Merthiolate - Hellish punishment on earth
Thinking back to the previously mentioned book about someone's life, it got me thinking about childhood illnesses and injuries. Something I've never understood, is the use of Merthiolate on children who have serious open cuts.
The one thing I know of that would make me flat-out LIE about being gashed open and bleeding was that little bottle of purple pain made liquid. If you wanted to bring terror into my soul and make a preschooler of my small size fight her father so hard that even that a normal-sized (and strong) grown man could barely stop me from struggling out of his grip, all you had to do was let me hear my grandmother say, "I'm gonna go get the Merthiolate."
I don't know what time of year it happened, though I want to say that it was summertime. I have a vague memory of wearing shorts when it happened.
My brother was riding me down the street on the back of his bike back toward our grandmother's house on the corner of the street, and all the while he was telling me "Keep your feet out of the spokes." I know I kept telling him,"Okay, I will" and at the same time, I was wondering what spokes were.
Just at the time I had that thought once more, it happened. My left heel went into the spokes, which promptly tore the skin from the back of my foot. I don't remember what happened immediately after that - probably because it felt like my entire foot had just been forcibly peeled. I think I screamed.
The next thing I do remember was lying on the porch, my father holding me down on that grey painted floor, and my grandmother uttering those feared words:
"Hold on to her. I'm gonna get the Merthiolate."
Now I know my grandmother wasn't trying to scare me (I know she loved me, despite my being "a little imp" as my father puts it) , and I know it wasn't her intention to deliberately cause me more pain, but when they put that evil purple iodine on me, I realized that having my heel ripped apart was virtually painless in comparison.
I always had the same reaction to that stuff, no matter what small amount it was applied to an open wound. Gut-wrenching, white-hot, aching, burning pain that went all the way through my flesh and makes me think of how it felt every time I broke a bone as being preferable. Not stinging... more like I was being tortured with hot irons by the Spanish Inquisition.
"I didn't expect a sort of Spanish Inquisition...."
"NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
Gotta love Monty Python's Flying Circus for bringing classical history back to life, huh?
I've had eye surgery and plastic surgery (with about 120 stitches and 5 pounds of flesh removed) and though people tell me that for them the same surgeries were incredibly painful, they really didn't hurt me that much at all. A little stinging with my eyes, and some discomfort (I have a whole bottle of mepergan to prove I didn't hurt after my plastic surgery) were all. Could it be that a childhood of Merthiolate desensitized me to other kinds of pain? I give blood and get shots regularly without batting an eye, and I was the little girl who ran from the nurses, and then screamed when they stuck me. Hmm.
I was checking to see if this stuff is the same as Mercurochrome (I guess it isn't, though I think they're both evil) and I found this article: Eli Lilly and Thimerosal - heck, no wonder it hurt so much - it's nearly 50% ethylmercury. As in mercury - poisonous to humans, don't break open thermometers and play with it.... Maybe that's what's wrong with my head - Mercury poisoning. LOL
The one thing I know of that would make me flat-out LIE about being gashed open and bleeding was that little bottle of purple pain made liquid. If you wanted to bring terror into my soul and make a preschooler of my small size fight her father so hard that even that a normal-sized (and strong) grown man could barely stop me from struggling out of his grip, all you had to do was let me hear my grandmother say, "I'm gonna go get the Merthiolate."
I don't know what time of year it happened, though I want to say that it was summertime. I have a vague memory of wearing shorts when it happened.
My brother was riding me down the street on the back of his bike back toward our grandmother's house on the corner of the street, and all the while he was telling me "Keep your feet out of the spokes." I know I kept telling him,"Okay, I will" and at the same time, I was wondering what spokes were.
Just at the time I had that thought once more, it happened. My left heel went into the spokes, which promptly tore the skin from the back of my foot. I don't remember what happened immediately after that - probably because it felt like my entire foot had just been forcibly peeled. I think I screamed.
The next thing I do remember was lying on the porch, my father holding me down on that grey painted floor, and my grandmother uttering those feared words:
"Hold on to her. I'm gonna get the Merthiolate."
Now I know my grandmother wasn't trying to scare me (I know she loved me, despite my being "a little imp" as my father puts it) , and I know it wasn't her intention to deliberately cause me more pain, but when they put that evil purple iodine on me, I realized that having my heel ripped apart was virtually painless in comparison.
I always had the same reaction to that stuff, no matter what small amount it was applied to an open wound. Gut-wrenching, white-hot, aching, burning pain that went all the way through my flesh and makes me think of how it felt every time I broke a bone as being preferable. Not stinging... more like I was being tortured with hot irons by the Spanish Inquisition.
"I didn't expect a sort of Spanish Inquisition...."
"NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
Gotta love Monty Python's Flying Circus for bringing classical history back to life, huh?
I've had eye surgery and plastic surgery (with about 120 stitches and 5 pounds of flesh removed) and though people tell me that for them the same surgeries were incredibly painful, they really didn't hurt me that much at all. A little stinging with my eyes, and some discomfort (I have a whole bottle of mepergan to prove I didn't hurt after my plastic surgery) were all. Could it be that a childhood of Merthiolate desensitized me to other kinds of pain? I give blood and get shots regularly without batting an eye, and I was the little girl who ran from the nurses, and then screamed when they stuck me. Hmm.
I was checking to see if this stuff is the same as Mercurochrome (I guess it isn't, though I think they're both evil) and I found this article: Eli Lilly and Thimerosal - heck, no wonder it hurt so much - it's nearly 50% ethylmercury. As in mercury - poisonous to humans, don't break open thermometers and play with it.... Maybe that's what's wrong with my head - Mercury poisoning. LOL
posted by Me at 12:47 AM
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