I have a tracheotomy scar that I got when I was 18 months. Mom said I used to get croup and that this particular time my croup turned into pneumonia. By the time they realized how bad it was, I was turning blue. They rushed me to the emergency room, and Mom says that a little Mexican doctor, a woman, performed the emergency tracheotomy on me. They kept me in an oxygen tent for days, and Mom said that’s when my hair went curly. She said I looked like an angel under the plastic of the tent.
Later, as a young girl, any time I got fever, I would have dreams where it seemed angels were hovering in the room with me. I could hear people talk, my brother and sisters, but it was the underwater sound of voices. And I felt like there were other children with me, except these children were calm and light. Those were the angels who visited any time I was sick, and I often wonder now if they related at all to the time I almost died.
Also, in my mind, I picture that little Mexican woman. The doctor. Mom and Dad had great pride in saying that it was a Mexican woman who saved my life. Mom’s grandmother on her dad’s side was a little dark woman with a long thick braid. Mom talks about how as a child she would go in and see her grandmother, who was sick in bed. Her name was Elena, and Mom said she’d be in a white bed dress, sitting up, her gray-black hair pulled back in a thick braid. Mom says that she thinks Elena had Indian in her, Spanish and Indian, which is Mexican. And somehow, when Mom talks about the Mexican doctor, I often think of Elena as being that woman. She wasn’t, of course, but that’s who I picture saving my life.
The other thing that I picture is the doctor puncturing my throat with a pair of scissors. I don’t know why I see that, but I do, and it’s comical now to think that someone would take whatever object they could find, a good pair of steel scissors with black handles, and poke them into my throat to open up a passageway.
And I see myself under the tent afterward, sweaty from the oxygen and heat that builds up. And then like when the house falls on the Wicked Witch of the West and Dorothy takes off the witch’s ruby slippers, and all of sudden the witch’s feet curl and retract under the house, this is how I picture my curls happening. Mom and Dad are staring at me in the tent, my hair is wet but straight, and suddenly the entire head of hair starts to curl into ringlets. I picture my parents’ eyes getting big and the two of them looking at each other, incredulous.
I can’t imagine what it must have been like for my parents to almost lose a child. Mom says that after that, she didn’t like to take me out. She didn’t like it when people with colds came over. She tried to keep me covered and away from germs. Back then we had relatives visiting all the time. And neighbors, too. We were a big family, social. All my sisters’ friends would come to our house to play and hang out. And Mom’s friends, too. On Sundays my Aunt Barbara and her eight kids would often drive up from a town just south of us. Eventually Mom must have just let it go, let me be a normal kid again. What do they say? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
-Related to topic post WRITING TOPIC – 3 QUESTIONS. [NOTE: This is the first of three questions mentioned by actor and writer Anna Deavere Smith in an interview with Bill Moyers (see link). She talked about the questions in the context of interviewing people and listening to them. The three questions came from a linguist Smith met at a cocktail party in 1979; the questions were, according to the linguist, guaranteed to break the patterns and change the way people are expressing themselves. QuoinMonkey, ybonesy, and frequent guest writer Bob Chrisman take on the three questions by doing a Writing Practice on each.]
-Also related to PRACTICE: Hair – 15min
I know how to perform a tracheotomy with a BIC pen. I can’t think of where I learned that, but, thankfully, I have never been called upon to use it. I should carry one with me all of the times I guess.
How about the children you saw when you were sick? Do you still see them when you are ill? Do you remember when you stopped seeing them? How old were you?
You write on one question and I have four questions as a result.
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Actually, one of the things I was thinking but never went there in my practice is, I wondered if the angels I saw were from the time I had the tracheotomy and not from later in childhood when I was sick. I’ve been wondering that lately.
You know, I’ve not had that kind of feverish illness that I remember as a kid. Which again makes me wonder if the memory I have is from that one experience where I almost died. So, no, I’ve never seen them again. And I honestly don’t know how old I was when I saw them. I attribute it to young years, up to about 8 or so, but for all I know it could all have happened once, at 18 months.
When do we start having memories? I’m curious about that. When did your memories start, Bob?
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[…] related to post PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by […]
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[…] related to posts PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by ybonesy), PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by Bob […]
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My earliest memory is from a time I wasn’t very verbal (which, many would say, was about a week old). I think I was 3 years old. I needed to go to the bathroom and I couldn’t make my parents understand what I wanted. I tried to climb out of my high chair, but my mother kept pushing me down. I wet my pants and bawled because I knew I shouldn’t do that anymore. That’s when I realized I needed to learn to talk in a way they could understand.
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yb & QM, when do your memories start? At what age?
I’ve been thinking about that question. I have some distinct memories before I am five and they are all traumatic. My years from 5-9 are a blur right now except for some particularly emotional events. At least I have pictures from that period to trigger my buried memories.
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Age 5, the year before I started school, and then much more at age 6. My husband has memories from ages 2, 3, 4. It’s amazing.
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[…] to posts PRACTICE — Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by QuoinMonkey), PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by ybonesy), PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by Bob […]
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[…] related to posts PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by ybonesy), PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by Bob Chrisman), PRACTICE […]
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[…] related to posts PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by ybonesy), PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by Bob Chrisman), PRACTICE […]
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[…] related to posts: PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by ybonesy), PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by Bob Chrisman), PRACTICE […]
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[…] related to posts: PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by ybonesy), PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by Bob Chrisman), PRACTICE […]
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[…] PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min […]
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[…] times when I’ve done timed writing that led to stories about my tracheotomy (specifically here and here) so I figured it was time to polish the narrative. Plus, since it contains important […]
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