A Perfect Baby Boy

 

My parents were married two years when they welcomed Dale into the world. During this pregnancy, my mother had a very hard time keeping anything on her stomach. She would have been diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, like Kate Middleton, had she sought treatment. She was beginning to get severely dehydrated that summer. Dad was drinking a beer and mom said she would try it. That was the only thing that kept her from the hospital, beer. She would sip on one beer a day until she could hold down water. While my mother never liked beer, my brother loves it!  

Dale was a happy child. Mom’s brother called him Happy. (I suppose with beer in him, he was extremely happy!) When mom held him, she said motherhood hit her like a ton of bricks. She was in love with this tiny being and fiercely protective of him! She would continue that way for the remainder of her days on earth.

Mom allowed very few people to babysit Dale. Mom refused to go anywhere Dale couldn’t go. He was not a natural athlete, so Mom taught Dale how to catch and throw a ball. Dale was deeply loved by both parents and they wanted only the best for him.

On a family vacation in Florida when Dale was nine, Mom noticed him limping on his left toe. She looked at his foot, found a blister, and promptly threw away the new sandals. When they were home, Dale continued to walk on his toe. I’m sure they tried to ignore it at first. Just a stupid thing that kids do. As Dale got worse, he could not control the movement in his legs; the left leg tried to bend and the right left tried to stay straight. He couldn’t ride comfortably in the backseat of the car as his leg stayed straight. The limp wasn’t just a limp. Something was happening to their beautiful baby boy! But what?

My parents took Dale to at least three different specialists around the state, but no one gave them an answer. During this time our cousin, Barry, started walking on his left toe also. His parents took Barry to several different experts in the state, but again no answers.

A doctor recommended Dale see a psychiatrist in Winston Salem. One of the oddities of dystonia is how a person can do some things but not others. Dale ran in the parking lot easily but could not walk without the pronounced limp. It was recommended he see a child psychiatrist located at Western Carolina Center for mentally retarded children. After a few sessions he convinced our parents to locate him there during the week so he could be seen daily.

I’m sure Dale feels like smacking this doctor in the face. I know dad and mom felt that way. But what to do? Every doctor they went to said the same thing; there was nothing wrong with Dale.

Dale saw the psychiatrist and things went bad fast. The “doctor” told my parents to put Dale in the backseat, to ignore all his leg movements, and to treat him like any other kid over the weekends. Dale spent a year at Western Carolina Center with mentally retarded kids and missed a year in school.

My parents were told that Dale was copying my father. Our cousin Barry, who lived close to us then, was supposedly copying Dale. It was an insane theory, but that was the only explanation, right?

I cannot imagine the hell of that experience for Dale. At the start at Western Carolina, he could walk to get his meals, but soon he could only crawl or use a wheelchair.

As Dale was getting worse, the psychiatrist decided Dale would benefit from shock treatments, and talked my parents into allowing them. There were eighteen of them, and they were sheer torture. After the correct diagnosis, I don’t think Dad nor Mom ever fully forgave themselves for those hateful treatments even though Dale never blamed them.

During this time, mom said she thought about shooting Dale then herself. She thought dad and myself would be better off without them. Do you know what hell Dale must have been going through for this thought to not only cross, but to stay in my mother’s head?

I have to tell you something. Dad’s father offered Dad a hundred dollars to go to a doctor. Get it. I think Granddaddy had seen something like this in his family and thus wanted my dad to see a specialist, not Dale. Although my grandparents denied knowing anything about it, I think they knew something was wrong before the rest of us.

Mom had enough. She told Dad and they agreed to bring Dale home. She arranged it with a school for Dale to come to class on crutches. Dale started school after missing a year.

Dale began to improve gradually. Whether it was from the shock treatments or being free to be himself, he started to recover.

 

 

Visitor

 

            I wish I had mom’s permission before I make this part of the blog. I don’t feel like it is my story to tell. I hope I can do it the justice it deserves.

            I am uncertain of Dale’s age at the time, but allow me to guess between five and seven. He had a large lump on his back, and the doctor thought this growth might be cancerous. To say my parents were beside themselves with fear is putting it mildly.

            Neither Dad nor Mom was allowed to stay with Dale in the hospital the night before the surgery. I imagine they talked and cried together that night. I believe the worst fear is that you will outlive your child.

            Dad had gone to sleep, but mom kept crying and wondering what the next day would hold. I know she was hoping for the best but so very fearful of the worst. She was awake and shivering in her fear. She could not stop the cold dread of tomorrow.

            Mom finally started praying the Lord’s Prayer. When she got to “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,” there was an angel in the room. He said four words to mom: “It will be okay.” Mom instantly stopped shivering and went to sleep.

            Early the next morning, Dad was still worried about Dale and mom told him about the angel and what he said. Dad looked at her like she had lost her mind, but Mom wasn’t worried about Dale now.

            After Dale’s surgery, the doctor told my parents it was a cyst and nothing to worry about. Dad was overjoyed with relief while mom calmly said I told you he would be fine.

            Mom later told her pastor about the angel, but he didn’t believe her either. No wonder she kept this secret for years!

            When she finally told me, I believed her and after thinking a few minutes told her that I thought the angel was preparing her not only for that day but for the years to come. She would have to deal with a lot and largely on her own.

            After I told her I believed her, Mom shared this experience a little more freely. 

            Dale has two scars where the doctor grafted his skin from his thigh to his back. I never thought about it as a child. It was just my much-adored brother, but I know every time Mom saw his back, she was reminded of that scary night when a heavenly visitor told her, “It will be okay.”

Mom

 

            I know a lot more about mom’s childhood than Dad’s. Dad didn’t talk that much about maturing into the man he was; whereas my mother told me many stories about growing up, both good and bad.

My mother was the second child of seven and the first girl. I think mom understood responsibility from a very young age. Not that she did that much at her home, she wasn’t allowed to, rather mom was the “go-to” person in the family.

My grandmother had to have things just perfect and mom could never please her. Thus, mom had two jobs: washing dishes and holding her younger siblings. When she got married, my mother could not cook and taught herself how to clean house.

Mom was something of a tomboy. She loved playing ball with her friends at school. Since she grew up with boys, (Hazel was eight years younger.) she always felt more comfortable around men. 

Reading was a passion of my mother’s. As a girl, she read a great deal and when she retired, she read copiously. Mom had to drop out of high school and go to work at sixteen. Mom needed extra money for typing, and her mother said no. Mom was devastated. She wanted to be a teacher, but couldn’t find the courage to ask her father for the extra money. Mom felt like if she had, he would have given it to her.

My grandmother was just doing what she learned as a child. She raised the family and worked also. And she went to work at age twelve in a cotton mill. It was an extremely difficult life then. My grandfather was a truck driver and would be gone for a week at a time. Sometimes, the kids wouldn’t even see him; he got in late and left early. He spent a year in New York building a bridge during the depression.

With her first check, my mother bought three winter coats; one for Hazel, one for my grandmother, and one for herself.

 I think we all have things that shape us into who we are today. That’s why I wanted to explain some of Mom’s past.

My mother was not perfect, she would tell you that, but she was the perfect person for what was to come her way.

  

 

Dad

 

            Dad’s journey with dystonia began at age fifteen as far as he can remember. Dad was seventh of eleven children. That’s right, my dad came from a huge family in the foothills of North Carolina. (My grandfather was one of thirteen!)

            When I say as far as he can recall, I mean that no one noticed his limp. I would think dystonia showed up earlier, but went unnoticed because my grandparents had ten other kids to care for and worry about. He was fifteen the first time he went to the doctor for the limp. As It was the end of the polio epidemic, the doctor told my grandparents he had a slight case of polio.

            It was a good guess, a wrong guess, but as good as any. My dad walked on his left toe. I think that’s how the majority of us started. Some started other ways, but four of us started walking on our left toe.

            That’s what Dad told Mom; he had polio. Dad’s limp must have bothered him more than anyone knew because mom tried to get him to go to college for an engineering degree after they married, but dad wouldn’t go because that stupid slight limp. (I can say that, being his daughter, but it was a stupid reason not to fulfill his dream.) Dad had a wonderful mind for numbers! When he was older, he could do almost any calculation in his head. My uncle asked me about selling some lumber, and dad knew the answer before I could pick up a pen. He was that intelligent!

            He always wanted to be an engineer, and my mother wanted to be a teacher. Both of them would have been excellent at those jobs, but for various reasons, they missed out. They both worked in hosiery all their lives.

            Dad was strong to be so skinny, another characteristic of dystonia.

After they married, they lived with dad’s sister and brother-in-law for about a year, then moved into a tiny, two-room house on the property of Mom’s parents.

Mom often said that the best years of her life were in that tiny house. They both worked second shift for two of Dad’s brothers, and they would often sit in the car and talk until 12:00 to 1:00 am. My grandfather went out there every Saturday morning early and woke them, but Dad never complained! Mom said she thought her family liked dad better than her.

And then they were blessed with a baby boy in that tiny house.