HALF-DOLLAR EXTRACTION -- WHOLE, NOT IN SMALL CHANGE

HEADS, YOU WIN

TAILS, YOU LOSE

MARCH 6, 1946.  It is now late afternoon and I am in pain, recovering from abdominal surgery performed to remove the coin that I swallowed some three weeks ago.  The surgery was necessary because the coin was so heavy that it had settled in the bottom pocket of my stomach and would not move.  I thought I would put a picture of a stomach here to show you what I mean, but I decided against that because I didn't want anyone soiling my computer screen vicariously.  So, you're stuck using your vivid imagination, period.  Furthermore, I am also sparing you the process that I had to follow to assure that the evacuation of the silver mass had or had not happened.  This was rather embarrassing to a nine year old adult.  Worst of all were the numerous attempts to make me believe that  the evacuation could take the form of five dimes.  I couldn't believe it then and I can't believe it now.  I complained about the teasing to EFR Dion and even to MJT Dion, but they both just laughed and told me not to take it so personally, that my loving relatives were only joking.  Well, one way or the other, in whole or in part, it didn't work.  The coin was sleeping in a comfortable diverticulum, getting a regular, refreshing bath of bodily acids and slowly metabolizing itself into providing my intestines with a metabolized argentum acidifaciente lining.  This could do nothing but tarnish my absolutely pure peristaltic reputation of smooth, continual, productive rhythm.  Whatever all of that means, one thing is sure, it meant, at the time, that I was being poisoned to death by the interaction of my $0.50 investment due to bad, bad insider trade-offs.  I was getting more and more ill by the day.  A decision was made that I should have an X-ray to determine the exact location of my portfolio going bad so that I could be surgically relieved of the problem.  So off I go to the X-ray studio, and the next paragraph of silliness.
The X-ray studio was a stand-alone operation.  The owner got into a mild dispute with EFR Dion about whether or not I had, in fact, swallowed a half-dollar coin.  The upshot was, "If it's a half-a-buck, I'll give you the X-ray at my expense."  I heard this and I was mystified.  How were they going to be able to tell.  All I could imagine was that when we took pictures with our camera, everything was a lot smaller than in reality.  I soon got a lesson in X-ray technology.  I followed all the instructions and did not get covered with a lead apron, my two sons can attest to the fact that I didn't need it then and perhaps don't need it now.  In five minutes, there they were the two bettors, putting half-dollar coins up against the plastic, life sized picture of my stomach with what I knew to be a perfectly good and valid .50c piece.  Free X-rays!   Nevertheless, I was still being poisoned by my own digestive process.
When the doctors saw the position of the coin, they knew that it would not move and therefore had to be surgically fished out.  During the early evening of March 5, 1946, Father, Mother and I squeezed into the "bench" front seat of the 1940 Hudson and went to the Providence hospital, once again, where I could be prepared for the surgery that was going to happen on the morrow.  It is one three mile ride that MJT Dion never forgot and talked about a lot for the rest of her life.  I ever forgot it, but this is the first time since then that I ever talk about it.  There isn't much to say.  It was a car-ful of apprehension and tension felt but not spoken.   Three miles in silence.  Those of you who knew MJT Dion are wondering how true this can really be.  But it is true.  My memory serves me well on this one.  Silence.
It was about 7:00 PM when we got to the hospital.  By 7:20 I was alone with the nuns, nurses and housekeepers.  Surgery was scheduled for early the following morning.  I was so sick by this time, that I had only one emotion:  "Tomorrow I'll be normal...Yay!"
So now, it's tomorrow, and the story continues...soon.

MY FIRST TIME IN THE HOSPITAL FOR SURGERY

When is the first time that you were committed to a hospital?  If it has never happened to you, let me assure you that in all truth, you don't know what you're missing.  The last time I was in the hospital because I had to be there, was a real thriller.  The first time provides me with some rather interesting memories.
I think I was about six years old.  It was the Providence Hospital in Holyoke.  Dr. Daniels suggested that since I had a tendency to be sick all the time, that I should have my tonsils excised.  The preparations were all done and so we left the house and went to the hospital.  The night went by rather rapidly because I slept through it.  I think I must have been drugged.  I remember the morning came quickly and I was "escorted" into the operating room to get my tonsils removed.  I remember so many unpleasant things.  I remember fighting the ether and I remember that I seemed to be somewhere on the edge of a reality that I really hated because it was so strange and uncomfortable.  I'll never forget it.  I don't remember the act of surgery at all, but the surrounding feelings and emotions are still with me.  I got back to the ward and in my bed.  I don't exactly remember how it happened, but I came to find out that my uncle Donald was in the same hospital recovering from an industrial accident.  He had fallen off a garage roof and broken both his wrists.  He was ambulatory, so he made  the mistake of coming by my bedside as I was coming back into the world.  As I came around, I started to feel the pain in my throat and I started to cry...not good for the tonsils ..., I mean for the  throat that used to have tonsils.  Then I saw my uncle and so I cried all the more and begged him to get me home so I could be with my mother.  He showed me his wrists in casts and I cried the more out of sympathy for him.  I could not figure out how he could be in this weird place and not be crying too.  It was so mysterious to me how he could be in such fine humor.  All this mystery and the pain, made me cry all the more.  He got sick and tired of my lousy attitude, so he left.  Well, that made me cry all the more because now I had an abandonment on top of pain, on top of homesickness on top of frustration.  Somewhere along the stretch of the hours, crying all the time and shouting that I wanted my uncle Donald, I discovered that I was actually hungry.  Ha!  Hungry after tonsillectomy, are you?  Too bad little boy, you can't eat for at least another day or so.   So now I really get down to raising Hell, even in a Catholic hospital.  I really didn't know too much what to expect from the nuns, but I do remember that it was a good thing that I didn't have any preconceived notions about them.  If  I had, I'm quite sure that I would most likely have turned Protestant.  So it got to be afternoon, I think.  I'm still crying and still raucously shouting for my uncle, my mother, my father, anyone.  Then, I started to get nasty because I was hungry.  Sometime during the day, some kind soul, I didn't think that she was so kind. All she brought me was some luke-warm water in a glass from which she allowed me to take a couple of sips through a straw.  I have to admit, I remember that at first I thought she was stingy, but after the couple of sips, my throat actually felt better. That was the good news.  The bad news [95% of all news was bad that day] was that she put the glass out of my reach and said that she would come back in an hour to give me couple more sips.  That set me off again. I think I had stopped crying for about 15 minutes at some point.  But I got back on the angry train and didn't ever get off again.
I think it was about 7:00 PM when my mother and father came to see me at the hospital. You think that made me happy?  Nope.  first words were, "I wanna go home."  Second words were, from EFR Dion, "The sister told us to take you home."  Then I got sober and thought of Donald, the uncle who wasn't there all day when I needed him, but I did think of him and asked is he was going to come with us.  They said no.  He had to stay a couple more days.  That was another downer, but at least I wasn't alone.
All in all it was a bad experience for me.  Through the years I have revisited that experience and it is humorous, sad and technically rewarding.  How so?  I am sure that because of my ugly self the medical community decided to hasten the development of outpatient protocols for tonsillectomy.  They had had enough of PA Dion to last forever.  I would not be surprised to hear that the good sister Superior had to spend some time in purgatory over the nasty thoughts she surely entertained about me during that fateful day.   I have a secret for you... That was well over sixty years ago, and I wasn't done with the medical world yet.  The first time was a little humorous, the second time was rather ugly.  But I'll tell you about it.  Sometimes the funniest stuff comes out of the ugliness of life.  You know, like how nice flowers grow best when there's a lot of manure around them.  So, hold that thought, while pinching your nose, and we'll talk about it a little farther on down the road.  When the wind changes direction.