"I don't want Mummy to stay!"

[kalypso_v]

A remark from metamorphosa in response to my last entry, plus another conversation today, have prompted me to dig out this article my mother wrote in 1965 about accompanying me to hospital for an operation at a time when this was not normal practice for parents. (This was one reason why she decided to go for private healthcare in this case, an option not

Comments

[matildabj]

Lovely article, thank you so much for posting. I managed to find the original in the Guardian online archive to see what it would have looked like in print.

Did your Mum write about you often?

[kalypso_v]

Not that I know of, though you've got me nervous now... She wrote quite a lot of children's book reviews in the 1950s, though I think she used her maiden name for those.

[communicator]

You sound much like yourself - not the screaming but the unflappable stoicism. What a nice thing to have to remember your mum.

[kalypso_v]

I think most people say "obstinacy".

[jhall1]

You were clearly as remarkable a child as you now are an adult. :) And by my calculations you've been Kalypso for 26 years now, which is impressive. I'd been assuming that you'd only adopted it comparatively recently for use in the fanfic community.

Even for 1965, thirty-eight guineas seems a very reasonable price.

I had my own tonsils out in the mid 1950s in Cranleigh Cottage Hospital. They haven't done even minor operations like that there for a long, long time now, which is a pity, as I'm sure that I was far happier there than if I had had to go to the big hospital at Guildford. The only thing that I can remember about the experience is being asked by a nurse what I would like to drink. I think this was after the operation but my voice must have returned by then. I said "Water". The nurse was surprised. "Wouldn't you rather have orange squash?" she asked. I was surprised, as I hadn't expected luxuries like that to be available in hospital. :)

[kalypso_v]

Oh well, these days you can have hot chocolate and Horlicks!

Didn't they use to recommend ice cream?

I haven't been Kalypso continuously; it was one of a couple of pseuds I adopted at college, and the one that several people started using as an alternative to my baptismal name. I went back to it when I opened a LiveJournal because I didn't want to use my real life name or one tied to a particular fandom (unless you count Homer). And it's appropriate for a pseud, as it means "hidden" or "concealed".

[jhall1]

Yes, I think they did use to recommend ice-cream, as being cool and soothing for the throat. Horlicks might well have been an option, though not one that would have occurred to me. I had the idea that hospitals would only have "adult" drinks such as tea and coffee.

I didn't know that that was what Kalypso means. Very appropriate. Except that on reflection I think that you reveal more of yourself in your journal entries than most of us do.

[kalypso_v]

I don't know whether they recommend Horlicks for tonsils, I just remember it as one of the choices on the drinks wagon (sternly labelled "For Patients Only") at Furness General. Though we were allowed drinks once we were on unrestricted visiting hours.

Oh dear, do I? I'd better be more careful.

[chickenfeet2003]

Roughly a year earlier I had my tonsils removed at Bradford Royal Infirmary. It must have been November because the girl I shared a room with had been blinded in a firework accident. Of course, there were no parents outside visiting hours and I remember spending as much time as my throat would allow reading to her.

[kalypso_v]

See, I knew it would be more fun with the other kids! I didn't get any strange boys reading to me!

[chickenfeet2003]

and they don't come much stranger than me

[vilakins]

Awww, little Kalypso, determined and knowing her own mind even then. That seems very advanced, having a bed for a parent. And a woman surgeon too, when I think they were very rare.

My sister and I went in together to have our tonsils out when we were about 10 and 11. I remember hating most having to use a bedpan )only the once), and refusing, and the nurse running water in a handbasin to encourage me, which puzzled me greatly. We got ice cream for our sore throats, which we enjoyed, and I remember making friends with a six-year-old girl who'd come into our ward to visit; I shared my colouring-in books with her and told her stories. I was very upset a few weeks later to hear that she'd died of cancer.

The tonsillectomies made a huge difference to our health. Before that, we'd been like the Marlow twins, always catching every infection or virus going round and having to miss school.

[kalypso_v]

I think what it was really about was that I'd picked up it wasn't normal to have your mother with you in hospital, and I didn't want to break the mould.

That must have been very traumatic, being faced with the mortality of young children when you were so young yourself.

[vilakins]

It was. I can still remember what she looked like. Maggie was a sweet, happy little girl.

There was another very disturbing thing there: what I thought was a baby who was wheeled out into the sun in a pram. Karen had a baby's body and a huge hydrocephalic head, and would laugh and gurgle and wave her arms and legs when we played with her, but I was horrified to hear that she was five years old and probably wouldn't live much longer.