Dr. Seeley Made Home Visits

Dr. Seeley was a physician in the little town where I grew up. He had darker skin than I did, whether it was his nationality or if he spent more time in the sun than I did, I didn’t know or care, he was a very nice man. His hair was black as coal and he had black hair on his arms and he smelled like tobacco. He wore a white uniform like our pharmacists do now days.

Dr. Seeley made home office calls after his office visits. That was not unusual at all for doctors in those days.

I can remember one day he came to see me. I remember I had a lot of pain in my belly. My mother was very nervous which was unusual for her. Of course, I was very young and didn’t think of all the horrible things that could be wrong with me, thank goodness. I didn’t know that my sister had had a cyst on her ovary when she was my age. I am sure that is what my mother was afraid of, if not other horrific things. It turned out that it was only menstrual cramping and I was just fine. If that’s what you want to call it.

In those days you just didn’t take medicine. If I had a headache which was seldom I was told to lay down with a cold cloth on my head. Hmm, no aspirin?

If I told my mom I “didn’t feel good” the first thing she always asked me was had I gone to the bathroom in the last day or two. That seemed to be the question and the fix for any problem. That was one thing that was in the medicine cabinet; Ex-Lax.

Getting back to Dr. Seeley, I will never forget my last office visit to him. It was for something very simple, a polio shot. Nurses in those days, I guess didn’t do that. Anyway, he gave me my polio shot. I am here to tell you, that hurt so bad I can’t even tell you how bad. I looked down at my arm and the needle was at a ninety degree angle. I think what he did was hit my bone and it just bent right like that. I thought I was going to faint, but I didn’t. I had a very sore arm for a long time though. I guess anyone can make a mistake, but oh that hurt!