Penicillin shots
Yesterday (Wednesday, June 12th, 2013), despite being sick, I was well enough to transport myself 14 miles to the supermarket in Canandaigua to purchase milk and bananas, which I was running out of.
I carve the bananas onto my breakfast-cereal.
On the way home I happened to stop at the pet-grooming shop that daycares my dog while I work out at the Canandaigua YMCA.
I know these people. I used to work with the husband at the Messenger newspaper.
Hubby came out, the public contact, who I jaw with a lot. His wife does the actual grooming.
Hubby asked if I was feeling better.
“My doctor’s assessment was bronchitis and sinusitis,” I said.
“So did he give you a penicillin-shot?”
Oh, the memories that elicited.
My first doctor was the one who attended my birth. His name was Glover, and he made house-calls. —Remember house-calls?
He’d come in our house armed with his black pill-satchel and stethoscope.
Usually he’d dispense sulfa-pills of some sort, very much the in thing at that time (late ‘40s).
Another doctor, Gleason, moved into our neighborhood and set up a practice out of his house.
But my mother refused to use him.
He was Catholic (gasp), and therefore of-the-Devil. My mother was very religious.
But I was hit by a car one night riding bicycle, and Glover was unreachable.
My mother caved and called Gleason.
Gleason came and took me to the hospital to be patched up. I remember his car, a puke-green ’49 or ’50 Chevy four-door fastback. It wasn’t an ambulance.
My injuries weren’t serious, only a cut on my head. I didn’t even need stitches.
And so began our long use of Gleason, Catholic or not.
Gleason was also nearby; Glover was a trip.
Gleason’s practice quickly outgrew his house; he had to build offices up on the main drag. —It was the postwar baby-boom.
His office was one-story brick, with perhaps four examination rooms — and a waiting-room.
It seemed I was visiting that office every couple weeks. I was always getting sick, usually bronchitis.
The exam rooms had Fedders window air-conditioners, set to about 60 degrees. Gleason always had his office ice-cold.
Gleason was into penicillin-shots into the rump, what replaced sulfa-drugs, which became suspect.
It seemed like every visit Gleason was telling me to “drop your trousers, please.”
I still feel like he was a pervert. —But he wasn’t doing anything untoward. It was just “drop your trousers, please.”
And every penicillin-shot was frightening and a little painful.
There would be freckled, red-haired, bespectacled Gleason with his gigantic syringe full of milky penicillin, with its needle an inch-and-a-half long.
Me cowering on his ice-cold uncarpeted floor with my corduroys down.
And it seems I was always in there getting shot with penicillin. I almost had to redo second-grade I was out sick so much.
Thankfully, penicillin-shots and terrifying little children seem to no longer be the norm.
Now I have a cardboard pill-folder no elderly person could possibly access.
I had to tear it apart, after attacking it with scissors.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.)
• My current dog is “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara), a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s eight, and is my sixth Irish-Setter, a high-energy dog. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. [Scarlett was from a failed backyard breeder.] By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad. She’s my fourth rescue.)
• The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over seven years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]).
• I was born in 1944.
• “Puke-green” is a yellowish green color. My siblings always called it “puke-green,” since it was the same color as vomit.
I carve the bananas onto my breakfast-cereal.
On the way home I happened to stop at the pet-grooming shop that daycares my dog while I work out at the Canandaigua YMCA.
I know these people. I used to work with the husband at the Messenger newspaper.
Hubby came out, the public contact, who I jaw with a lot. His wife does the actual grooming.
Hubby asked if I was feeling better.
“My doctor’s assessment was bronchitis and sinusitis,” I said.
“So did he give you a penicillin-shot?”
Oh, the memories that elicited.
My first doctor was the one who attended my birth. His name was Glover, and he made house-calls. —Remember house-calls?
He’d come in our house armed with his black pill-satchel and stethoscope.
Usually he’d dispense sulfa-pills of some sort, very much the in thing at that time (late ‘40s).
Another doctor, Gleason, moved into our neighborhood and set up a practice out of his house.
But my mother refused to use him.
He was Catholic (gasp), and therefore of-the-Devil. My mother was very religious.
But I was hit by a car one night riding bicycle, and Glover was unreachable.
My mother caved and called Gleason.
Gleason came and took me to the hospital to be patched up. I remember his car, a puke-green ’49 or ’50 Chevy four-door fastback. It wasn’t an ambulance.
My injuries weren’t serious, only a cut on my head. I didn’t even need stitches.
And so began our long use of Gleason, Catholic or not.
Gleason was also nearby; Glover was a trip.
Gleason’s practice quickly outgrew his house; he had to build offices up on the main drag. —It was the postwar baby-boom.
His office was one-story brick, with perhaps four examination rooms — and a waiting-room.
It seemed I was visiting that office every couple weeks. I was always getting sick, usually bronchitis.
The exam rooms had Fedders window air-conditioners, set to about 60 degrees. Gleason always had his office ice-cold.
Gleason was into penicillin-shots into the rump, what replaced sulfa-drugs, which became suspect.
It seemed like every visit Gleason was telling me to “drop your trousers, please.”
I still feel like he was a pervert. —But he wasn’t doing anything untoward. It was just “drop your trousers, please.”
And every penicillin-shot was frightening and a little painful.
There would be freckled, red-haired, bespectacled Gleason with his gigantic syringe full of milky penicillin, with its needle an inch-and-a-half long.
Me cowering on his ice-cold uncarpeted floor with my corduroys down.
And it seems I was always in there getting shot with penicillin. I almost had to redo second-grade I was out sick so much.
Thankfully, penicillin-shots and terrifying little children seem to no longer be the norm.
Now I have a cardboard pill-folder no elderly person could possibly access.
I had to tear it apart, after attacking it with scissors.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.)
• My current dog is “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara), a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s eight, and is my sixth Irish-Setter, a high-energy dog. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. [Scarlett was from a failed backyard breeder.] By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad. She’s my fourth rescue.)
• The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over seven years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]).
• I was born in 1944.
• “Puke-green” is a yellowish green color. My siblings always called it “puke-green,” since it was the same color as vomit.
posted by BobbaLew at 1:27 PM
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