DOCTORS AND I

After the disastrous first experience with a doctor when I was born, I should have known it would be best to stay away from them fellers, but I didn't. I only remember going to see a doctor three times before going into the service. Once to have a toe nail pulled out, the time a bug got in my ear, and the time I stuck my arm through a plate glass window. From then on it was all down hill. I was in perfect health until that evening in 1956 when a model airplane propeller blade let loose and hit me square in my left eye. They operated and sewed it up, but after 3 weeks of healing, I could not detect any light. Another operation was performed, and the useless eye was completely removed. Weeks of pain followed, and when I was healed enough, I went to New Orleans for a new plastic eye. The preparer is more an artist than a doctor and he tries for a perfect match. This guy was excellent, and for many years people that didn't know me couldn't really tell. At about the same time I noticed some angry red spots on my nose and neck. The great doctors I say diagnosed it as a form of leprosy, and game me some skin cream to apply twice a day. Of course it didn't work and after a year or so it just got worse, then began my years of radiation and skin grafts around my eyes and face. I really can't say how many operations I had, I only know that I was cut more times than I had birthdays. The problem was that any one surgery never seemed to take care of my problem. The area around my right eye just keep coming back again and again.