05.26.2003 | 9:37 am

Ernest, my Father

It is unusual what motivates a person, after a lifetime of procrastination, to finally start to put into words, in readable text, the story of another human being. For me, the catalyst was finding a little Diaring called "fatherless". This is a tiny capsule of my father's life, a start.

If you have been reading my diary, it is not hard to surmise that I am a child of the 60's. I was born in the 50's, my parents were married in the 40's, grew-up in the 30's and they were born in the 20's.

In the 20's and 30's, there were no antibiotics to cure such common ailments as strep throat and ear infections. Ernest, my father, was plagued with ear infections from an early age. It doesn't seem right, somehow, that those gentle souls who suffer the most, suffer most unfairly. He was one such soul.

I recall his mother, my Grandmother, describing the pain and agony he experienced through long, agonizing nights, battling terrible ear aches. The chill of the night would bring on pain and pressure so unbearable, until blessedly, the ear drum would rupture, and his pain would be relieved. So often were these nighttime episodes repeated, that eventually my father lost his hearing completly in his right ear. At last, as he grew, the condition subsided, and he was able to move on and away from the dreadful affliction. His young years were good: growing up, finishing high school, and then on to college.

I have a picture of my father, his parents and siblings, taken about 1938 or 39. My Grandmother looks sober, pensive, very serious. She knew that her two sons would be going off to war, and she was sad.

Dad and Uncle John, his brother, did indeed go off to different branches of the service. Uncle John was a photographer in the Army. He would lie in the belly of the bomber and take pictures. He was stationed in England throughout WWII. Dad was a medic in the Navy. He wanted so badly to be a doctor, but this is the closest he ever came to the medical profession. He was stationed in several places throughout the northwest and into Idaho. I did not know until a few years ago that the US Navy had a submarine testing ground up in northern Idaho, very close to where my sister now lives. It was during this time that the ear infections surfaced once again, and became an ugly, painful monster, that would plague my father for the rest of his life.

Many people do not realize this, but effective antibiotic treatmens for infections were not fully developed until close to the end of WWII. Consequently, when my father began to have infections again, they became acute so quickly, that the infections went straight into the mastoid bone, right behind the ear. This is a very serious, life threatening condition. The only course that could be taken was surgery, to cut out the infected bone. Dad was given a medical discharge from the Navy and subsiquently had four mastoid surgeries to remove infection.

I can't even begin to describe the pain of those surgeries. He was really a test case for the Veterans Hospital personel, for they were treading in new territory. Each time they would open him up and remove bone and scar tissue, more and denser scar tissue would grow to take the place of that which had been removed.

During this period in my father's life, he was still going to college, he had met my mother and they were married. He started teaching and then the kids started coming.

Dad was able to work for about 4 years and then he just couldn't work. My mother found a job teaching, and he had to live in Arizona, in a warmer climate, away from us during the winters. After two lonely winters, the whole family moved to Arizona.

Last year, when we knew we would have to move mother to a care facility, we cleaned out her home. As we readied the home to be sold, I came upon his diaries that he religeously kept for all the years of wretching pain and suffering. Each time I read them, my heart aches, and my stomach turns..the kind of sick turning when you can't stand to see or hear something awful. What stands out so vividly in these accounts is, that through all the pain and misery, he still worked, he never gave up, and he never complained.

The best way I can describe what was happening is that his headaches seemed to be like migrane headaches in intensity. In conjunction with the headaches he would experience epileptic type auras and seizures, although it was not epilepsy. The headache pain would build and intensify, then he would have a seizure. The pain would then be somewhat releived, but the seizure would leave him drained and lethargic. The cycle would repeat again and again.

Diary Entries 1960

Jan.1 Unpacked and got things stowed away.

Jan 2 Cold worse. Siezure 10 PM.

Jan 3 Seizure 9AM. Wife witness.

Jan.4 Taught 6th grade. Had a good headache when I got home, which lasted all night. (if it was a BAD headache he would call it a BEAST)

Jan.5 Taught school and scouts. Head didn't hurt so bad. (his B-day)

Jan.6 Went to Gilbert again. Taught. Nauseated most of the day and pain sever in the afternoon.

Jan.7 Went to Phoenix for a VA ratings exam ( VA is Veterans Administration)

Jan.8 Two seizures this afternoon. Rested. Headache.

Jan.9 Built shelves in the closets. Seizure at 2PM on the bed. Nauseated off and on for two weeks now. Head felt pretty good.

Jan.10 Went to church per usual. Seizure at 2PM. Head felt as if would burst.

This was a typical week in his life: neverending pain, seizues, back to work, serve, pain and so on. For the 15 years mom and dad were married, he wrote about his afflictions, noting his episodes, his pain, his medications and side effects from the relentless assault on his body.

Finally, an May 25, 1965, the last and worst seizue took it's toll. At 43 years old, his life was spent.

We have tremendous faith, our family. I remember at the time of his passing, I did not feel hopeless or alone. I knew that he was not in pain any more and that God had a higher purpose for him.

Ernest my Father: brave boy, scholar, teacher, husband, father, better than I could hope to be.

catsnapples~ at life

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