By Janice Lindsay
Contributing Writer
April is my birth month. This year, thanks to Texas, I’m remembering the day I turned nine.
On my ninth birthday I was miserably, horribly, terribly sick with measles. (West Texas has been experiencing a serious measles outbreak, reminding me.) I recall that day so clearly because as I lay in bed in torment, my birthday party was happening without me, in the parlor next to my darkened bedroom.
Our mother’s birthday was three days before mine. She had planned a family party to celebrate both birthdays, with her parents and our aunts and uncles. I imagine that, when I took sick, she had already bought the party food and begun the cooking. She decided to celebrate without me. The grown-up guests would be safe from contagion because they had suffered the disease as children.
We lived in a four-room house: a parlor/dining room; kitchen; my parents’ bedroom; and the bedroom I shared with my sister, who is less than two years younger than me. The door near the foot of my bed opened into the kitchen. The door near Cheryl’s bed opened into the parlor.
To enhance my self-pity, Cheryl was not sick. Yet. She was enjoying the party along with everyone else. They were eating my tuna sandwiches. My chocolate cake. My ice cream.
I had no desire to eat. My body burned with fever, my aching muscles were too exhausted to move, my throat was sore, my head throbbed, and I lay in total darkness because any light hurt my eyes.
Occasionally Mom came to check on me. I appreciated the thought, but I almost wished she wouldn’t. There was nothing she could do for me, and when she opened the door from the lighted parlor, my eyes burned.
That day was the low point of my suffering. As I began my slow recovery, it was Cheryl’s turn. She had all the symptoms, but, in addition, she was delirious, for almost three days. She would cry out for Mom but not recognize her when she came. In the middle of one night, she got up and walked out the front door. She was going to school. I didn’t hear her, but fortunately the grown-ups did and they retrieved her as she walked down our front path in her nightgown. After that, they locked all the doors.
Cheryl recently told me, “I can so well remember slipping off into delirium. It felt like I was on a train that was going faster and faster. I knew exactly what was happening but I could not do anything about it.”
When Cheryl finally returned to us, I was sick enough to still be in bed. I watched Mom try to tempt her to eat something. Chicken noodle soup? No. An orange? (Our grandmother had oranges shipped to her from Florida; we loved them.) No. Ice cream? No.
Finally, Cheryl said, “If I had some spinach and cabbage, I would eat it.”
I thought, “Spinach and cabbage? She’s still delirious!” But Mom cooked her a big bowl of spinach and cabbage and she ate every bit.
Our recovery was slow but, fortunately, complete.
Lest you think our parents were lax in not having us vaccinated: the measles vaccine did not yet exist. I was so grateful when it came out, in 1963. Our children would not have to suffer as we did.
In our world’s not-so-distant past, children commonly died of diseases they no longer even contract. We can thank vaccines for that.
Contact jlindsay@tidewater.net
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