In every life a little rain must fall…no, I’m not talking about the weather.  As we age, we begin to have little aches and pains, but, for the most part, we are usually able to press on.

 

Then, unfortunately, some of us reach a point where we know something is not quite right and must consult a physician.

 

I have reached that point.  I have an appointment with a surgeon in August. Not life threatening, just life adjusting.

 

Along with Covid, dealing with all this has made me dwell on doctors in general. Take, for instance, the old country doctor.  You remember Doc, from Gunsmoke, whose name on the show was Dr. Galen Adams. (I confess, I googled for that).  He was just Doc to the millions who watched him save, and lose, lives each week. He was loveable, sometimes grumpy, but always doing his best for his patients.

 

I remember having the German measles when I was seven. I woke early and didn’t feel well. So, like most little ones do, I crawled in the bed with my mom, which of course woke her up, while I drifted back to sleep. She woke me later to tell me that she had made pancakes and that I should get up while they were warm.  I rolled over and said I wasn’t hungry. That was her first clue that something was wrong.  She turned on the light and immediately started laughing. Needless to say, I was offended and started to cry. She brought me a mirror and I could clearly see why she laughed. Yes, I was covered in spots.   I remember a doctor coming to the house and checking me over.  A couple of weeks and I was fine, forgetting all about my first and last house-call from a doctor.

 

Back in the old days, (anywhere from 1700 to 1950) your whole family would see the same doctor for years.  Such was the case for the Hinton family in A Heart Made for Love. Doc Walters had delivered Mae and her younger brothers. He grieved when he was not able to save their mother, as she struggled with another birth.

 

Knowing Mae from the moment he brought her into the world enabled him to understand how to help her when she was raped. He knew the best bedside manner to use to soothe her and assuage her fears.

 

Doctors today are very specialized. Even your General Practitioner sends you to surgeons, or cancer specialists when necessary.

 

Does this mean today’s doctors are less knowledgeable? No, obviously medical knowledge has grown exponentially.  But it does show that in the old days, a good doctor was worth his weight in gold. Or chickens, or a pig or goat.

 

Have you ever had a doctor that you really loved, and they either retired, or you moved, and you had to find another?

 

Leave a comment and let me know.

 

Rainy Day Random Thoughts

 

It has been raining today, off and on, but sometimes very hard. Rain does several wonderful things for us. But, for me, it causes my mind to wander. When that happens, it is often surprising where it goes.

 

Have you ever read a historical romance and the couple had quick, amazing sex?

Well, let me tell you that did not happen!  Amazing, quite possibly, quick not so much.  Do you have any idea what it took for a woman to get into and out of those many items of clothing they wore? Just saying…

 

Oh, and let’s talk about bathing! Just how attractive can that man be after all day spent working in the fields, or fighting in those jousts?  Hauling water, even cold water, was quite a chore. And unless he was a “little” person, it took at least fifty gallons of water to fill a good-sized tub.  Unless you had a house full of servants, you know who got to haul all that water? That’s right, the little woman of the house. And he’s going to expect her to have enough energy left for sex? I think not.

 

Dishes.  Nowadays you load that dishwasher and push that button and walk away.

Can you imagine washing dishes in the old days without a bottle of Dawn?  I don’t remember what my grandmother used (and that was only sixty years ago) but I do remember there being bubbles.  In the really old days, think Saxons and Norsemen, they used vinegar and sand to scrub and polish their armor, so it stands to reason they would have used it to clean any cookware.

 

I could use a couple of new, light-weight summer blouses.  I might run to Walmart or Target and check out what they have to offer. Not so two-hundred years ago.  Most items were made from linen.  Linen is made from flax fibers. The flax was grown, soaked in water, stripped into fibers, the longest of which can be up to twenty centimeters long. Those fibers are then spun into yarn and eventually woven into fabric. If you wanted a new blouse this Spring, you had better have been working your behind off last year!

 

The next time you read a historical novel pay attention to some of these little details and see if the author has given enough thought to just what the everyday life of a woman entailed.

 

It has quit raining now. I can hear the thunder becoming distant. Time for me to gather my wandering mind and decide what’s for supper.  Any Suggestions? Thanks for stopping by!