that we would have to stay in the hospital while
they treated her, because they would feed the medicine intravenous. I tried to
talk to Helen at best I could and explain to her what we were trying to do,
without going in too much details. Dr. Kelly explained to us that this
treatment at the hospital would not coat us that this would be considered
research. He further ask for our permission to take some of the specimen and
implant it into a monkey and see if they grew and they could study the disease,
we gave them permission to do that. I requested that they would keep me
informed on all the progress. They never did give me a progress report and
about one year I called Dr. Kelly about why that I had never heard from them.
He stated that the lab should have kept me informed. He then wrote me a letter
stating that there had not been any thing to report, so I have not contacted
them since that time. We had expected some immediate change in Helen’s
condition and after a couple weeks and Helens skin was getting irritated and
sore where they has the needles were inserted, so I talked with Dr. Kelley and
I told him that we had not noticed any improvement on her and I wanted to
discontinue the treatment and he agreed with me.
Around latter part of march or April of 1983 they
discharged Helen, and the surgery the treatment and stay in the hospital had
really took its toll on Helen’s health appearance and condition. The doctors
and my children told me that I would have to put Helen into a nursing home that
I could not take care of her at home; I could not accept that suggestion and I
rejected and with their persistence, I finally agreed. At from that point she
steadily deteriated almost daily. I put her in the Goodwater nursing home and I
hired Jessie Worrell to sit with her thru the day at the nursing home, I was
still working at Sterling Lumber and Supply Company, and I guess I thought that
I had a pretty responsible job.
Increment number- (2)
I would usually go to the nursing home at noontime
to check on her, even thou Jessie was staying with her. I would go to the
nursing home as soon that I left work and stayed with her until I put her to
bed. I would get up every morning and go to the nursing home and get her up and
give her bath and feed her breakfast and go to work. I left her in the nursing
home for about a month and I decided that this was going to kill me, so I
decided that I was going to take her home. The children thought that I was
making a mistake but I told them that I was going to get help to stay with her
and help me with her. I told them that I could afford to do that.
I talked with Jessie Worrell and she told me a
couple of good people that I could get to help me. I contacted Joshalean
McElrath and Nellie Thornton and they both agreed to help me. They were the
most wonderful three people that I have ever had the privilege and experience
to know. They treated my wife as though she was a Queen, and by the way she was
my Queen. The all three stayed with us until Helen passed away March 23, 1985.
Josglean stayed on with me until her health got so bad that she had to quit
around in the year of 2002.
Back to the
year of 1983 that I received a telephone call from a neighbor of my brother’s
in Ozark and she stated to me that my oldest brother had had a massy heart
attack and was dead. I could not accept that as being true and I insisted on
talking to Nell, his wife and she did get on the phone and told me that it was
true; it was so hard for me to accept the news. Helen’s illiness had progressed
to such a case that she hardly knew was going on and could not help me and I
was about ready to get off my rocker. I finally calmed down and prepared to go
to Ozark to his family’s home. My brother had just been visiting us the Sunday
before in Goodwater and my Mother had gone home with them to spend a few days,
so she was there when he passed away. My brother had mentioned to me that
Sunday that his legs were hurting him pretty bad and I told him that sound like
poor circulation and I suggest that he should go to a doctor and have a
check-up, and he indicated that he would do that. We spent a couple days in
Ozark visiting the family and attending the funeral. On the second night I
received a call from Rick my oldest son and informed me that they were unable
to attend the funeral because his wife Linda had miscarriage, I could tell that
was up-setting Helen but she could not all understand what was going up and
that felt heavy on my mind. Helen sat around all the time that we were there
and starred into space not really understanding what was going on.
It was in the year of 1983 that Charles F. Thomas,
my boss and partner of Sterling Lumber And Supply Company, developed blockage
of arteries and required bypass surgery and while he was home recouping from
surgery and we suffered a big fire of our fabrication plant. I called him at
home and told him that there is nothing that he could do and for him to just
stay at home that I could handle everything. This was a very expensive fire
around half million-dollar loss. It was very fortunate that we had adequate
insurance to cover the most of the loss. We had several large Govt. Contract orders on the books and were
delinquent on many of the contracts and it require a lot of negating with the Govt.
to keep them for fine us or canceling our contracts.
It was in latter part of 1983 or 1984 that my sister
Hazel and her husband came from Florida to come help me take care of Helen. On
one Sunday evening my sister took my Mother to go for a ride and go to
Alexander City to buy a watermelon and on their return back to Goodwater they
met a gang of motorcycles speed daemons passing cars on her side of the highway
and she had to leave the road from killing them hitting them head on. My sister
and my mother suffered multiple fractures and broken bones. There were several
days that they were not expected to live. I remember one night while they were
in the Sylacauga hospital they called me that night and told me if I could come
to the hospital because they did not think that my mother would live thru the
night. I ask Nellie Thornton if she would stay late that night with Helen and
she stayed on until I went to the hospital. When I arrived at the hospital and
they told me that they did not know what happened but my Mother had started
reviving and was much improved. My mother finally healed enough to leave the
hospitals and lived to the year of 1988.
