Flashback Friday # 165

Mom's Surgery

Hello again. It's good to see you again. Thanks for stopping by.

I've written by times about the tile factory that Mom worked at, and I worked at on the weekends. Mom had been there for many years. She had done every job there (in fact she was the 1st female forklift driver there). All the years in the dusty condition that was the tile factory took a toll on her.

She hadn't been feeling quite right for a while. She finally went to the doctor (nobody in my family likes to go to the doctor, we are generally forced).When he looked down her achy throat, he was puzzled at what he saw. Concerned too. He told Mom that he didn't like what he had seen and was referring her to a throat specialist. Going to a regular doctor was bad enough, she really didn't like the though of going to a specialist.

When the specialist examined her, he said that the many years of dust from the clay used to make the tile had irritated her throat, and she was currently at a pre-cancerous state. He said that if she didn't have surgery to remove part of her larynx, she could very easily go into full blown cancer. He wanted to schedule the surgery as soon as possible.

Mom felt she didn't have any other option, so she scheduled the surgery. After her surgery, she couldn't talk at all. She kept a notebook beside her as she lounged on the couch. Since this was work related, I assume she was off on Workman's Comp. Any time she wanted to ask or tell us something, she would wave her hands and then write down what she wanted.

While she was off, it was decided that we would take a road trip to go see Sir Gattabout down at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.Mom had gotten some of her voice back, but not much. While we were down there, we took Gattabout out to dinner at Sambo's. Mom decided to sing the Sambo's theme song while we were there. Out squeaked and squawked "It's just what the family ooordered, Sambo's". It sounded like a gangly young boy going through puberty.

Mom recovered, and went back to work. The company found her a job working in the office so she wouldn't be subject to the dust.