I got something with a good medical name that I can tell the kids at school about?”
“Hmm, —-Let me see.” Now this would take a bit of thought, for Nancy was a vigorous, bright, healthy specimen. And then, heaven help me, the devil himself goaded me and lighted up the bulb of an idea that was just too much for me to resist.
“Yes, Nancy, you can tell them that you have a fecalith in the circle of Willis.”
“Oh, that’s great! Say it again, dad.”
“A fecalith in the circle of Willis.”
She ran off happily repeating the phrase, so happy with the sound of it that the question as to its meaning never entered her mind.
When it occurred to her a few days later to question the meaning I had to confess the joke to her.
You see, a fecalith is a small, dry ball of human stool or excrement. The circle of Willis is a circular arrangement of blood vessels (arteries) in the base of the brain. All in all, a fecalith in the circle of Willis is an entirely fictitious condition about which the average young lady would not care to boast.
*****
I can’t resist the impulse to pass on a bit of practical knowledge which had not made it into any of the medical text-books - at least in my time. I first learned of it through reading a letter to the editor in a medical journal. The letter was from a dermatologist and was essentially as follows:
“Now, all doctors know that the best underarm deodorant is ordinary bicarbonate of soda (Hell, I didn’t know!) but it is entirely useless to suggest this to any of the ladies in my practice. Each time I suggest it I am regarded with a look of disbelief and rejection as though I were an unwashed, unshaven hobo who had just propositioned the patient. From a specialist they expect - nay, demand - something scented, pressurized and expensive. Pity.”
Eagerly I tried it. It works! Just a pinch of the powder after washing under each arm-pit (and in each groin if desired) does the trick. This is not an anti-perspirant; it does not produce dryness. But, as a deodorant - to neutralize odors - it has no equal. If you are interested try this experiment sometime when you have been perspiring and both armpits have a strong odor, put a pinch of bicarbonate of soda under one armpit only. Wait a minute or two - then sniff each side. You will find one side to be completely odorless. But, then, if you prefer something scented, pressurized and expensive...
*****
There were no psychiatrists in Hillsdale County. I was occasionally called to do a physical and/or mental examination on an inmate in the jail. The situations were usually tense, grim and suspicion-laden, not without an element of fear. But neither were they entirely devoid of humor.
“What’s your name?”
“Jesus Christ.”
Equinimitas. Don’t show any surprise or emotion on the face, doctor. This was not an unusual mental aberration.
“Birth date?” I knew it was a mistake the second I uttered it.
“If you don’t know I was born or Christmas day you’re not smart enough to be a doctor!”
Guess I asked for that one.
You have certainly heard the rhetorical question, “What would happen if Jesus were to return to earth and walk amongst us today?” I know what would happen. He would be immediately confined to a mental institution because he claimed to be Jesus Christ! Think about it.
*****
Mrs. Wilson brought her screaming six month old infant to my office. He had been crying continually for an hour without letup and nothing would make him stop. He had always been a good-natured baby.
“I thought a pin was sticking him, but I checked and it’s not that.”
“Probably an ear infection, Mrs. ‘Wilson. Let’s take a look.”
The ear-drums were perfectly normal.
“That’s not the trouble. You’d better undress him for me, Mrs. Wilson.
Off came the clothing, accompanied by lusty yells from the patient.
“The shoes too, doctor?”
My first impulse was to say, “No, that won’t be necessary.” But, as I was stalling for time to consider what all of the possibilities might be I instead replied, “Yes, please.”
The first shoe came off and the red-faced, outraged crying continued.
With removal of the second shoe the screaming stopped as though a switch had been flipped. As the tiny sock came off, the dead-white toes could be seen straightening out from their under-curled position where they had been painfully crammed when the shoe was put on. The mother and I could not help laughing as the baby gave a long, audible sigh and a faint smile lighted the tear-streaked, still-red face.
*****
