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My cousin just died, and I think she made medical history! Could an abortion have helped? [1]

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Date: 2022-07-18

Vonnie (nickname) was the second of 7 daughters. My uncle really wanted a son. As I grew up, we lived a couple hundred miles apart so we saw each other perhaps once a year. As she was a few years older, I didn’t really connect with her, but instead with a sister of hers closer in age. So I wasn’t really paying attention to her life for most of it. Her wedding was on a very hot summer day, one of those weddings where she “had to” marry, back when people still whispered about large bellies and “early” births. The solicitous ones wondered how she was tolerating the heat in her condition and wearing a very heavy, long sleeved gown. After all, we were all sweating and miserable in the non air-conditioned church. Once she was married I saw even less of her, except to know she had two children and lived way out in the country, again a couple hundred miles away.

But there was one other thing about Vonnie. She was a beautician. Back then it meant lots and lots of chemicals, and that sealed her fate. She became allergic to everything. I mean EVERYTHING! She’d been told when the allergies started that she needed to find a different occupation, something away from the chemicals, but this was what she knew how to do and do well, and she needed to work.

The best I can remember, it would have been back in ‘91 I heard the news. The family was gathered for my parent’s 50th anniversary and she couldn’t attend. Her health wouldn’t let her. She’d ignored doctor’s advice until she was too sick to continue working. My aunt made it sound like she was just willfully stubborn, but I just thought life had given her a nasty kick, and having just learned I’d developed a single allergy at that point, selfishly wondered if I might follow her path.

I only saw Vonnie one more time. Some of the other cousins I’d see occasionally, but we all had grown and settled in different states, one even out of the country. I once had asked my closest-to-me cousin what Vonnie’s life was actually like these days. I knew a few details. She could only wear unbleached, undyed cotton clothing, contact only undyed cotton in her bedding, chairs, etc. No soaps and cosmetics of course. Their house had been basically rebuilt to remove all the chemicals usually found in building materials and paint, drapes, carpet, and what have you. Phones were plastic so her husband relayed messages. She could write, say for X-mas cards, on unbleached lined notepaper with a plain wood pencil with no eraser, and her husband would mail it because he could touch the envelope and stamp.

Extrapolate that out onto all of her life. She essentially lived in a bubble. When her own children married, they had summer weddings on the lawn outside her bedroom window so she could watch. I imagine she couldn’t hear them because stray pollen could drift in through an open window. No wedding cake because she also had food allergies, and even if she could have all the cake ingredients, there are lots of chemicals in cake decorations.

My cousin summed up her sister’s life by saying that a good day meant she could spend as much as two hours sitting up in bed. They very occasionally actually saw each other but couldn’t touch, because even if she avoided wearing cosmetics and perfumes, she still lived in constant contact with chemicals in soaps, their clothing, and practically everything her sister couldn’t tolerate exposure to.

Vonnie became exceedingly religious. Not my thing, but I understood the appeal when there is nearly nothing else in one’s life. Whatever her private demons, in her communications she was always thankful for her beliefs and the comfort she got from them, wishing the same to all the rest of us.

Vonnie did get out of the house for an annual doctor’s visit. Everything that could be tried to help her was being tried, to little or no avail. Each year when she came through the door he’d ask, “So, you’re still alive?” He expressed amazement each time, as he apparently knew of nobody with her severe allergies who’d survived that long. We all speculated whether he would, or perhaps already had written her case up in some medical journal.

Somewhere in one of those visits, one more fact emerged. Vonnie was carrying a “stone baby”. At some point years earlier a fetus had died, and not been detected nor expelled. Just encapsulated. Speculation around the family was that perhaps that was a big part of her medical issues, that her body was reacting to this foreign, dead passenger. By the time it was discovered, however, it was long past the time when she could tolerate any kind of medial procedure to remove it. What hospital in the world is chemical free? Perhaps a prompt abortion after possibly timely detection…. But way too late now.

I did see her one more time. My parents were celebrating another anniversary. IIRC it was their 65th. (They made it to 67 before Mom died.) It was a fairly small celebration, our immediate family, and Mom’s sister and her family. Several cousins with spouses showed up, people I’d not seen for ages. Mom spread the word that a guest with “perfume allergy” was expected and would we please respect that by not wearing any. She never mentioned that the hope was that Vonnie would be able to attend, in case the family would be disappointed. Her husband actually did bring her, and the word went out that her family should come outside to see her. She was able to stand outside for about 20 minutes, while talking to her family from about 6 feet away, downwind from her. No hugs, just finger waggling for affection, and air hugs. Before anybody had enough of a visit, she had to leave. We heard later that before he drove them out of the apartment complex he’d had to pull the car over to resuscitate her before driving home. Apparently it was a regular event and he was well practiced. Not to mention devoted. With his unceasing care she managed to live until this last weekend.

I won’t be attending her funeral. It will be very small and very private. Besides, the family will be at another funeral, as one of her sisters just became a widow a few days earlier. We’ll all be thinking of Vonnie too while we’re there.

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