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 167

It requires conflict to produce such a stomach situation as mine. In such a set-up as this, I do not need a [pylorous?] to cause a spasm. All that is necessary is I, my digestive tract, and my half-craw Then with food that is real, innocuous, my jejunum will bring into existence the same muscular contraction, the same champing-down pain that used to be confined to the [pylorous?] in a pain that would ring tears from an igneous rock. 
When all is said and done, however, I am very fortunate. To realize how really lucky I am, all I have to do is to look back and recall how Jimmy Arneill Sr. and Price would have done this - a gastroenterostomy - to me ten years ago. A crime perpetrated by ignorance it would have been then, but nevertheless a grave offence. Ignorance of the law does not excuse one from punishment. If I had not opposed surgery for my stomach then, I am that sure, I should have been quite beyond the salvaging point now that an operation could no longer be avoided. At the very best these ten intervening years could not have been otherwise than even more disconcerting and uncomfortable than those I actually lived. I have serious doubts that a second gastro=enterostomy could have been postponed this long, before a patching job was necessary. I shudder to think of my close escape. 
Strangely enough, to this day Dr Arneill has not the slightest conception of what my gastro-intestinal problem is all about. Dr Price - of course - is beyond all caring and quite out of the reach of all stimuli. Yet Arniell Sr. is more intelligent than the average. I shall always be thankful permitted no tampering with my stomach in 1930-31. It unquestionably would have meant a patching job long before this - would I still have been around - In a stomach, patchwork may not be applied to a mended place. Only sound tissues may be welded together again. 
I am only too grateful to destiny, that I have had Rivers Group of, Horton, Moersch the shrewd, sagacious heads, at Mayo's take care of me.

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It requires conflict to produce such a stomach situation as mine. In such a set-up as this, I do not need a [pylorous?] to cause a spasm. All that is necessary is I, my digestive tract, and my half-craw Then with food that is real, innocuous, my jejunum will bring into existence the same muscular contraction, the same champing-down pain that used to be confined to the [pylorous?] in a pain that would ring tears from an igneous rock. When all is said and done, however, I am very fortunate. To realize how really lucky I am, all I have to do is to look back and recall how Jimmy Arneill Sr. and Price would have done this - a gastroenterostomy - to me ten years ago. A crime perpetrated by ignorance it would have been then, but nevertheless a grave offence. Ignorance of the law does not excuse one from punishment. If I had not opposed surgery for my stomach then, I am that sure, I should have been quite beyond the salvaging point now that an operation could no longer be avoided. At the very best these ten intervening years could not have been otherwise than even more disconcerting and uncomfortable than those I actually lived. I have serious doubts that a second gastro=enterostomy could have been postponed this long, before a patching job was necessary. I shudder to think of my close escape. Strangely enough, to this day Dr Arneill has not the slightest conception of what my gastro-intestinal problem is all about. Dr Price - of course - is beyond all caring and quite out of the reach of all stimuli. Yet Arniell Sr. is more intelligent than the average. I shall always be thankful permitted no tampering with my stomach in 1930-31. It unquestionably would have meant a patching job long before this - would I still have been around - In a stomach, patchwork may not be applied to a mended place. Only sound tissues may be welded together again. I am only too grateful to destiny, that I have had Rivers Group of, Horton, Moersch the shrewd, sagacious heads, at Mayo's take care of me.