My First 56 Years

Late one night when we were home, we were playing with Jenny. Charlie was throwing her up in the air and catching her. We were laughing and she was giggling. It was one the few times we were actually smiling and having a fun time. Then it happened. He through her up and her leg caught on his shirt. He couldn't catch her. He reached and reached but she kept falling. The laughter suddenly stopped. She fell and landed on the side of her head where her pink barest with points on each end pierced the side of her head above her ear. She passed out and turned white. He picked her up and laid her on the bed. We didn't have a phone so I ran to the corner store and used the pay phone to call Mama's house to see if anyone was there with a car. No one came to visit her so of course there was no one. I tried to stay calm and not alarm her but she could tell there was something wrong. I ran back to the apartment building and I heard blessed loud crying. I at least knew she was breathing. I quickly ran inside and Charlie said she was vomiting. I ran upstairs to use the neighbor's phone since we didn't have anymore change. I called the emergency room at the hospital and they said we needed to get her there as soon as possible. We had no recourse but to carry her to the hospital on Eighth Street on foot. She was laughing again and seemed like she was returning to normal but we could tell she just wasn't there yet. They checked her over. She began vomiting again in the examining room. I told them she still wasn't "right" yet. They told us to take her home but if she started vomiting again to bring her in and they would admit her. By morning she was vomiting again so we picked her up and carried her back. Her Dr was Dr Dumont the same Dr that had delivered her and had taken care of my checkups when I was a child. She was admitted and I stayed by her side all morning. The nurses said they needed to do some tests and if we needed to go home we could. We were so tired with very little sleep so we felt like maybe a break would be good. We were standing in the elevator when I had remembered my sunglasses. I headed back to the room where I heard blood curdling screams coming from Jenny's room. There were four nurses trying to hold her down to draw blood. I lost it and ordered them to leave her alone. They said they had Dr's orders to draw blood and that was the only way they could get her to hold still. I asked them to call the Dr and let me speak to him. He yelled and said "It's your daughter, do what you want.” I said I wanted to take her home. He released her and we went home. Slowly she began showing signs of her old self. She never showed signs of repercussions from the accident and he never threw her up in the air again.
We couldn’t catch up on the rent, so we were moving again. We got the Volkswagen out of the shop, so we had transportation at least. We moved one block north of Frederick over on tenth street. We could make payments each week when Charlie got paid. The rent was 75.00 a month so we paid 18.75 a week. Life was so much easier finally.