January 4, 1999, our daughter, 14 days before turning 35, had heart surgery. Surgery is so far advanced from years past, say just ten years ago. Hers was called a heart ablation; ten years ago it would have been an open heart surgery which would have entailed opening her chest cavity to work on her heart. Today, with laser and other technical methods and procedures, which I cannot explain, the procedure was accomplished by going up through the veins from the groin area. There, the small punctures were made and the instruments (camera and catheter) were inserted into each side and guided to the heart area where a team of four doctors meticulously worked together to cauterize the two extra access ways that were causing our daughter’s heart to race, cause weakness and if left untreated could cause a heart attack and perhaps even death. The procedure was done while she was awake, in fact she needed to be awake to help direct the doctors by comments or reactions during the procedure.

The procedure took six hours; the first three in preparation for the actual surgery. She left her house at 5:15 a.m. the morning of the surgery and was home, walked in the door under her own steam, sat down on he couch and talked about it at 4:45 p.m. that same day. A bit tired and some soreness in the groin area was the extent of post surgical reaction. Two band-aids covered the puncture wounds.

My mind got to thinking about the "good old days" we hear people talk about. Well, I am sure there are some things the good old days may have been famous for, but is it more in our minds (nostalgia) that those days were good than they actually were? When people had to suffer with such a thing as our daughter did with her heart and no way to correct it, no antibiotics or even penicillin to combat deadly infection--no doctors close at hand in an emergency room to go to, these do not conjure up "good old days"!

My grandfather died from a work-related accident when he was struck by a board going through a planer at a lumber mill. It hit him in the abdomen bursting a bowel and gangrene set in. Even though he was in the hospital there were no antibiotics in 1945 to counteract the deadly poison so within a week he was dead.

Thinking back past 1945 to earlier days, say pioneer days, the many people who suffered long years who could now be helped by modern drugs or surgical methods, the prairie women came to my mind. They tried their best to doctor children who had mere colds that easily could turn into pneumonia, bronchitis and severe ear infections leaving some perhaps deaf. Just think of the agony these folk went through in the "good old days".

Such diseases as tuberculosis, known as the white plague, took several members of a family related to me, in the early 1900's. Today these folks could have been cured.

Also, common everyday tasks such as dishwashing, cooking, doing laundry required long arduous hours of work, perhaps with the one doing them not feeling well. It had to be done. A mother cooking three meals a day for often a large family, having to carry the water into the kitchen, catching, killing and cleaning a chicken before even being able to fry it. It took time--lots of time! Fortunately with a large family, children could be put to work also, in fact it was expected.

Yes, there were many joys of the "good old days". Families were perhaps closer, but families were also separated by those who were adventurous and took off for far away countries--perhaps even across the seas. Parents were never to see some of their children again because transportation and roads were not as today where we can be thousands of miles in just several hours; and to think we complain of potholes after a severe winter spell. Patience!

The "Good Old Days" may be fun to dream about but I think I'm satisfied to live today with our modern conveniences.

Written by JEAN STEEL VENRICK, wife of The Wordwright
January 31, 1999

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The above story was originally published in print in a journal, KRITIKOSITY,
circulated in the monthly bundle of the American Amateur Press Association,
Journal #19, May 1999. The Wordwright