For 86 years my grandmother had a body. She was in tune with her own, Im sure, but she never understood how the human body works. For example: "If you get the runny nose, youre gonna get direar (diarrhea) because boy, ca! When that snot drips on your liver it makes direar and you gonna be on the toilet all day!" As though you do not have a digestive tract through which everything that enters your esophagus must travel to reach...er...the other end.
When my kids would fight and one would hit the other on the back Granny would always scream "Uh-uh! Nooooo, youre gonna knock his kidney down and kill him!" Oh, and I forgot to mention that for every warning she gave, there was a little boy/girl that all these things had happened to before. Example: "There used to be a little boy and he died when his brother knocked his kidney down when they were fighting!"
Having birthed 7 children, Granny knew her stuff about child birth. "April Lynn! Don't reach for that glass in the cabinet, you're gonna stretch the cord and strangle the baby! There was a lady and she reached up to change her clock and she strangled her baby with its own cord, it died, it was so sad..." When I could barely handle the summer heat while pregnant with Michael and so close to my due date, Granny said " Aw! Take you some castrall (castor oil) and youll have that baby by tomorrow! I know a lady took some castrall and had her baby that night!" So...I took the "castrall" and did NOT have my baby, but did spend the night in the bathroom. When that didn't work " Well, I don't know...go jump off a porch, thatll break your water bag." I decided I didn't want the shin splints associated with jumping my foreward heavy self off of a porch.
"Don't drink a hot sody water (coke) because it will make your stomach burst and you'll die! I knew a lady, her little girl did that and she died, ohhh, it was so sad." She told me this when I was 4, I was scared to death, I still wont drink a soda unless its ice cold to this day.
"Don't lay on your stomach on that hard floor, you'll get breast cancer, I know a lady had breast cancer from laying on the hard floor with her boobs, it was sad."
"Aw, Apuh, put some shoes on with this cold floor, you gonna catch pneumonia, I know a lady, that lil girl in Poltergeist just died from Pneumonia, from walking around the house barefooted."
After working on my feet all night, Id come in and shower and massage my legs. " Oh I remember that! I used to work on my feet and when I'd go to bed, the blood would come back in my legs and they would jump and jump and I couldn't sleep worth a dern."
"My bowels haven't move all day. I need some Milk of Magnesia." I would say "No, Granny, you don't, you are okay, they don't have to move every single day" Her response? "Okay, that's fine! Just let me die, Im old anyway! You remember Poncho's wife, huh? She died cause she didn't have a bowel movement!" And if she DID get a dose of Milk of Magnesia, once it stimulated her bowel and she had to go " Ohhhh, Apuh, Im weak, I have the worst virus! I need some Ammonia A D (Immodium AD)" " No, Granny, you took a laxative, you don't have a virus!" To which she would reply "Oh, okay, Ms Nurse! Just let me die of dehydrate! Poor Eva died of dehydrate!" "No Granny, Eva had Congestive Heart Failure, she had too much fluid, and her heart gave out" "Oh okay, well you know everything! Ill just go lay down and die!"
There WAS no winning with her regarding her health concerns.
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