The first time I went to the doctor

Kjettestorp in winter

"The first time I remember going to the doctor was when I was seven years old.  It was during the winter, and the hill right by the schoolhouse was icy. We had our sparks and sleds that we rode down the hill there. I was still in the younger class and I had my sled, and I came pulling it up the hill, and I guess I looked down and the ground and didn’t really look where I was going. Well, here came Stig on a spark, and he had Greta on the front as a passenger, and they ran right into me, onto my right leg. I flew forward and hit my head on Greta’s head, and I bit my tongue really hard. I was bleeding quite a lot. The teachers got a little angry with us for doing it. Greta was a little hurt too, but there wasn’t as much blood on her as on me. The woman teacher sent me with Brita down to the washhouse to wash me off. Then they made me sit for another lesson because there was no-one to go home with me. The teacher even asked me if I wanted to read, but my mouth was so swollen inside that I couldn’t even speak. I just shook my head, and she left me alone then.

Sara and Henrik i Herrefall,

the heroes of today's story

Brita and Henrik were in the upper grades, so they stayed longer than we did. It was left to Henrik i Herrefall and Sara to get me home. I couldn’t walk up that hill. I was too dizzy, and my leg was too swollen to put weight on. They didn’t want to try to put me on my sled because they didn’t think I could sit up, so they borrowed a spark from the girls in Blåsten. Even so, the first hill there was so icy that they couldn’t walk behind the spark and push me up. They weren’t strong enough and their feet just kept slipping. Henrik went into the woods and found a long stick that they put behind the spark. Then they could walk on either side of the road where there wasn’t so much ice, and they pulled me up that way. By this time I was so cold that I was shaking, and they had worked so hard that they had gotten so warm, so they took off their coats and put them on me. Going this way they got up all the steep hills.

This is what a spark looks like :)

Finally when we got home and Mama saw us, she got so upset. She bundled me into bed and don’t really remember any more then. When I got home to Mama, I relaxed and didn’t worry anymore. I heard later that they loaned Henrik a spark so he could take the big road home and go down and pick up Greta and give her a ride home so she didn’t have to walk.

When Dad came home and saw what had happened and then Brita and Henrik came home from school and told their story, Dad was really upset, too. He went right down to the schoolhouse, and he scolded the teachers. He told them they should have sent Henrik home to tell him what had happened, so he could come and get me. Dad was really angry I guess, and my teacher felt so bad that she came to our house every afternoon and gave me lessons and tutored me so I could keep up with the class.

This is Dr. Julius Levenhagen (also spelled

Lewenhagen). He came to Kisa around 1900.

The next day after this happened, Dad got the sled out and took me to the doctor. That was the first time I could remember going to the doctor. Even though I was so miserable, I couldn’t help but feel a bit special because it was just me and Dad. He carried me into the doctor’s office. I was a big kid of 7; I hadn’t been carried in years.  It turned out that my leg was not broken, but there was a crack in the bone. The doctor ordered bedrest for several weeks. To treat the bite in my tongue, he put compresses dipped in some kind of liquid both on top of the tongue and underneath. He sent home a bottle of that liquid to Mama and she was to change the compresses a couple times a day. The doctor’s name was Levenhagen."