When i was a child, i was pretty healthy in general. I caught the measles when i was in grade 1, then chicken pox when i was a teen (yeah, not fun when you are that old!). However, i was told that i had sore throat often when i was very young but i don’t remember that part.
What i remember is my first surgery: tonsillectomy. And i was only 2. It is uncommon to have memories from that young, and i really don’t have many either but this one did stick through time.
Yellow sponges
Going back 50 years (ok it is dating me a bit), i am sure that operating rooms and equipment were different, so i really don’t know what is what from my memories but i remember being placed on that hard bed (obviously not a bed but that is what i thought) and someone placing two “yellow sponges” on my face: one of my forehead and one on my chin. Then, i started to cough.
And that was it
Then, i assume i was asleep, and i woke up… coughing again. It is a very short memory, but it is still vivid in my mind. What were those yellow sponges? I have no clue.
That is not it
Just a few years ago, i was talking to my mom about this specific memory, and i was surprised that she said that when i was a kid, i was describing the event differently. She said i would talk about having a box put over my head. Maybe the mask? But i don’t remember a box, only sponges. And i don’t remember telling the story with a box either. So what was it?
Do you have vivid memories of something that others insist are inaccurate? Do you have memories of when you were very young? Maybe those images in your mind are inaccurate but they are still YOURS. Cherish them anyways. After all, they are YOUR memories, and it is YOUR story from YOUR perspective! Share it in the comments below!
7 thoughts on “Remember when…? – Surgery”
I’m not sure I have memories of things about myself that are different, but we use to laugh all the time about the things my husband’s mom would dream up and tell about us! We had to often tell our kids that she dreamed up stuff! They were “stories” for sure!
How fun would it be to document those stories/dreams? Just something fun to talk about and spark more conversations!
The earliest memory I have is of going on an overnight trip and having my nappy/diaper changed, on a strange bed, in a room where everything was brown. I think I was sick with a bad throat at the time!
Wow! that is young! Do you really have any idea where it was (or even if the walls were actually brown)?
I often have the feeling that my mother re-wrote my history because none of it sounds right.
Maybe it could be fun to have parallel stories “HERS” and “MINE”… then the guessing game would start!
Recently my brother told me that he was present at some of the many hospital visits I had when I was young, and then he remembered me screaming when the doctors tried to work on me. Now I don’t remember my brother being there at all, nor do I remember screaming. I remember my mother taking me on the merry-go-round in the park afterward going to the doctor (I always rode on the outside horse because I was afraid to go up and down), which apparently was more important to me than anything the doctors were doing. Here’s a surprise…no merry-go-round in my brother’s version. Obviously my brother and I have quite different recollections of these events, and we can’t really check with my mother about which is more accurate (she died a few years ago) but it does make me wonder. In the area of uncertain memories, my mother told me she drove from Wisconsin to California with her girlfriend in a convertible. She told my brother she rode on a motorcycle. That’s quite a difference in story. I will never know which one is true but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out that my mother took a bus.