DIY History | Transcribe | Iowa Women’s Lives: Letters and Diaries | Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s

Transcribe
Translate

Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s

Page 075

84. bustle, and especially the glamorous excitement of the far and Near East. I couldn't bear to miss even one, not even in Hawaii, but I did. There is no other twenty-four hours of my life that could compare to the period following this disastrous luncheon. Yes, I was certainly put to bed. Put there with the torso of my body one big thick irregularly-edged welt; a relief [illegible] for certain; my face distorted beyond recognition and sight, eyes puffed shut, ears rigid and red, chin and cheeks frozen stiffly beyond movement of muscle. But most uncomfortable of all was the indescribably painful breathing of lungs that were wheezing with hives. There were none of those good adrenalin capsules in our baggage that the skilful physician had given me for just such an emergency. They were safely reposing, stowed away as they were in the medicine chest at home. The ship's doctor was summoned but he had untold difficulty with the English language and was equally powerless to cope with the hives and do anything for them to ease me. Unable to do anything he went away to his cabin and later returned with the enlightening information that mine happened to be a base of "h-i-v-e-s-". As though I didn't know what I had stumbled into! I had been distractedly aware for some time but his was nevertheless an important announcement and discovery. He obviously had looked up the translation in a German dictionary.

Saving...

84. bustle, and especially the glamorous excitement of the far and Near East. I couldn't bear to miss even one, not even in Hawaii, but I did. There is no other twenty-four hours of my life that could compare to the period following this disastrous luncheon. Yes, I was certainly put to bed. Put there with the torso of my body one big thick irregularly-edged welt; a relief [illegible] for certain; my face distorted beyond recognition and sight, eyes puffed shut, ears rigid and red, chin and cheeks frozen stiffly beyond movement of muscle. But most uncomfortable of all was the indescribably painful breathing of lungs that were wheezing with hives. There were none of those good adrenalin capsules in our baggage that the skilful physician had given me for just such an emergency. They were safely reposing, stowed away as they were in the medicine chest at home. The ship's doctor was summoned but he had untold difficulty with the English language and was equally powerless to cope with the hives and do anything for them to ease me. Unable to do anything he went away to his cabin and later returned with the enlightening information that mine happened to be a base of "h-i-v-e-s-". As though I didn't know what I had stumbled into! I had been distractedly aware for some time but his was nevertheless an important announcement and discovery. He obviously had looked up the translation in a German dictionary.