They took me home and I went to a doctor and he gave me a shot of something and I had to stay at home all day. That was the first time in my life that I've ever been to bed because I didn't have school. I had to call the school and say that I didn't come to school. It's the first time that I felt like I was sick. But once they said it, I was already sick, so it wasn't very hard. When I went home, my mom told my sisters and I to lay down and relax and said that she would get dinner ready. That afternoon, after my sisters went to school, my mother asked me why I wasn't in school. I told her that I didn't feel good and she said, "You need to have something to eat." She made us soup in a big pot and gave me the bowl. When we came home from school, she asked me if I felt better and I said, "I'm feeling better now." Then she took me to the hospital. At the hospital they took some pictures of my legs and they looked bad because there were bites and scars on my feet. They took pictures of my legs because I said I wanted them to know what they did to me. Then a doctor came in and told me to turn around. They cleaned my leg and made some bandages and said that I should take two antibiotics, one a day. Then they put something on my leg and closed the bandages. When I was at the hospital, they asked me if I felt anything. I told them that I didn't. When we got home, I started to feel some burning on my stomach and leg, and my brother told my mom that I was bleeding on my leg. We went back to the hospital, but they only took me out of the bandages. I started bleeding again and I had to go back to the hospital. They took me back to the hospital and told me to go to the waiting room. I did and there were a lot of people with scabies. I saw my little brother, and he said that they took his medicine away from him. The nurse had a mask and was in her head, and she came over to my brother and asked him if he felt okay. He said yes, and she left him. They took me to an office, and a lady told me to sit in a chair, but there were too many people in that room. There was another lady and a lady with a little girl and she asked me where my family was. I told her that they were outside, but that my mom wasn't there because she was at work. She asked me if I felt any pain. I told her no. She asked me what it felt like to the nurse. I said, "It itches when it burns." She told me to show her the part where it was bleeding. I told the lady that I had a scabies shot. I asked her how I had scabies, and she said, "You don't have scabies. You have a really bad fever and they just want to make sure that you're okay." I told her that I wanted to go home because I needed to lie down. She told me to come back if I needed anything. Then I went back to the waiting room and lied down and fell asleep. I don't remember what they did to me. Then I was taken to a different room to the left. There were about 12 people in the room and some of the people had scabies. There was one boy who was not in a bed and he was standing. I thought he was like my age, but then a woman told me that he was in his 30s. He was bleeding from the stomach and the woman told me that he was going to have surgery on his stomach. Then there was a girl who had scabies and she was in the bed. She had a lot of sores on her leg, and her hair was matted. I was in that room for about three hours. I went to sleep, and they came and gave me a bottle. I remember them giving me food to eat. The woman with the matted hair gave me water, and she also gave me some food. They told me that I had scabies and showed me the pictures on my legs. They told me that there were two kinds of scabies: one is for kids, and the other is for adults. They said that one day my scabies would go away. They gave me a medicine, but I couldn't take it. They told me that I had to take it. Then they put some medicine on the bites. They put some medicine on the bites. After it healed, they sent me to the orphanage, so I didn't go back to the hospital. The scabies bites stayed like that for three months. Then I took them to a doctor, and he gave me some more medicine. I took the medicine, but it didn't go away. The bumps stayed in the same place. I got used to the feeling of them and I didn't really care about it. I thought about seeing a doctor, but I didn't want to see one. I had a bad experience with doctors in another hospital. My mom had cancer and she died. The nurses didn't know what to do, so I had to call the doctor myself. Then there were two nurses, and one of them put my mom on a bed and she was holding my mom's hands. The other nurse put something on her chest that he thought would help her. He wanted to take my mom to another room, but she refused. She told him that the doctors were there. They didn't want to go back. I took her to another doctor and told him what happened with the other doctor, but the other doctor said, "That was just a doctor that didn't know what he was doing. That's not a doctor. That's a nurse. I don't need that." There was another doctor who told my mom that he didn't have a heartbeat. He told me to call her name because she was dying. When he left, he said that he was going to come back for a little bit. He came back and said that she was dead. I wanted to hold her, but he told me to stop. He just said it was time to take her out of the hospital. When he was taking her out, she turned into a ghost and just left. After he put my mom down in the coffin, I was holding him, and he just said that I shouldn't be so close to the coffin. Then he said that he would give me his phone number, and he wanted me to call him in two weeks. Then he told me to sit in the kitchen. I went outside because I thought I wasn't feeling well. I fell on my knees and on the cement and I was crying. There were no people in the street, but a lady who knew me came out of her house and she asked me what happened. I told her, and she said that she knew what was happening because she knew that my mom had cancer. I told her that I didn't want to go to the hospital and she said she would drive me. She took me to the hospital, and when we got there, they asked me if I knew who was coming to pick me up, and I said, "No." They told me that my mom would want me to take care of myself. When the man arrived, they let me get in a car with him. We took a taxi home and he gave me two packs of cookies. Then we walked to the park where my brother was. My sister came too. They said that they took care of my dad, and they saw that my mother didn't come back. That day I went to school and I was sad. I was sad because I wasn't going to see my mom anymore. That day there was a man with scabies who was just walking in the street. Then he came to the park and he sat down to talk to my sister. He told her that he had scabies and that he would stay with my brother. After that, the police were waiting for him. Then he went to jail. I told the man to wash my feet. He was wearing sandals, but he said that he didn't have a pair of socks with him, so I gave him a pair of socks and told him that he could use it for a little while. After that, he gave me a bottle of milk. Then I went back to the orphanage. I stayed there until I was 16 years old. Then I went to stay with my grandfather. I've had that same dream and flashback many times, and I still remember the man with scabies and how I used to feel when I got to school. *Interviews by M.J. [contents] The Long History of Healing Shirley P. Gladding I was born in 1924 to my grandparents who lived in a three-room house in the Black Belt area of the county near the city of Clanton, Alabama. We were very poor, but it wasn't until around 1935 that they bought a radio for the first time. I remember it seemed we were just constantly listening to news of the World War II and I heard the word "shell shock." The house next to my grandparents' was our favorite hangout. Everyone seemed to love to gather there. After church on Sundays we would all sit