Thank You Zem Zem Shriners'!!

1.  Daydream by The Lovin' Spoonful

2.  Hanky Panky by Tommy James & The Shondells

3.  Monday, Monday by The Mamas & The Papas

4.  Barbara Ann by The Beach Boys

5.  Cherish by The Association

6.  Red Rubber Ball by The Cyrkle

7.  Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers

8.  See You In September by The Happenings

9.  Spanish Flea by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

10. Sweet Pea by Tommy Roe

11. Tijuana Taxi by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

12. Wild Thing by The Troggs

13. Working My Way Back to You by Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons

14. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Dusty Springfield

15. You're My Soul and My Inspiration by Righteous Brothers

16. The Ballad of the Green Berets by Sgt. Barry Sadler

17. California Dreamin' by The Mamas & The Papas

18. Yellow Submarine by The Beatles

19. Sunny by Bobby Hebb

20. Summer In the City by The Lovin' Spoonful

I haven't mentioned this yet, but I was born pigeon-toed.  It's an orthopedic condition where the feet turn inwards, thus you walk like you're a pigeon, I suppose!  Mine was pretty severe from what I understand and recollect.  I had a hard time walking without tripping over my feet. My Dad gave me alot of rides up on his shoulders, my little hands clasped firmly around his large Adam's apple.  I'd sort of guide him around as you would a horse, giving a little tug to the right or left.  He was very patient and happy to do my bidding.  It sure beat being sprawled out on the ground!  I was seen by Dr. Juliani in Erie.  I'm pretty sure that he did some sort of traveling clinics as I remember seeing him in different locations.  Erie was about 1 1/2 hours away from Clarendon and hard to get to in the days when you only had one car per family.  

They tried different sorts of treatments to try to get my legs straightened.  I wore braces and contraptions of all kinds. The one I remember most vividly were the twister straps.  I could never wear pretty, girly shoes.  They all had to be these corrective shoes that had hardware on which you could attach these thick straps then wind them up and around my legs.  They'd pull my feet outward and they did help.  However, for as long as I wore them, they just didn't seem to be straightening out the bones.  It was finally decided that the only option left was surgery.

The surgery was quite involved.  What they did was break the bone in the shin area (tibia), rotate the bottom half outward then put the bones back together in the new position.  They placed pins in the bones to secure them together then casted the entire leg from hip to toe.  As I was pigeon-toed in both legs, both legs were corrected.  They do not do the surgery in this manner today.  If they do it at all, the correction is made down closer to the ankle area.  I get incredible leg cramps to this day and I've always wondered if it was due to the realignment of the muscles when they turned the bones out.  I don't know, just my own musings.   

              My Dad the day of surgery

As the whole surgery and healing process required months in the hospital it was decided that I would have the surgery in the summer between Kindgergarten and First grade.  So this was how I spent the summer of 1966!  I had the surgery in Hamot Hospital in Erie, PA.  I stayed there about a week or two and was then transferred to Zem Zem Shriner's Hospital, also in Erie, for the following months.  Like I said, the casts went from hip to toe.  They changed my casts periodically as I needed to learn to walk again and the original casts had too much bend to allow that.  I needed straighter ones for that.  

I have many vivid memories from this time as you can probably imagine.  One memory is of them trying to give me shots post-surgery.  I mean, if they'd have been there when Dr. Walters tried to give me my vaccination for Kindergarten they would have known what they were in for! But they were none the wiser.  Both legs in casts notwithstanding, it took two interns to hold me down for the simple shots in the rump, which I presume were for pain.  I had a very strong aversion to needles!  I envision them out at the nurse's station drawing straws for who had to go give the Alspaugh girl her shots.  I'm pretty sure they soon reasoned that a girl who could fight like that probably didn't need the shots.  And I'd have to say that, knowing me today as I do, I have a high pain threshold and most likely did not need the shots in the first place.  But, still, there you have it! 

Another memory is when they put me under anesthesia for the surgery.  I remember the operating room having a funny smell.  They appeared over my head with this mask and asked if I could count to 100.  I'm not sure I could but I know they found a number to which I could count and asked me to start counting as they placed the mask over my face.  Did it take 100 counts?  No! But I remember that almost instantly after they placed the mask on my face I could see way up inside the mask and something was swirling round and round as it slowly fell toward me.  When it finally got close enough for me to see what it was I discovered it was actually me!  My arms and legs were stretched outward and I was spinning and spinning, closer and closer.  Just as I was about to land on my face, they were waking me up and I was so nauseous!  Now another thing about myself - I absolutely, positively hate to vomit!  And I will go to great lengths to keep from doing so!  This was not good news to be awoken and having the need to vomit.  I hurt and was in a strange place and had to vomit.  My legs felt like bricks and it was just not fun.  The first couple of days were indeed rough.  They came and gave their shots as they pleased.  But, then, enough was enough!

The next vivid recollection was when I had to have the pins removed.  They tried to explain to me what was about to happen.  They didn't do a very good job.  I'm just not sure it's a good idea to sugar coat things with children.  This was the era when they would try to convince you that things wouldn't hurt, but they always did.  By this time, I was on to their scheme.  The more they tried to convince me something wasn't going to hurt, the more it did hurt!  So, when they came to explain that the removing of the pins wasn't painful at all I knew I was in for torture! So I got myself all ready for it.  Bring it on!  They wheeled me down to this room for "the procedure".  They broke out the cast saw - been there done that already when they had to make a window in the cast for them to check the stitches.  I knew that it didn't hurt but I had to make a good show so I whimpered alot.  They made a cut into the cast to expose the pins or maybe they took the cast off completey?  Not sure.  Do you have any idea how freaky it is for a six year old kid to look up and see these bolts protruding out of their skin?  Let the show begin!  Above my hollering they were trying to explain that the gizmo they were going to use to extract the pins made a loud noise but it was just loud, not painful. Again with the "no pain" claim - this was going to be really bad!!  They turned it on and, yes, it was indeed loud.  But not louder than me!  They sternly cautioned me as to how important it was for me to be still.  Yeah, whatever! But, I did try to hold still and all the interns laying on my body were a big help in that endeavor.  As soon as the contraption was applied to the pins I could tell that they were maybe not lying this time.  It was more like a vibration and, to be quite honest, sort of tickled as it vibrated the pins out of my bones.  But - then - there it was - - BLOOD!  Blood streaming down as the pins came out.  I HAD to scream now!  What respectable six year old child wouldn't scream in this situation, I ask you?  None, unless they were anesthetized, I say.  So I continued on with what I considered my modem operandus at the time.  I carried on until I exhausted myself, or someone slipped a hypo into my rump.  Either way, I quieted down and they finished their work.  Until they came to this one pin - there were four in all.  They had tried to remove this pin at first but it wasn't being very cooperative so they left it to come back to.  When they did, it did hurt as they had to work on it more than the others.  It was being stubborn.  And, to this day, that scar area hurts to the touch.  Weird.

I remember the day they transferred me to Zem Zem.  You see, Erie was quite a drive from my home and my parents weren't able to be there all the time, every day.  I know they came as often as they could.  I had three older brothers who needed to be cared for as well.  But neither of my parents nor anyone else, for that matter, was around the day they made the transfer. They came up to my room, loaded me and my belongings on a gurney, and took me down to a sort of ambulance and whisked me away.  I remember crying and asking where my parents were.  They just told me not to worry.  They didn't say anything like,  "Oh, they know where you will be" or "We've already told them about it."  They just carted me away.  I arrived at Zem Zem in quite a state of shock.  This place was very different from Hamot.  Instead of rooms they had wards and each ward had many beds in them.  Girls were in one ward and boys in another. They wheeled me into this large room as all these other girls just looked on.  I could see that everyone else had some sort of problem of their own - many more involved than what I was dealing with.  But it was all so strange.  They set me in my new bed, placed my belongings nearby and left me.  The staff at Zem Zem came around and tried to get me to talk but I found I couldn't talk.  I was so scared I literally couldn't speak.  But I cried - not loudly as before, but quietly and deeply.  I just knew that I would never see my parents or brothers ever again. Grandma and Grandpa didn't know where I was.  Aunt Gwen or Uncle Jeff didn't either.  No aunts and uncles at all.  Just those girls there in the room and the nurse with the atrociously long, sharp fingernails.  I believe that they finally ended up calling my parents and suggested that they come up to see if they could get me to talk.  You can imagine the flood of joy I had when they walked into the ward.  They DID know where I was, after all!  I was so happy to see them!  Of course, I talked after that, which the staff would soon realize I knew how to do very well, indeed.  

I made friends with the other girls in the ward, especially a tiny girl at the end of the room. Her name was Betsy and she was in a sort of crib.  I don't know what was wrong with Betsy to put her in the hospital but her sweet, tiny voice was always so cheerful.  On visiting days they would reel a rack of dresses into the center of the ward and we would each take turns being the first to choose which dress we wanted to wear to greet our visitors.  There was a plaid number that both I and Betsy really liked.  There was a little competition to see who would get to choose it first!  

After the trauma of my transfer the family made sure I had visitors on a regular basis.  I don't know if they set up a schedule per se but I know that they seemed to come in regular intervals, spaced out, grandparents one day, Gwen and Jeff another, Mom, Dad, aunts, uncles, the Lawtons.  It was great.  They'd come and play cards with me, Old Maid being a favorite.  My hands were too small to hold all the cards in the deck so they showed me how to use a box to hold them.

My hair was really long when I went in to the hospital.  My mother would usually brush it up into a high ponytail and make it into a bun.  Shortly after arriving at Zem Zem, though, my mother was approached by the staff and told that the care for my long hair was too time-consuming for them to have to deal with.  That my hair was an issue was not a surprise to me. When they'd come in to give me my bath and do my hair this one nurse would repeatedly let the rubber band snap my ear as she'd put it in pig tails, muttering the whole time about what a nuisance it was.  So when my mother told me we'd have to cut my hair I knew who was the instigator of it all.  Most of the nurses were very nice - but this particular one, the ear-snapping Miss Trunchbull-esque woman with the sharp fingernails - well she was not very nice at all. Turning me was a laborious exercise and when she did so it seemed as though she'd stick her long nails into my skin and  flip me much like being on a roasting spit.  The other nurses, much smaller than the meany, seemed to do it effortlessly.  To her, though, it was an ordeal. Perhaps she's just one of those individuals for which all things are an ordeal.  I know you know what I'm talking about.  So my hair was to be cut off.  The Lawton's (my Aunt Linda's in-laws) had a daughter, Nancy, who cut hair.  My mom gave her a call and she agreed to come up to Hamot with my mom and cut my hair.  I remember it still.  They wheeled me into the bathing room and she cut my hair in there.  My mother had her roll up a segment and secure it on a curler. Then Nancy cut off the curler and gave it to my mom.  I still have it.  On the back of one of the pictures my mother wrote of the hair-cutting sadly and proclaimed that we'd have to start all over again when I was home.

Zem Zem had a screened-in outdoor patio area to which we could be wheeled in our beds to enjoy some outdoor air.  I hadn't seen my brothers in months and my parents agreed to bring them up for a visit but they were too young to come into the ward area.  So I was wheeled out to the patio area and my brothers walked around to the grounds just outside the patio and I got to see them through the screen.  I was soooooo happy to see them!  We chatted back and forth and it seemed to me that they had changed so much - grown so much bigger!  I also remember thinking that they sounded so different, too.  Let's see, Ed would have been eleven, Kevin ten, and Marvin eight.  My heart, even now, pondering this day, gets all happy.  

That was also the summer that my Uncle Bruce was in a terrible car accident.  Bruce is the Lawton's son - the ones who had me over to their house for weekends.  He was so handsome.  I thought he and my Aunt Linda were such a beautiful couple.  When my parents told me about the accident I remembered being very sad.  I asked about how he was doing.  They told me had several cuts on his face, nearly lost his nose and an ear.  One day, when he was finally getting better he came to visit me.  At first I was afraid of the scars.  But, then, I saw that he was still handsome and still my funny uncle.  It was good to see him again.  Even his brother, Denny, who was in the Navy, I believe, came to visit me in the hospital in his uniform.  Yep - everyone thought I was pretty cool for that one!  And I got to wear the plaid dress that day!

After finally leaving the hospital at the end of the summer I kept tabs on Betsy as she was still there.  My mother would call and check on her from time to time.  One day my mother and I were in Erie for something and I asked if we could please go visit Betsy.  My mother agreed that that would be a good idea.  We went to the lobby and asked if we could please visit Betsy.  The nurses looked at each other and then quietly asked to speak to my mother alone.  I waited with the other nurses and when my mother came out of the room I could see that she had been crying.  How do you tell a little girl that her little friend has passed away?  It had to have been hard for my mother.  Yet, she was very gentle as she explained that Betsy was no longer with us. I think I instinctively knew what had happened by reading the nurses' faces.  I understood what had happened to her, I just never understood how.  To this day I don't know what Betsy's condition was.  But I'm glad to have known her and am thankful for her cheerful disposition and how it lifted so many of us who were so sad to be away from home.  In my heart I hope she was buried in her favorite plaid dress.

They took the casts off not too long before I was to go home.  Something about making sure the bones had knitted back together well enough.  I had been learning to walk again with regular physical therapy with my casts on.  But when those casts came off it was such a surprise to me at how weak my legs were.  They had shriveled up and were covered with the most disgusting long hair.  I was not a large child by any means, but I had always had amazingly chubby little legs.  The chubbiness was gone (yes, the chubs found their way back, no worries!) and I had some serious scars to show off.  If you looked at my legs sideways, they looked like a smiley face - the pins being the eyes and the incision the mouth.  Walking without the casts was super hard.  They kept a helmet on me just to make sure I didn't fall and damage my head.  They also supported me in the back with a harness as a precaution.  Needless to say, I got the knack of walking sans support quickly.  My mother would fret now and again about my being careful so as not to undo all that had been done.  But I could walk without stumbling over my feet!  

At my grandparents house, hospital bracelet still on my wrist!

I well remember my Aunt Gwen taking me to buy shoes for school that fall (and all the falls after that).  I could wear regular shoes now!  Oh, I looked at patent leather ones of all colors and styles.  It was wonderful!  One year the shoe salesman tried to sell us a pair of shoes that didn't quite fit correctly, suggesting that we stuff a little tissue into the toe.  My aunt brought herself up to her full height and let the salesman know, in no uncertain terms, that after all that her grandniece had been through with her legs, she certainly deserved a pair of shoes that fit her properly, thank you very much!

While in the hospital for such a long time I received many gifts.  Have I mentioned what a spoiled little girl I was?  One of my favorite gifts I received while still in Hamot was this stuffed black poodle dog which was actually a little radio.  You can see it in the background of this picture behind my beloved Pebbles doll.

I would listen to that radio for as long as the batteries would hold out!  And I would listen to the songs on this entry's playlist.  My favorite of these were See You In September and Cherish.  I was to become a big fan of The Association.  The Ballad of the Green Berets was a big hit with my family as well and my grandparents (Ristau) bought the album and would play it often on that fabulous stereo system of theirs and we could hear it all through their house and garage.  I also loved The Mamas & The Papas.  Cass Elliot's voice was like honey to me. Secret Agent Man was a favorite of my brothers as well, which I would find out when I got home at the end of the summer.  Hanky Panky was a fun song to sing and I would learn the dance that went with it within the next year after my surgery.  I love this playlist.  It has so many classic songs on it.  Look at the artists represented - The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Mamas & The Papas, Tommy James, The Lovin' Spoonful, Herb Alpert, Frankie Valli - these are iconic groups of the era.  My little poodle sang well that summer!

I will forever be indebted to the Shriner's organization.  They help children get the medical care they need when they can't quite afford it.  If I'm out and about and see them with a fundraising effort, I stop and help them out.  They are the charity that is nearest and dearest to my heart.  I have firsthand knowledge of the great capacity of their love and concern.  Even after my surgery, for years they would include me in their annual circus adventure.  They'd bus kids in from all over and treat us to an amazing day of fun at the circus.  They'd feed us and take good care of us.  I mingled with many children who were not as fortunate as I to have a condition which could easily be taken care of with surgery.  Thank you Zem Zem Shriners and all Shriners everywhere.  You're good men!