DIY History | Transcribe | Iowa Women’s Lives: Letters and Diaries | Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s

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Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s

Page 125

before having handed it back without comment. I can just about imagine what passed through his mind, for he pretty well knew even then that I would not get to go.
And now there was nothing else for me to do but to agree to take the histamine. i was up against it and histamine halfway promised a way out. Soon enough to think of surgery how all else had failed - and I wasn't going to face it until there was no other way. The seventeen days histamine reprieve seemed like seventeen days added on to a death sentence. Anything can happen in seventeen days. We never give up hope.
With this in mind I gladly grasped the opportunity to the histamine and agreed to go to St Mary's with the understanding that I be released to attend my opening. With the understanding too that after my trip to New York I was to return for further hospitalization - whatever that may have meant. At first I had been told, "You can get yourself a nice little room somewhere near St Mary's and go to the hospital for the histamine. It would be better still for you to be at St Mary's. Why not do that? You have hospital insurance and it would be cheaper for you. That is a fine idea for you."
Hospital insurance doesn't cover half the hospital expenses, as a matter of fact. But I wasn't feeling well and I was very weary. Despite my St Mary's complex and the fact that I had registered many oaths in heaven never to return to that god-damn monkey-trap it took little convincing to get me back into the hospital. Rest was what I desired over all. Moreover I wanted my half and half brought to me in bed. I was too weary to go after it myself; too weary to forage for myself; too weary to offer any resistance.
With the arrangements made, and about to leave - as a matter of fact I already was out in the hall - when Dr Rivers called me back and Dr Hartman in. To him he briefly and effectively outlined the whole set-up and asked his advice; rang Dr Harton and competently laid the whole arrangement before him. He also told him he was sending me down to him for a consultation that very afternoon. "We will either prove or disprove a theory."

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before having handed it back without comment. I can just about imagine what passed through his mind, for he pretty well knew even then that I would not get to go. And now there was nothing else for me to do but to agree to take the histamine. i was up against it and histamine halfway promised a way out. Soon enough to think of surgery how all else had failed - and I wasn't going to face it until there was no other way. The seventeen days histamine reprieve seemed like seventeen days added on to a death sentence. Anything can happen in seventeen days. We never give up hope. With this in mind I gladly grasped the opportunity to the histamine and agreed to go to St Mary's with the understanding that I be released to attend my opening. With the understanding too that after my trip to New York I was to return for further hospitalization - whatever that may have meant. At first I had been told, "You can get yourself a nice little room somewhere near St Mary's and go to the hospital for the histamine. It would be better still for you to be at St Mary's. Why not do that? You have hospital insurance and it would be cheaper for you. That is a fine idea for you." Hospital insurance doesn't cover half the hospital expenses, as a matter of fact. But I wasn't feeling well and I was very weary. Despite my St Mary's complex and the fact that I had registered many oaths in heaven never to return to that god-damn monkey-trap it took little convincing to get me back into the hospital. Rest was what I desired over all. Moreover I wanted my half and half brought to me in bed. I was too weary to go after it myself; too weary to forage for myself; too weary to offer any resistance. With the arrangements made, and about to leave - as a matter of fact I already was out in the hall - when Dr Rivers called me back and Dr Hartman in. To him he briefly and effectively outlined the whole set-up and asked his advice; rang Dr Harton and competently laid the whole arrangement before him. He also told him he was sending me down to him for a consultation that very afternoon. "We will either prove or disprove a theory."