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The room was dimly lit as
hospital rooms always seem to be. It was during the night when there was a
constant hollow sounding, clatter to prevail continually. In this small
ward there were six beds but only three were occupied. The huge, heavy
stone structure was owned by Native Americans, the Pawnee, to be specific
but it was named Pawnee-Ponca Hospital. Of course, everything looked like
a picture of institutions where military men during war were treated. The
beds were white of leggy small metal pipes and they were tall which
brought a person in them up to the edge of the span of windows. Lush green
trees grew in the low-lying land where a water table was close below. They
made the view like a manicured park where children and families of
patients strolled about while they waited on someone to be treated. Those
were the days when children were strictly forbidden to enter a hospital in
the year of 1959.
This is a picture of Chilocco Indian School but the architecture is very
similar to the hospital at Pawnee, Oklahoma.
“Something in that pill they gave me is making
me so sleepy,” I told the patient in the bed next to me. She didn't answer
me and only lowered her eyes. I expected no response. She was of my tribe
and it was our teaching to be respectfully quiet. Her half-smile and
shaking of her head were enough to let me know the woman understood.
“If no doctor shows up here I will not be
responsible for what happens.” I had heard one of the nurses speak into
the telephone after nurse Bahayalle repeatedly tried to summon a doctor.
At this time I was well aware of the difficult delivery just experienced
and that if the quick thinking nurse, had not been present, probably,
neither my baby nor I would have survived.
A bungled spinal block, blood spewing on all
the nurses and doctor, threshing, fighting, sitting up on the table after
the failed spinal block, these were all parts of my nightmare. This blond,
handsome boy, who was my doctor looked more like someone on a basketball
team and had probably not even completed his internship, but he was steady
and he did his best.
Rod, my husband, was in and out of the nursery and my room watching both
Rhonda, our baby, and me after the delivery. He said the doctor held our
baby through the first night and gently tapped the bottoms of her feet
when she stopped breathing. I was thankful for that kindness.
Like a ghostly apparition in white the young
doctor now had suddenly appeared out of the half light and was standing at
the end of my bed. His size was overwhelmed by the spaciousness of the
room and he looked forlorn and set away from all others. There was no
malice for this man who was little more than a boy. In his youth he had
been quite alone in the decisions made during my child's delivery. He
bravely stepped up when no one else did and carried on.
The doctor came around the bed to my side. It
was as if he didn’t really want to talk with me. There was no load of
patients scheduled upon his time, not at this far out place at the edge of
vast prairie lands where only ranches occasionally dotted the horizon.
This hospital served basically two tribes, the Pawnee and Ponca. Neither
one of them had much of a population. At the time the Native people had
maintained a strength and good health from their ancestors. There were
serious concerns with tuberculosis, diabetes and such diseases but the
tuberculosis cases were sent on to Shawnee, Oklahoma at a hospital there
called a sanitarium. The environment here was one of an unhurried and
relaxed atmosphere.
“I must tell you, because your delivery was very difficult your baby was
quite seriously injured. I feel she will be retarded in some way, either
physically or mentally.”
It was as if he, rather than I, was showing
anger. What thoughts must be going through his mind? Was he angry with the
doctor who fled to vacation time then returned the next day to deliver a
perfect baby by caesarian for the town's well-known street walker? Maybe
he believed that because I, who was of fair skin, should not have intruded
upon the dedication he felt was to be made only to those who were truly,
Native American. So many times, this happens to those of mixed Native
American and Caucasian blood who are using their inherited rights. This
was the curse and the silent persecution the “half-blood,” often endured.
If the issue had been voiced to the one who practiced it they would have
been loud in their denial. Only the person experiencing the punishment
knew. It has a name, though, and is called, reverse-discrimination.
Certainly, he did not know even a whisper of the depth of possession a
Native American feels for what had been issued to them as payment for
treasured home lands. He had no understanding of that, not even a clue. No
wonder the man felt anger, he was caught between issues that were totally
foreign to him as much as if he had been in another country and was the
intruder. He had no proper back-up. The youthful doctor had to do what he
could with what he had. The worst thing of all, at that time, even though
I had made regular visits and had been met all their requirements, in
actuality no kind of proper teaching was made with Lamaze as is done
today.
http://homeschoolinformation.com/Family/pregnancy.htm
A kind, world of blackness was waiting for me
and I slipped away from all things bright and harsh to sleep a dreamless
sleep. |
