Sunday, October 9, 2011

Silent Pain

Only two months after Timmy and I were married, I had to undergo an emergency operation to remove a large cyst from my right ovary.  The surgeon also had to remove one-third of the ovary.  It took six weeks to recover.
Meanwhile, I began to have headaches every day. My family doctor, who was the same doctor that delivered me at birth, gave me a prescription for a narcotic  to relieve the headaches. It helped somewhat for awhile. 
Six months after the operation, I had yet another large ovarian cyst.  This time it was on the left side, and again the surgeon had to remove one-third of my left ovary.
While I was recovering in the hospital, with Timmy by my side, the doctor calmly told us if we planned to have children, we should start trying now. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.  Sure I wanted children...someday, but we were still newlyweds, and I was barely eighteen years old. I kept thinking what if I can never conceive?
So after my six weeks recovery, again, we began monitoring my temperature everyday, and charting it on the graph that the doctor had given to me. If I had a rise in my temperature, that was suppose to indicate ovulation, the best time to conceive. Sometimes, I never had a temperature rise, which meant that I likely didn't ovulate that month.  Finally I became pregnant!  I was so excited.  Now we will have a child.  I told everyone I knew, including the regular customers at Dairy Queen.  One week later, I miscarried. It was the worst feeling I had ever known. And since everyone knew I was pregnant, they'd make comments about when the baby was due, and what are we going to name it?  It was excruciating to have to tell them "There is no baby."
The doctor said we couldn't try again for three months.  That was the longest three months of my life! 

Silent Pain

Now that Timmy and I were married, and living together in our own little house, we were so happy.  We'd waited two years and seven months to get married, and honestly, to finally have sexual relations.  We both were virgins when we married! Believe it or don't, but it's true!
I had quit my job at Dairy Queen, because I was to start a new job at the local funeral home.  I began working there on the Monday after we got married. When I arrived, the manager, who hired me as the receptionist, informed me that he was leaving in three days to begin his own funeral service. I was devastated.  He had been so kind to me, and was a very likable man. His name was Larry Dutton, and today he owns one of the most successful funeral homes in Wichita Falls, Texas.
A few days later, the new manager came.His name was Don Freeman. He seemed nice enough. However, he found fault in everything I did.  Once he even showed me the proper way to place a postage stamp on an envelope!  He was a complete perfectionist, and I began to wonder if I had made a terrible mistake by accepting this job.
Then one morning when I arrived to work, he told me that he didn't really need a receptionist anymore. He told me to go home, and the funeral home would continue to pay me for two weeks.
I left, driving in tears.  I couldn't believe, I had just got fired!
Later I discovered that his wife had replaced me as the new receptionist!
I then went back to work at Dairy Queen and quickly worked my way up to assistant manager.  I enjoyed working there, and I felt important, because I had so many responsibilities.
I actually got Sandy, my best friend at the time, a job there. We girls had a lot of good times at Dairy Queen.

While working there the first time, I met a gentleman, Gordon Cole.  He was a customer who came through the drive-thru often, ordering the same thing every time. I'm not sure how it happened, but he and I quickly became friends.  I would stand at the drive-thru window (if there were no one else in line), and we'd talk as long as we could.  He was at least twenty years older than me and divorced.  I remember when he would drive up to the drive-thru, all of my fellow employees/friends would say, "Kathy, your boyfriend's here!".  I'd immediately go to the window to see him and talk to him.  By this time, I was already engaged to Timmy, and Gordon knew it.  However, that didn't stop either of us from becoming secret friends.  I invited him to our wedding.  He didn't go, but gave me a card with $100 bill inside.  More about Gordon later.


This is just a few of the DQ girls.  That's me front & center .