[SgtHooper]

My upbringing mirrors yours. I am truly blessed by God in my health! There is nothing I cannot eat (”process”), and I’ve tried far more than most. It had to be in the genes as well, from my parents, I guess. Got the same shots. Got measles and mumps. NBD! Farmboy. Had myriad cuts, scrapes, puncture wounds from rusty nails, burns, cuts, animal bites, accidentally consumed livestock crap through normal feeding and care, inhaled animal dust and dander, submerged arms in DDT used back then, drank heavily ironed well water, bare hands on anything and everything touched, and on and on. When I see other ppl suffering, I say a prayer for them and a prayer of thanks for myself.

[mass55th]

Sounds like you had a normal childhood too. All those things were normal occurrences when I was growing up. My older sister was always stepping on rusty nails. I can't remember how many Tetanus shots she had to have. I grew up with a blue mark on the right side of my forehead. My mother told me that my sister had dropped me when I was small, and I ended up with that scar. I still have it, and I can't tell you how many people, over my 71 years, have told me I've got ink on my forehead :-) My brother shot me in the leg with his BB-gun. Thankfully, it didn't penetrate the skin. At age 5, I had to have my tonsils out because I was constantly getting earaches. We didn't have a car, but the doctor still made house calls, and I got used to getting penicillin shots in the butt on a regular basis. It's probably why I don't mind needles. I still remember them giving me ether to put me out for my tonsillectomy. I was only 5, but I can still remember the smell of it.

My brother used to play hockey in the street with his friends during the winter. He got whacked in the middle of his forehead with the puck, got a big egg, and my mother had to get a neighbor to take her to the hospital with him. Being the baby of the family, I had to rough it. No emergency room for me. One day, my mother ordered me to help my brother pick up his Lionel train set off the floor. I hadn't been playing with it, and got ticked off. Picked up the engine, and shoved it hard into one end of the box...it came out the other end, and the cow catcher on it put a big gash in the area, just above my left knee. I probably should have had stitches, but my mother put a big gauze bandage on it, and that was that. When I was in high school, I was on cheer squad. We were at practice, and I was doing a jump, and came down on my right foot the wrong way. My ankle buckled, and I had a bad sprain...probably tore the ligaments in it. By the time I walked home (about a mile), my ankle had started to swell pretty bad. My mother made a poultice of some ingredients (beaten egg whites, baking soda, and God knows what else). She applied the poultice onto the ankle, wrapped it up with an Ace bandage, and the next day the swelling was gone. In my old age, I now wish I had remembered exactly what was in it. My two sons probably thought I was a meanie, because I never babied them when they got hurt.