Saturday, March 7, 2015

WEEKEND EDITION AND DAD'S THUMB, TWO COMPLETELY UNRELATED STORIES!!

Saturday March 7, 2015  



Ahhhhh Saturday the day I usually lie in bed an extra hour and listen to NPR Weekend Edition with Scott Simon.
 This morning I woke to Dame Edna being interviewed and she was telling bits and pieces and one was that "Do you know what Crow's Feet are? My mother used to say that they were the dried beds of smiles" Awwwwwwwwww. Her next story was about her cosmetic surgery. Her surgeon looked her over and recommended that she needed to have a sweet little double chin. He took out an object from the freezer wrapped in Cling wrap. She wanted to know what it was, he told her it was Elizabeth Taylor's love handle. (Hardy har har har). And if you looked carefully there are some shallow indentations which were Richard Burtons finger prints. (Hardy har har har!)



Old Mystery Solved: I was thinking about dad and his thumb. When we were kids with asked him how come his thumb got cut off. He replied, "This is what happens when you suck your thumb". Oooooooh. 


Years and years later when I worked for Walter Knox Memorial Hospital, I would occasionally have to go over to the basement of the old hospital (Mary Secor) for microfilmed records. Sounds like a Catholic hospital doesn't it? Our Lady of Mary Secor. Um no, the doctor who build the hospital named the facility after his mother. 


Anyway I began the rather tedious process of bringing the old microfilmed records to the medical record department and putting them into microfiche jackets. They were microfilmed by year in no particular order, so I had to view each record and find the name so I could record on a log in order to retrieve it more easily if the record was ever needed. 
 
Surprise! Surprise! I found an old medical record for dad. It was when he injured his thumb. He was treated and released and the cost was $37.00. I told him I had found his old medical record and he explained for the very first time, I think, that he had been working at one of the Little's homes (Prominent local family). I think he said he was up on the roof, had an accident, smashed or cut this thumb. He was taken to the hospital. When it was all done he walked to his father's house and that was the end of his day.



Additional note: The old Mary Secor hospital was built on the same grounds as the Emmett Stables. So when people snort "Were you born in a barn!?" I can reply, "Nope in a stable!".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mom once told me that when Dad cut his thumb he was at the Little Mansion. Whichever Little was in charge at the time made him stay there so they could make sure he was going to heal. Dad said he'd never been treated so well and ate like a king. I too thought it was something to do with an ax.