CHAPTER 16 - HEALTH
Written circa 1989 · From Richard's memoirs, recovered from his original WordPerfect files
I have been most fortunate most of my life in that I have never been involved in a serious accident or had any serious malady that could have incapacitated me for any great length of time.
What I am listing here is for the benefit of my posterity who may in the future have some of the same ailments I have and they will know where they came from.
I did contract the usual childhood diseases that were around during my youth, which included: Measles, Mumps, and Chicken pox. If there were others I cannot remember anything about them. My brother, Bob, had Scarlet Fever and we were quarantined because of it but Betty and I never got it.
When I reached the age of fifteen I realized that my eyesight didn't seem as good as most of my friends. Someone across the street would call to me by name and wave and I would look at them and wave but often I could not recognize who they were. For a while I went to an optometrist in Colton who gave me eye exercises about twice a week. He claimed I was slightly cross-eyed and the exercises were to correct the situation. I don't believe the exercises did me a bit of good. When I finally put on a pair of prescription glasses and saw what I had been missing I wished I had started sooner. Before, for me to look at an orange tree, it was just a tree of a blurred green. With the glasses, I could actually see the individual leaves and other details of the tree and its surroundings. Still, glasses have been a pain in the neck to me. I have worn them constantly since I first started, except about one year after I read a book entitled: “Sight without Glasses.” I drove all over the streets of Los Angeles without my glasses, and fortunately without an accident, but I eventually realized that the book was untrue. I look forward to the day that I am laid to rest and can go into the hereafter with my eyesight restored to normal and not have the glasses as crutches.
While playing basketball in high school I bent both of my little finger joints backward and had to have the coach pull on my fingers to snap the joints back in place. I don't think I broke the bones but my little fingers have been crooked ever since.
At age 18 I was 6 foot 2 inches tall, weighed 200 pounds, had a good physique. I had blue eyes and light brown hair, and was in excellent health.
When I first entered Stanford I got to my room (#350) in Encina Hall before my roommates arrived. I picked out my bunk and took a nap and when I woke up I had three roommates in the room waiting for me to stir. When I asked them why they didn't wake me they said: “You're too big and we didn't want to disturb you.” I have experienced all my life since then that no one has ever wanted to pick a fight with me because of my size. Little did they realize that most of them could have probably licked me easily as I have no boxing ability and have never really had to physically defend myself.
Earl Wobster of Colton was a fairly big kid and a town bully while I was growing up and whenever I saw him coming down the street I usually crossed over to the other side to avoid any confrontation. My first time home from Stanford I strolled down Eighth Street toward town and who came up the sidewalk but Earl Wobster. As I looked at him from some distance I saw that he wasn't so big anymore and I kept right on at the same pace and said: “Hi, Earl” as I passed him, and as I got beyond him a smile crossed my face and I savored the moment.
While I was in the Air Force I had boils and a knee injury that I have noted in a previous chapter.
At forty years of age (1957) I decided that DeVonne and I should have some health insurance and I signed up with Kaiser Permanente through the Group program at UCLA for the two of us.
From about that time on I usually got a sinus infection at least once a year, usually in the winter time. DeVonne figured it out that I caught a bad cold each year that turned into a sinus infection or Bronchitis. When I started showing symptoms she had me take massive doses of Vitamin C to check further complications. When I allowed the sinus infection or Bronchitis to get really bad I finally found that it took Tetracycline to knock it out of my system. I would take the Tetracycline four times a day for about ten days and then I was rid of the infection.
Once I thought I had a bad cold (which usually ended in a sinus infection) and I went to the Kaiser Hospital for treatment. I had to go through Emergency as I didn't have an appointment and I got a doctor who seemed right out of high school. I asked him to give me a prescription for Tetracycline, but after he examined me he told me to go home and take some aspirin. After a couple of days I was getting worse and I went back to him and demanded that he give me Tetracycline. He did so reluctantly and told me that if I came back to ask for another doctor. A few more days later I was still worse and I went back and asked specifically for him. He didn't like it but I think he was afraid I might have something and he called in a Dr. Chang who gave me a chest X-Ray and found I had Pneumonia. He told me to go home and stay in bed until I got better, at the same time telling me to stay on the Tetracycline. After a few weeks and a couple of more chest X-Rays he pronounced me cured. He then became my permanent doctor at the Kaiser Hospital.
In the late sixties every time I swallowed it seemed like I was trying to swallow my uvula. The uvula is the small, conical, fleshy mass of tissue suspended from the center of the soft palate above the back of the tongue. I went into the hospital on Emergency, again not having an appointment, and a doctor examined me who said maybe my uvula was somewhat elongated and that he could cut off a portion of it. He told me that I would experience an extremely sore throat for about three days after the operation, but I agreed to it anyway. He snipped off a piece and I went home. The first thing I did when I got home was to drink a glass of orange juice. The acid in the orange juice hit the spot and I thought my throat would burn up. After several minutes the pain subsided and I was okay again. However, as the doctor said, I had a very sore throat for the next three days.
Working in a hospital five days a week and having a job that required me to go into just about every department, including patient care areas, exposes one to a variety of diseases and illness and I probably picked up some of my ailments in so doing. In August 1974 I got a case of Cellulitis in my right leg. My leg, from the ankle to the upper calf, turned from a fiery red to a near magenta. Cellulitis is an inflammation of subcutaneous tissue, or the flesh just below the outer skin. I was sent to a dermatologist who diagnosed it and found I was taking Tetra-cycline for my sinuses and told me to stay on it until my leg cleared up, which I did.
Over the years I have acquired several small fatty tumors under the skin on various parts of my body. Unless they bother me I don't worry about them. I had one just above my left elbow and whenever I rested my upper arm on something it was uncomfortable due to the tumor. I had a couple more on my left arm; one that was in the way of my wristwatch, and still another one on my right arm that always bothered me. So, in 1976, I had them surgically removed. They were found benign, so I have left the others alone.
In 1976 I came home from work one day and could hardly get out of the car. Both of my knees were so stiff I could barely walk to the house. I was due for an annual checkup the following day with Dr. Chang so when I saw him he checked over my knees and gave me a shot of cortisone in each knee and told me it was Arthritis. When I told DeVonne she had me read a book entitled: “You can cure Arthritis” to see what it would do for me. I found that if I went on a diet it might help. We bought a Braun juice extractor and I went on a fresh vegetable and fresh fruit juice diet, including carrot juice and anything else I could extract the juice from, and by staying on that kind of diet for a few weeks my knees improved greatly. Like all diets, however, they aren't much for taste, etc., and I didn't stay on it very long. My knees have never been as bad since though. I continue to have flare ups on occasion but I have learned to live with it. I can no longer do any deep-knee bends and when I do get down on my knees I have a bit of trouble getting up again.
I have previously mentioned the Pumonary Embolism I had in November 1980. After I was released from the hospital at UCLA I continued to see Dr. Chang who regulated the amount of Coumadin I took. After about six months Dr. Chang told me I could go completely off it. Then Saturday, 23rd of January 1982, I went to the Temple with Jack Robison and as we walked up the ramp leading to the temple I encountered the same feeling that I had in November 1980, a loss of breath and exhaustion. I knew right away what it was but I said nothing to Jack and we went on and did a session at the temple. Monday I checked in with Dr. Chang and he hospitalized me immediately. I spent another nine days in the Kaiser Hospital with the same treatment I received at UCLA on the previous illness, which was taking Heparin intravenously until I finally switched to oral doses of Coumadin. When I was released Dr. Chang and I agreed that I would stay on Coumadin for the rest of my life and not take chances with another embolism.
In 1985 the Kaiser Hospital in Woodland Hills opened and I transferred from the Panorama City facility as it is much closer to home. In so doing I was assigned to Dr. Victor Lewin who has been my doctor since then. On my first examination with him on 14 January 1986, he was quite thorough as he wanted to see first hand what condition I was in. I liked the idea, and I like Dr. Lewin. He found that I had a slight heart murmur and a hernia, and set up the appropriate appointments for me.
On 16 January 1986 I took an echocardiagram to check my heart murmur. Dr. Seegers said there was nothing for me to worry about. A slight thickening around the valves is common in a person my age. The nurse ran the procedure and it was put on a VCR tape. Afterward I was able to look at the tape and I could actually see my heart valves opening and closing. It was all quite fascinating.
In June of 1968, at DeVonne's prodding, I had my hearing tested at the Conejo Hearing Aid Center that is about three blocks from our home in Westlake Village. I ended up buying a “Miracle Ear” for my right ear at a cost of $850.00. It has improved my hearing to some degree but I don't think it was a miracle. It is a bother to wear and, of course, when the battery goes dead it is useless. I had a recent check up (June 1989) and they now recommend that I get another aid for the left ear. That is too much for me. I will probably get along with the one as long as I can. With an aid in both ears I don't think I could listen on the phone without feedback from the hearing aid. Anyway, there are some advantages to not being able to hear all the time. It is nice to be able to “turn off” the volume and ignore what is said around you. I always thought that I heard enough anyway and it was just as well not to hear more.
On 5 September 1986, after some delay in my appointment, I had my hernia operation. Dr. David Dean was my surgeon and did a fine job. I had to go off my Coumadin for four days so I wouldn't bleed to death. I was in and out of the hospital all in one day and I was quite sore and stiff for a couple of days but back to normal shortly. One week later he removed the metal staples from my incision with a staple remover without pain.
Thursday, 7 April 1988 I built some storage shelves for our middle bedroom that we had turned into a storage space. Some time after I had finished, according to DeVonne, I came into the house and asked what all the “stuff” was doing in the hall. (We had placed it there to make room for me to get the shelves into the bedroom.) She told me why, and I asked her: “What shelves?” She took me in the bedroom and showed me the shelves and I asked her where they came from. She told me I had just built them. I said: “Sheesh!” By that time DeVonne was getting scared that I had a mini-stroke. I didn't make sense in a lot of other conversation we had but she got me to lie down for a few hours. Later I seemed to be all right but I could remember none of the previous incidents. I still can't to this day. The following Monday Dicky came over and, with our Home Teacher, Bill Maxfield, administered to me. Nothing like it has occurred since, at least to my knowledge.
About every four weeks I check in at the local Kaiser clinic in Newbury Park and have my blood checked. They take a sample from my arm and test it for thickness (or thinness). It's called a “Pro-time” procedure. Then they call the results into Dr. Lewin at the Hospital in Woodland Hills and his nurse phones me to let me know it I need to change the dosage or stay the same. I am taking 7 1/2 a day, six days a week and 10 mg on the seventh now.
As of this writing, I am somewhat overweight (235 pounds) which is the contributing factor to my high blood pressure (140/90 on 11 May 1989). If I would lose about 15 more pounds and eat less sweets, especially chocolate, I would be in great shape for a man my age.