April 29, 1943
No. 23
Dear Folksies,
My last letter was written 8 days ago. I would have written sooner if I hadn’t been kind of knocked under the weather for this last week. It all started with a typhoid shot. The following day I felt sort of subnormal and loafed around all afternoon. Then that evening I thought I probably had a temp. as others had managed to run 100 to 102 degrees anywhere from 12 to 36 hours after their shots. Well, mine was 101. Next morning, however, temp was still over 101 and on looking in my throat I saw a few nice pustular patches. Sewell came and agreed that I had follicular pharyngitis. Used throat irrigations and plenty of fruit juices, but still temp stayed in the sky, going as high as 103.
After two days my teeth and gums became sore and Chappie pronounced it Vincent’s gingivitis. Temp came down to almost normal after the third day, but because I was not an expert gargler I have had a rather touchy stomach ever since. Today is the first day I have not had to limit myself to egg-nogs, eggs, milk and water. What apparently happened was that I developed a gastritis upon gargling and probably swallowing a little of the copper sulfate solution Chappie gave me.
That has now disappeared, however, and my mouth is likewise clearing up under the daily Rx by Chappie. Nope, I haven’t had a gastric ulcer – don’t worry about that!! Where did I get the Vincent’s? There is apparently a lot of it around and whether I got it at the party last week when glasses may not have been thoroughly washed, or whether I got it around the mess from some glasses not well cleaned, or just where, ‘tis a ??
Anyway, I’ve had it and it ain’t a very comfortable thing to have. For the last week I have remained in bed most of the time – until my back began to sag in the middle like the cot. And then in the tent for the rest of the time, except when the sun has been warm enough to sit under, and then I have sprawled in a chair outside the tent.
As a consequence I don’t know much of the things that have been going on around the hospital. However, I do know that Pete Joseph and Cy Johnson are both back. Cy’s ulcer seems to be under good control. George Wood is not as yet back with the fold. We have a new officer, Jack Dunlap, who was until today a tech sergeant. He was the sgt. in charge of the lab and a darn good man – having had two years undergrad at Stanford at one time. Of course, now that he is a Second Lieutenant, they can’t keep him in our lab, so have him as Evac. Officer – something he knows nothing about, naturally. And so goes a good lab man.
The latest sporting event around this section is horseshoe pitching. Somewhere along the road a couple of horseshoes jumped into one our our jeeps and the boys brought them home with them. We now have a nice pit and a nightly tournament that goes on from about 5 P.M. until 8 or 8:30 P.M. when they are finally forced inside out of the darkness.
Forgot to tell you that Hal Williams was quite a disappointment to the betting gang. Yes, he went and had a female child, also. However, my calculations were a bit hay-wire, for I didn’t know that Mrs. Hodgson is also expecting, so the honor of the 59th still has the Huffs and Hodgsons to do their bit to have a boy. But from the way things have been running, no one has much hope.
One of the enlisted men got word that he had become the father of a girl on April 13. That was truly an unlucky day for him, so he says – for he lost plenty of money, having bet on his promises as a boy-builder; and also that was the day that he lost his appendix. Now, he wants his appendix back in, for he believes that he didn’t have appendicitis pains after all – that they were just sympathy labor pains.
Loads of love,
.
