DOG BITES, NAILS AND OLD DOCTORS..

I had never been very fortunate when it came to medical treatments or doctors while I was very young. I always seemed to go through unnecessary pain when something happened to me. And a lot happened to me because I was always very active and for the most part, fearless.
At the back of Schaums Tavern, on a sort of open porch, there was a dog, a water spaniel, that was tied up all the time. It was on my way to school. I was in about 4th grade at Irving Grade School. Every day I would walk by the tavern and feeling sorry for the dog, I would go over and pet him. It was sort of a ritual. One day, not doing anything different, I started to pet him and he suddenly lunged at me and clawed and bit me on my right side by my rib cage. It would have been worse but his chain held him back. It was still pretty bad as I needed stitches. I still have the scars to this day. When I went home my mom and dad looked at it and dad wound up taking me to the doctor. The Doctor thought that the dog could have been rabid and said I should have rabies shots. He didn’t even see the dog. This was in the very early forties. Treatment consisted of, to my vivid memory, several injections with seemingly very long needles in to my side and in my stomach. I probably weighed 80 or 90 pounds but it took my dad, a nurse and a policeman to hold me down. The pain was unbearable. I will remember that day forever. They put the dog to sleep and tested it afterwards and found out it was not rabid. I cried because they put it to sleep. It was the only time he ever hurt anyone. I probably caused it as he may just have been eating at the time. So sad.
Along those lines, there was another incident concerning that same “quack” doctor. A couple years later, I was playing tag with the other kids up the alley. (Our playground) In the course of the playing I stepped on a 2 x 4 that had a long nail in it. Sticking up, of course. It went through my shoe and into my foot clear to the bone. I went to the ground and pulled my shoe and sock off and blood was coming out in spurts. Obviously it hit an artery or something. We were laughing as I pointed it at anyone near me and made them jump. I must have suddenly realized I was losing quite a bit of blood so I took my sock and padded it and tied the other sock around my foot and hobbled back down the alley to home. My dad took me back to the same old Doctor and he muttered something about possible blood poisoning from an obviously, must-have-been, “rusty nail”. He told my dad and the nurse to hold my leg and proceeded to cut an “X” where the nail had entered. Now, he used no anesthesia. Nothing. Just started to carve. I remember screaming really loud. Then he put something on it and bandaged it. He was a very old Doctor and obviously not very good at it or not very humane. I made it a point then, that no matter what happens to me, I would not be taken to him ever again, no matter how young I was.