Rheumatic fever

1956. I had a sore right knee; the doctor thought I had hurt it playing footy, despite my denials. He tried to manipulate it, and got cross when when I couldn’t keep my hip stable so he could apply sufficient pressure to my knee! So he taped it up with a sticky elastic bandage and sent me home to rest it. Within a day or so I was complaining of pain in my left knee too. Now he somehow figured out I had rheumatic fever, which was fairly serious. I spent 2 weeks in hospital having to lie in bed the whole time, then I went to stay with Auntie Bae (not sure why, but she was a nurse), again being told to do nothing, stay as still as I could. I don’t remember how long that went for, maybe another 2 weeks. Eventually I went home, and had a total of 3 months away from school. I had to swallow spoonfuls of crushed aspirin for the pain, sort of a paste/suspension I think. It gave me indigestion, for which I remember I didn’t get much sympathy from Dad. Mum and Dad got Readers Digest magazines every month, and they always had some medical article which I used to read. This was not a good time for me as I could come up with all sorts of things that were wrong with me.

One risk of rheumatic fever was damage to heart valves, but nothing has ever been found wrong with mine. It used to be a big deal for dental work too, as there was concern about the introduction of infection that would cause more problems. I used to have antibiotics before treatment until well into middle age, but not any more.