What Is… RHEUMATISM?

I had a good relationship with Barbara, my sister. I was her older brother. She looked to me for protection even when we were young. There was this one time, when we were living at my grandmother’s house. I guess Barbara was five and I was seven. She was playing on a partially frozen river near the house. I saw her and her friends and chastised them.

“This is dangerous,” I said. “You can’t do this. I’ll test the ice for you.”

I tested the ice; it cracked, and I fell in.

Unfortunately, my directional judgment was not equal to my swimming abilities, and I surfaced on the other side of the river. A railway worker not too far away spotted me and came over to help me out and took me back home. We had to walk about a quarter mile to get to the bridge, and then we had to cross the bridge and then walk all the way back to the house. By the time I got to the house I was near frozen to death, soaking wet in winter clothing. My mother and my grandmother undressed me and tried to warm me up.

That was the beginning of about twelve years of terrible rheumatism—rheumatic pain behind my knees. I used to wake up crying in the night, and my mother or dad would get up and rub my legs with Sloan’s liniment. And then one day, the pain just went away. Go figure.

My sister, Barbara, and me as toddlers.