Don's "Diaper Trouble"

 

Wesley Hospital, Wichita, Kansas

Since my dad worked for Boeing aircraft, which was considered essential to the war effort, he managed to avoid the draft during WWII, but two of his brothers served in the Pacific Theater, and they carried on a steady correspondence with him throughout the war. Don’s youngest brother, J.E., was in the navy, but he didn’t have to go overseas.

Letters from the front were all read by a military censor, so Boyd and Everett couldn’t say anything about what they actually going through, so they chatted about superficial things, and commented about the things Don told them in his letters.

The following is one of the letters Don got from his younger brother Everett, who had survived the attack on Pearl Harbor (see post of September 20, 2015). The letter was written in October of 1942, from the Pacific, where he would soon be embroiled in the Battle of Guadalcanal – but more about that later.

Oct 21, 1942, USS San Francisco. To Don Gunning 3112 E 3^rd, Wichita

Dear Don, Your letters have been coming with every mail. You won’t have anything new to tell Jimmy’s Mother from this letter. Your letters are always full of good news tho. Your diaper trouble sounds critical. My girlfriends have all decided out of sight out of mind. They never write. It is comforting to know someone is concerned with my welfare, sometimes I am disturbed about my outcome also. Tell everyone hello.

Your Bud, Everett.

In his comment about “diaper trouble,” Everett was teasing Don about a rectal fistula he developed about the time I was born. A rectal fistula is basically an abscess of the buttocks that drains pus through a hole in the rectum, leaking onto your underwear, hence the diaper reference. My dad would kill me if he knew I was telling this story. Maybe he’s looking down on me right now, saying, “wait ‘til I get my hands on him.”

Anyway, in addition to the nuisance, it must have hurt pretty bad, and it might have caused a fever too. My parents always attributed the fistula to my dad’s having to sit out on the hospital steps waiting to get in to see Wenonah after I was born, but I doubt if that would have caused it.

After Wenonah brought me home from the hospital and settled into a routine, Don went to the doctor to see about his fistula, and was referred to a proctologist, a doctor who specializes in that sort of thing.

The proctologist told Don he would need to open the fistula, and he admitted him to a hospital for the surgery, probably Wesley Hospital, where I was born. After the procedure, he kept him there for several days, to observe the wound, and to have the nurses change the dressings.

Don’s roommate in the hospital was a professional roofer who had been hospitalized for a back injury. Apparently he had backed up to admire his work and accidentally stepped off the roof. Don enjoyed listening to the roofer’s stories. He had had a lot of falls, and seemed to consider them just part of the job. The roofer had a large family, all involved in the roofing business, and in the evenings they would all gather around his bed, and laugh and talk about their experiences. Don entertained the family for years with stories about the roofers.

Don had only one problem with his roommate. On the first evening after he was admitted, his family brought him a bowl of grapes that was infested with gnats. Don spent the rest of his hospital stay swatting gnats.

When Don came home, the doctor instructed Wenonah on how to treat the wound. Since a fistula is an infection, the wound can’t be closed, so it was left open, and Wenonah was to apply a sulfonamide paste every day. Preparing the paste was a complicated process involving heating the sulfonamide powder to liquefy it. The result was a caustic mixture that caused Don to “rise up off the bed in pain” according to my mother, whenever she applied it.

The other story my dad told about his experience was going in to see his doctor for follow up visits. Apparently the doctor wasn’t a people person, and couldn’t recognize his patients when he met them, so when would enter an examining room, his nurse would prompt him by saying something like, “Dr. Brown, this is Mr. Gunning.”

Well, one day when my dad went in for his visit, the nurse forgot to make the introduction. Unfazed by the omission, the doctor went right to work, asking Don to pull down his pants and to bend over. When the doctor looked at my dad’s butt – he swore this is true – he said, “Oh, Mr. Gunning.”