SLICED AND DICED, a memoir

The trials and tribulations of a very sick five year old.

I was five years old and very sick.  The day before my illness struck me down, my family had gone to see the new neighborhood where the house my dad just bought was located.  We had to wait a few weeks before we could move in.  Two houses down lived the high school football coach that my dad knew.  The coach had a son my age, which was boding well for me having a playmate.  In my previous neighborhood, I was the “lone-wolf.”  Being very young, I was the “squirt,” and the only interaction I had with the older kids was to be terrorized by them.  My running and hiding skills greatly improved in this environment, and those skills proved to benefit me greatly later in life.  That’s another story.

  

Mike, my newfound friend, turned out to be a wonderful human being and is still a dear friend of mine.  Unlike me, he didn’t have a mean bone in his body and was, and still is kind and gentle.  I must admit at times I took advantage of his nature, which I do feel guilty about.  Since that era, I have become a better human being myself and have become the kind of friend Mike deserves.  One of the obvious catalysts for my character conversion was that Mike grew up to be six feet four inches tall and two hundred and twenty pounds.  That consideration alone, taking into account the basic physics, was enough for my conversion towards saintliness.  

  

That first encounter with Mike turned into a day of adventure, exploring the canyon and creek behind my new home.  We crawled through the bushes and built a dam in the creek using large stones.  I was in heaven.

  

That night, back at our old house, I started to feel extremely unwell.  I have never felt so bad since.  I can remember sitting up in bed just miserable.  I didn’t understand the concept of death at the time, but if I had, I’m sure I would have thought I was dying.  In reality, as it turned out, I was dying unless something was done pretty damn quickly.  I could hear my parents talking in the other room in hushed tones, having some kind of serious discussion.  Next thing I knew, I was being picked up by my father and rushed out the door to the family car.  Luckily for me, my father was a doctor, or I might have died there in bed before anyone figured out what to do.

 

By this time, I was half out of my mind with fever and pain.  My next clear recollection was myself laying on a table looking up into my father’s eyes.  I could not see his face because he had a mask on.  I was in surgery, and my dad and this other fellow were going to cut me open and take out my badly swollen, pus-filled appendix, which was very close to bursting wide open.  Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but my mother’s father had died of a burst appendix when he was only thirty years old.  So as you might expect, my poor mom was going through hell thinking about her only son laid out on an operating table, possible careening towards the same fate as her father.

 

This was back in the ether days; they would put a wire mask with cotton on it over your face and then poured ether out of a bottle onto the mask.  Seems rather primitive by today’s standers; however, it sure beats biting on a bullet or drinking a pint of whiskey.  There has always been something about that experience that has stuck with me.  As I was going into unconsciousness there on the table, I could swear I heard lions roaring.  I finally pieced it together after many years.  It was just so vivid and strange that I couldn’t let go of it.  After other surgeries in later life, I realized it was a tray of surgical instruments being moved around creating the noise I interpreted as a lion’s roar.  So even as sick as I was, I had not lost my childhood imagination.  

 

The following morning I woke up in a room filled with kids in beds, me being in one of them.  I tried to straighten out my legs but it hurt too much.  I was still miserable.  Remember that foray through the bushes to the creek that Mike and I took? Well, those “bushes” turned out to be poison oak!  I was lying there in my bed with my guts split open and covered with poison oak!  The worst part of the outbreak was on my groin and penis and right on the spot where my incision was.   I most likely took a pee after our woodland adventure and grabbed my little friend with hands covered with poison oak oil.  I was in pretty bad shape. I couldn’t stand up so I had to pee in a bottle.  Some of the urine, without fail, would leak out of the bottle right onto my already inflamed crotch further amplifying my misery.

 

The nurses were very kind when they were around, although they often were not around for long periods of time.  So here was a room full of about eight boys, all in different stages of disrepair.  Just like a page out of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” things started breaking down.  A hierarchy was beginning to form based not on size, but how sick you were, and how mobile.   I think the dominant character in “Animal Farm” was the pig.  If I am wrong don’t feel the need to correct me.  For this example accuracy is not really that important.  A boy played the pig character in my hospital room. He was camped directly across the room from me. He was not ambulatory, so I was out of his range of terror, but the kid next to him wasn’t.  This pig bullyboy got hold of the other kid’s teddy bear and threatened to tear off its leg.  The other boy, who could barely move, begged him to give the bear back.  Pig boy obliged by first giving the poor kid back the leg, then the other leg, and then the rest of the bear’s body, minus the head.  A shocked nurse later retrieved the severed head and gave it back to the sobbing victim of the heartless crime.

 

This was my first exposure to the cruelty and sadistic pleasure creatures of my species were capable of.  I was in shock and wanted out of this chamber of horrors!  That night, one of the young patients seemed to be having difficulty breathing.  Of course, I was not privy to what was going on medically.  All I recall was the boy gasping for breath while being wheeled out of the room bed and all. I never saw him again.  So there I was, absolutely physically and mentally distressed, and there was a good chance I had just witnessed someone in their death throws.  Bunking with a possible future psychopath did nothing to alleviate my discomfort with my situation.  For a five-year-old, it had been an unusually difficult twenty-four hours.

 

The next day my father was making his rounds at the hospital and he came in to see how I was doing.  This was my chance.  I pleaded with him to get me the hell out of there.  I didn’t really say “hell.”  That would only have caused me more bodily injury, plus at five years old, it probably wasn’t part of my vocabulary. I was smart enough to talk in a hushed voice so Psycho Boy would not sense my fear.  I grew up in a neighbor populated by big boys, and I was used to living by my wits as I roamed through my environment.

 

Since my dad was a doctor, the hospital gave thumbs up for me leaving the hospital a day early.  Even thou I was still miserable, most of my poison oak blisters had opened up and were oozing, and due to my sutures it hurt to walk, but this was still a happy day for me.

 

When I finally got home, I recall being in a very bad mood, and my family stayed clear of me, especially my older sister.  Considering the stress I had been under, in retrospect I don’t blame the little fellow that was I for being in such a state.

 

After some time had gone by my dad took out the sutures.  Just before he pulled them out I noticed that my belly looked just like a football with my sutures serving as the stitching on the ball.  Finally, the ordeal was over.  I hadn’t died like my grandfather.  My mother was back to her same old self.  My dad was business as usual, and I could go back to my job terrorizing my sister. 

Reviews

[emmajoy]

That is quite a memory my friend! You've wrapped up quite a few emotions in your tale, portrayed young you, there are nice touches of humour and distinct honesty. As for the description of your hospitalization, now i know why you said wait until better! However, your pain must have been far, far worse than flu - how absolutely awful and a warning that what's out there in a child's wonderland 'aint' all kind and pleasant.

Particularly liked this part, read it twice - very nice flow: ' Since that era I have become a better human being myself, and have become the kind of friend Mike deserves. One of the obvious catalysts for my character conversion is that Mike grew up to be six feet four inches tall and two hundred and twenty pounds. That consideration alone, taking into account the basic physics, was enough for my conversion towards saintliness.
That first encounter with Mike turned into a day of adventure, exploring the canyon and creek behind my new home. We crawled through the bushes and built a dam in the creek using large stones. I was in heaven.'

[Zeek4]

Thanks for taking the time Molafvt. I have noticed that a lot of the memoirs don't get reviewed. Either people are not interested or the stories are too long and people don't want to take the time. Personally I love reading memoirs because they are real pieces of people's lives. I respect your opinion and I hope that you could review some of my stuff in the future.

[Molafvt]

Not bad at all Zeek. I enjoyed the read and had a few dejavu's while reading it. I was also the “lone wolf” in my neighborhood and had to navigate by my wits as well. It's amazing how cruel some kids can be. This is a great memoirs and brought back many memories of my youth. The write is straight forward and to the point with enough "dry" humor to make me giggle every now and then. Thanks for letting me know about it. i enjoyed it a lot.
Murray