Some of My Experiences with Health, Healing, Hygiene & Safety   Ken Drummond, May 2004

I thought it might be helpful to share my experiences with health, healing, and hygiene. Even if you can benefit from just one item that you find here it will be worth my trouble to write it and your trouble to read it. These are my own experiences and observations and will not necessarily apply to or work for anyone else. Some of the instances might have some humorous value even if they are not useful for health.

I will try to write this in a chronological, biological fashion.

I dimly recall the weaning process, being given a cup instead of a bottle. I was used to my bottle and was not happy to have to use a cup, but I suppose I adjusted.

Hot Tea
I had an accident when I was one year old. I don't actually recall it, I think the memory was blocked out due to shock. I was getting used to walking and was hanging on to objects as I navigated my way around. I can almost picture seeing the green mug on the edge of the kitchen table. It was full of freshly poured hot tea but it looked very inviting as a handhold. Besides, I am sure I was thinking, it was a unique sort of handle to grab onto. Unfortunately the consequences of trying to use that cup as a handle were disastrous. The hot liquid scalded my arm and chest.

I am told that I screamed a great deal. I don't exactly remember that but I know that I was very good at crying. They called a doctor -- doctors made house calls in those days -- but apparently he was drunk and put bandages over the scalded skin. When the bandages were later removed some of the skin came off too. I still have a quite prominent scar on a large part of my right upper arm as a momento.

I often think that I worked out most of my illness karma in the early part of my life, mostly in my childhood. As a result the first part of this narrative will deal  with these various problems the body went through. Later on I will discuss various preventive methods and other discoveries that I have made.

The reason for sharing these experiences is so that others might benefit from them in some way. So the lesson from the scalding with the tea cup is to be careful about not putting hot things where young children can reach them. My mother, in later years, would instruct me to turn the handle of pots on the stove inward so that they would not project out where they could accidentally be bumped. Also, in your next life (mine anyway) we should not be so interested in showing off in our choice of handholds as we are learning to walk.

Maple Syrup
Perhaps my earliest quite vivid memory was when I was two years old. It is not really health related but it was fun. I suppose it is sort of accident related. Somehow I contrived to tip over a gallon can of maple syrup. I suppose the lid was loose and the syrup poured out on the floor. Our family was not very wealthy so the maple syrup was considered an expensive and valuable item.
I had great fun walking in the maple syrup in my shoes. I was fascinated by the way my shoes would be stuck to the floor by the syrup until I relly lifted up hard, then there would be a wonderful "unsticking sound". I was playing in the syrup for some time until I was discovered -- and yelled at much to my surprise -- since I was having so much fun. So parents, be sure to always tightly put the lid on containers, you never know what experiments scientifically oriented children might want to get into.