I was born in Burnaby General Hospital on Dec. 31 1958 at 9:40 PM. Mom had been in labour for 14 or 16 hours and the joke was always-- if she only could have held off for a couple more hours I would have been a New Years baby and they would have been eligible for cash and prizes.
Be that as it may, at about 3 months I was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect, which I found out much later in life to be a ventricular septal defect...
The defect in this diagram is an extremely large one. Most babies are born with holes in their septal wall and the majority of them heal over after a few months but mine didn't. This defect turned out to be quite a factor in my childhood development as well as in my adult life. It was an extremely stressful time for the parents of their firstborn child. They met with doctors and surgeons to decide what should be done to repair the defect and were told by one surgeon that the surgical techniques of the day were as good as they were going to get and surgery should be imminent. This drove my Dad to say, "Do you mean to tell me that surgical techniques are never going to get better than they are today !?" For the sake of brevity here I'll just say that my folks were terrified of me dying on the operating table and my murmur was quite loud, indicating a very small hole (less risk) so they opted out of the surgery.
Keep in mind this is the "olden days"-- the late fifties. Times were a lot different than they are now, obviously. I was dropped off at the hospital for tests that lasted for days at a time when I was three and four years old without explanation other than "tests". Parents were discouraged from visiting their children because the thinking was it was too upsetting for the child when they had to leave. I was terrified and really had no idea what I was doing there. I recall this one time a doctor came in to "test" me for what I found out much later to be allergies. He was armed with this long pointed wooden stick that had a round wooden knob on one end. I was made to strip down and he proceeded to scratch and knock all over my body until testing was done and I was rewarded with an apple juice (which the smell of which to this day reminds me of the hospital and for some reason I associated apple juice with the bedpan...colour? and I never had apple juice at home). They would pick me up from the hospital and I would get a new toy which helped ease the pain but I was just glad to be going home.
I know they thought it was in my best interest so my parents decided not to tell me what was "wrong" with me but I always knew something was. I was probably four the first time I became aware of this fact. It was night and I was in my room. Dad had come in and asked me if I could ever hear my heart pounding in my ears. I remember feeling mildly confused by such a question but I simply answered no, I kind of thought that's what he wanted to hear.
Growing up there was always some mystery around me wanting to play various sports and Mom had become somewhat overprotective. Because of my parents concerns about my health I didn't take swimming lessons with the other kids and never had a bike or even learned how to ride one until I was eleven (and these were the days when most kids rode their bikes to school). I remember one time in grade five I had to leave school early for some reason and a kid offered me his bike in front of the whole class. I was way too embarrassed to say I couldn't ride a bike so I made up some other excuse. Dad did eventually surprise me with my first bike...
To my parents credit and fortunately for me they did let me play little league and soccer but there was always that secretive, whispery conversation that accompanied it and that only added to my feelings of "something's wrong with me." They drew the line at organized football and rugby simply saying those sports are way too rough, although I did have fun playing football with my friends.
I only have a couple more points and I'll wrap up this post. I was passing into grade seven and I had contracted some sort of fatigue during summer vacation. For about a month I had really low energy and I had to make a trip to the doctor. It turned out to be nothing but I know it freaked my mother out and it was around this time I wondered why my sister went to the dentist and I didn't. Well back in the olden days people with heart defects would occasionally die in the dentist chair from the gas and it just so happened that my Grandparents good friend and neighbour, Ruby died in the dentist chair. I can only imagine how that must have freaked my folks out. My Dad told me that when I only had one tooth Mom would have me in a headlock, brushing it.
I finally found out was "wrong" with me when I was twelve or thirteen years old. We had moved from Burnaby to Port Moody by this time and the city had built it's first hockey rink. Up until this time I had played a lot of road hockey and roller hockey (on those shitty old metal roller skates you needed a key for) but actual ice hockey, are you kidding me?? (which just reminded me of something else, when I was younger my sister got ice skates for Christmas and I never did...wah). All my friends were signing up for the new hockey league and I wanted to even though I couldn't skate. I begged my parents to let me play and finally the truth came out. I was in my room listening to early seventies AM radio when they both entered and sat down on my bed. They tried as best as they could to explain about my heart defect and how hockey may be just a little too rough. After hearing the news my first response was,"I'm not going die, am I!?" I was horrified but at least the truth was finally out. It didn't make it any easier not being able to play ice hockey but to my parents credit they did get me a pair of Bauer Hugger skates for Christmas that year, at least I could go to public skate and the lakes in the area used to freeze over, which was awesome.
Dad tried to ease my pain that night by saying. "Don't worry, you'll probably be shot by a jealous husband at ninety." That was helpful. I really didn't know what it meant but I took some comfort in "ninety." I've never written this story out before...stay tuned for part two...
No comments:
Post a Comment