Keith Tillotson
Pearl Harbor Hospital (1941)
So, I'm over in Hawaii. That's when I got my first kidney stone. I was out at sea for about two weeks, suffering with this pain in the side. I thought it was appendix or something, but they called the corps medic – they call them pharmacist's mates in the Navy – he just squeezed me just like that, and let go of it, and says, "You have a kidney stone. It's not appendix."
So, all I could do was just hang on to the bunk above me and just grip – anything I could get my hands on and grip. Boy, it was painful every time the thing would move. Probably an attack would last about eight hours.
I went to Pearl Harbor Hospital. See, Kenneth was aboard another ship. There was four ships in a squadron, but they had one larger ship that he was aboard which was the fifth one. That was the lead ship in the squadron. So, he was there too, and he came to visit me. I guess I was in the hospital a couple of weeks or something like that.
While I was in the hospital I passed this stone. You ever head of a cystoscope where they run a tube up your penis about the size of your finger? Inside it's a hollow tube and they run all kinds of wires and stuff up in there. That was a miserable thing.
But anyway, I passed this stone. I was just lucky I was in the head – that's what you call the toilet – this thing plopped out with the pharmacist's mate standin' right there. He just reached in and picked it up.
I had this little bitty stone about like the head of a kitchen match, you know, and it had a little fin on it like a fish. When it moved it hurt, but when it wasn't moving it didn't hurt so much. Took a lot of morphine – I loved that stuff.
Anyway, the pain went away and I had this little stone there. So, I was feelin' pretty good. There was one guy in a bunk near me – it was like he had everything wrong with him. One thing after another, he just wanted to stay there forever. So, I don't want to be like that, you know. The doctor came around and he gave him the orders to put on his clothes and go ashore. He came back and the guy was feeling better, just like that.
Gee, that's what I'm gonna do. So I'm in the bathroom and I found somewhere I could chin myself, and I'm doin' push-ups – everything I could think of. 'Cause I always did that kind of stuff – chin myself and push-ups. And they caught me doin' that, and they said, "We got some more exercise for you. Let's move all the bunks out, clean the floor, buff it." And they wanted me to clean the windows -- 57 windows. I remember 57 windows in this kind of a barracks type place. Boy, they put me to work.
But, I gained about five or six pounds while I was in the hospital and I was feelin' great.
I remember I had a picture of Vicki by my bed. And I got word that she got married. So I was really feelin' good, but when I got that news about my girlfriend getting married, that kinda' lowered my … a guy that was aboard a different ship had met her – another sailor. He came aboard ship and says, "Vicki wants to see you when you get back to San Diego."
So, when I got back to San Diego I went to see her. We made a date, but she was married. Well, that was kind of the end of that, until I got out of the Navy. Oh, she came aboard – the ship was gonna go back to Hawaii. They wanted to clean the bottom and get it in dry-dock.
I only had about a month to go, so I wanted to get paid off. I didn't want to go out there, because they'd have to pay my transportation from Hawaii back. I'd have had my two years in by the time we got to Hawaii. The captain agreed to pay me off.
Vicki came aboard with me, and I said, "We're going to get married." She was already married. That was a white lie there. He had my discharge, and he handed it to her.
I didn't have a physical – usually you have a physical when you get paid off, but I didn't have one.