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

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

Page 041

Nombutal capsules he had bargained for an obtained at bedtime. He slept. He slept so well in fact that it was almost impossible to arouse him for his breakfast in the morning.
As every where else in every walk of life, hospitals too have their quotas and more of whiners. Whailers are trying anywhere but among other patients who have their own trouble and are trying to stand up under them, they can be demoralizing and are despicable. The patient who has courage and can take it without a whimper - and does - is the one who rightly receives the ovations. He is the one to be commended.
One such was a woman from Washington State who was my roommate just enough to be prepared for surgery. She - it was - who really taught me the meaning of courage. This lady from Seattle - a decidedly not well to do person - came on to Rochester from her home all alone, knowing she was to have a colostomy, a very messy sort of operation. It really requires two rather major operations following rather closely upon each other. Not once did the express one word of fear, or despair, or complaint. She went upstairs smiling bravely and cheerfully and went through the ordeal all by herself. She comes out of surgery wan and thin but still with a broad smile - an example truly to be cited for courage.
A middle-aged local woman of forty-five or fifty exemplified the other extreme the whiner. This woman came in to have a polyp scrapped from the uterus, a comparatively simple process, I am told. She carried on continuously.

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Nombutal capsules he had bargained for an obtained at bedtime. He slept. He slept so well in fact that it was almost impossible to arouse him for his breakfast in the morning. As every where else in every walk of life, hospitals too have their quotas and more of whiners. Whailers are trying anywhere but among other patients who have their own trouble and are trying to stand up under them, they can be demoralizing and are despicable. The patient who has courage and can take it without a whimper - and does - is the one who rightly receives the ovations. He is the one to be commended. One such was a woman from Washington State who was my roommate just enough to be prepared for surgery. She - it was - who really taught me the meaning of courage. This lady from Seattle - a decidedly not well to do person - came on to Rochester from her home all alone, knowing she was to have a colostomy, a very messy sort of operation. It really requires two rather major operations following rather closely upon each other. Not once did the express one word of fear, or despair, or complaint. She went upstairs smiling bravely and cheerfully and went through the ordeal all by herself. She comes out of surgery wan and thin but still with a broad smile - an example truly to be cited for courage. A middle-aged local woman of forty-five or fifty exemplified the other extreme the whiner. This woman came in to have a polyp scrapped from the uterus, a comparatively simple process, I am told. She carried on continuously.