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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Survival / Success
- Subject: Pain / Problems / Adversity
- Published: 01/20/2016
It was July 30, 1952, in Montgomery, Alabama, when my father, a handsome 24 year-old soldier from Brent, Alabama, and my mother, a stunning 23 year-old Italian, gave birth to a big, beautiful, healthy baby boy. They named their third child, David.
There was nothing strange or unusual about my mother’s pregnancy or my birth, and in a fair and just world, my life should have been as normal as the next guy. But it wasn’t. In October of the same year, my mother discovered a reddened area on my left knee that within weeks turned to purple.
The doctors at the local base hospital were not equipped to make a diagnosis on an infant and instructed my parents to take me to an orthopedic specialist at Brook General, a hospital on an Army base in San Antonio, Texas. Because we were dependents and not enlisted military, Mom and I flew to Texas on a military plane when space was available. In January of 1953, we left Montgomery for San Antonio.
The arrival at Brooks General was far worse than my mother had expected. Not only was she given little to no respect as the mother of the stricken child, she was told to leave. She cried and tried to explain the best she could that her breast-fed baby needed her. The hospital staff refused to listen to her pleas as they took me from her arms.
Although my mother had friends she had met in the Air Force that were now living in San Antonio, the frightened young woman decided not to disturb them so late at night. With just one bag of a few personal items for herself, and the baby items the hospital had refused to keep, she reluctantly took a taxi to the nearest motel for the night.
When she entered the motel, she was visibly nervous and in pain from her engorged breasts. The seedy desk clerk asked if anyone was meeting her, and by his voice and mannerisms the young Italian woman could surmise his meaning. In tears, but behind the locked door of the motel room, she called my father who was by then at his parents’ home in Brent, Alabama.
It is not hard to imagine the rage my father felt as he helplessly listened to his distraught wife. At midnight, and after downing a quick cup of coffee, he jumped into his 1952 Ford Fairlane and raced across three states to get to his wife and baby.
At Brooks General, their infant son was being subjected to a series of tests that included the relatively unknown skin and muscle penetrating scan called x-rays. The machines of 1953 were crude and doctors were unaware of the extended dangers of radioactivity. During these “glow-in-the-dark sessions,” a malignant tumor was discovered on my left knee.
I can’t imagine what must have been going through my young parents’ minds at the time - whether they fully understood, or whether they were even given enough information needed to make the enormous decisions that were placed before them.
My mother, who was overwhelmed by grief and guilt, and who believed she had done something wrong either before or during the pregnancy, was now faced with decisions of life or death for her baby boy. There were only two choices to consider - amputation of the leg or radiation treatment to kill the tumor, and in my parents’ mind, perhaps this new machine would kill their son too. What a thing to ask a mother and father back then or even now.
With fear of the unknown weighing heavily on their minds, my parents’ first choice was amputation. The doctors reprimanded them for their decision and convinced them to choose radiation. To this day, my parents still live with guilt from their decision because of the years of pain I had to endure as a direct result of radiation to an infant’s bone. The radiation killed the tumor, but as with any new or unknown treatment, especially one as dangerous as radiation, it would eventually cause insurmountable problems for many years to come.
To worsen matters, the hospital restrictions kept my mother from caring for her child. With her friends in San Antonio visiting and keeping my parents informed of my progress, my parents returned to Alabama to their two older children who at the time were just three and four years old.
Within weeks, my parents received a frightening call from their friends in San Antonio. Their infant son was dying!
To this day, my mother cries when she describes seeing my frail and emaciated body lying in the metal crib. Unable or unaccustomed to sucking on the bottle propped up on a rolled blanket next to my head, her big, healthy, breast-fed baby was indeed dying of starvation. To make matters worse, the unforgivably poor care had left bleeding blisters on my tiny buttocks from unchanged dirty diapers.
I would like to say that was the end of my pain and torture. I would like to say my parents took home a healthy baby that lived happily ever after…only in fairy tales! For eighteen years, I suffered under the “skilled” knives of orthopedic surgeons in more hospitals than I can count. Was it worth it? My parents still condemn their decisions. Not even King Solomon could have predicted my outcome. Should the baby be split in half, or in my case, parted from his leg? My parents, with only love in their hearts for their baby son, had made that decision. They still think, if only they had made them amputate my leg, the suffering would have stopped then. Would it? Not in my eyes. I know I would undergo the pain all over again in order to have the relatively few years of normalcy with a crippled but whole body. I was able to play in sports between surgeries, body casts, and braces. I was able to make friends with kids that came to respect me for my athletic skills and not my handicap. I was able to pretend I was normal, and when you are young, that may be all that matters.
All that Matters(David E. Smith)
It was July 30, 1952, in Montgomery, Alabama, when my father, a handsome 24 year-old soldier from Brent, Alabama, and my mother, a stunning 23 year-old Italian, gave birth to a big, beautiful, healthy baby boy. They named their third child, David.
There was nothing strange or unusual about my mother’s pregnancy or my birth, and in a fair and just world, my life should have been as normal as the next guy. But it wasn’t. In October of the same year, my mother discovered a reddened area on my left knee that within weeks turned to purple.
The doctors at the local base hospital were not equipped to make a diagnosis on an infant and instructed my parents to take me to an orthopedic specialist at Brook General, a hospital on an Army base in San Antonio, Texas. Because we were dependents and not enlisted military, Mom and I flew to Texas on a military plane when space was available. In January of 1953, we left Montgomery for San Antonio.
The arrival at Brooks General was far worse than my mother had expected. Not only was she given little to no respect as the mother of the stricken child, she was told to leave. She cried and tried to explain the best she could that her breast-fed baby needed her. The hospital staff refused to listen to her pleas as they took me from her arms.
Although my mother had friends she had met in the Air Force that were now living in San Antonio, the frightened young woman decided not to disturb them so late at night. With just one bag of a few personal items for herself, and the baby items the hospital had refused to keep, she reluctantly took a taxi to the nearest motel for the night.
When she entered the motel, she was visibly nervous and in pain from her engorged breasts. The seedy desk clerk asked if anyone was meeting her, and by his voice and mannerisms the young Italian woman could surmise his meaning. In tears, but behind the locked door of the motel room, she called my father who was by then at his parents’ home in Brent, Alabama.
It is not hard to imagine the rage my father felt as he helplessly listened to his distraught wife. At midnight, and after downing a quick cup of coffee, he jumped into his 1952 Ford Fairlane and raced across three states to get to his wife and baby.
At Brooks General, their infant son was being subjected to a series of tests that included the relatively unknown skin and muscle penetrating scan called x-rays. The machines of 1953 were crude and doctors were unaware of the extended dangers of radioactivity. During these “glow-in-the-dark sessions,” a malignant tumor was discovered on my left knee.
I can’t imagine what must have been going through my young parents’ minds at the time - whether they fully understood, or whether they were even given enough information needed to make the enormous decisions that were placed before them.
My mother, who was overwhelmed by grief and guilt, and who believed she had done something wrong either before or during the pregnancy, was now faced with decisions of life or death for her baby boy. There were only two choices to consider - amputation of the leg or radiation treatment to kill the tumor, and in my parents’ mind, perhaps this new machine would kill their son too. What a thing to ask a mother and father back then or even now.
With fear of the unknown weighing heavily on their minds, my parents’ first choice was amputation. The doctors reprimanded them for their decision and convinced them to choose radiation. To this day, my parents still live with guilt from their decision because of the years of pain I had to endure as a direct result of radiation to an infant’s bone. The radiation killed the tumor, but as with any new or unknown treatment, especially one as dangerous as radiation, it would eventually cause insurmountable problems for many years to come.
To worsen matters, the hospital restrictions kept my mother from caring for her child. With her friends in San Antonio visiting and keeping my parents informed of my progress, my parents returned to Alabama to their two older children who at the time were just three and four years old.
Within weeks, my parents received a frightening call from their friends in San Antonio. Their infant son was dying!
To this day, my mother cries when she describes seeing my frail and emaciated body lying in the metal crib. Unable or unaccustomed to sucking on the bottle propped up on a rolled blanket next to my head, her big, healthy, breast-fed baby was indeed dying of starvation. To make matters worse, the unforgivably poor care had left bleeding blisters on my tiny buttocks from unchanged dirty diapers.
I would like to say that was the end of my pain and torture. I would like to say my parents took home a healthy baby that lived happily ever after…only in fairy tales! For eighteen years, I suffered under the “skilled” knives of orthopedic surgeons in more hospitals than I can count. Was it worth it? My parents still condemn their decisions. Not even King Solomon could have predicted my outcome. Should the baby be split in half, or in my case, parted from his leg? My parents, with only love in their hearts for their baby son, had made that decision. They still think, if only they had made them amputate my leg, the suffering would have stopped then. Would it? Not in my eyes. I know I would undergo the pain all over again in order to have the relatively few years of normalcy with a crippled but whole body. I was able to play in sports between surgeries, body casts, and braces. I was able to make friends with kids that came to respect me for my athletic skills and not my handicap. I was able to pretend I was normal, and when you are young, that may be all that matters.
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