Tribute to Dr. William Harrison 20100804

(10 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

I read with sorrow this evening that Dr. Harrison is closing his practice.  He is an excellent physician, and skilfully delivered my firstborn son in 1985.

Dr. Harrison has been in a bit of controversy, since he is the only OB to provide abortions in the northwest Arkansas area.  This man has guts.  The fundies are rejoicing.  I am mourning.

When the former Mrs. Translator and I visited his office in late 1984 and early 1985, he also practiced OB-GYN and delivered babies.  The costs of that became large afterwards, so he limited his practice to abortions.

By the way, Dr. Harrison is also a Kossack, but I have not seen any post from him in quite some time.  He is closing his practice because he has developed leukemia, and I regret that he is ill.  He was great with us.

When Eldest Son was delivered, Dr. Harrison displayed not only excellent surgical skills (as a double footling breach baby, Eldest Son might have not made it, let alone the former Mrs. Translator).  He skilfully opened her uterus and extracted him just before he became too blue from anoxia.

He allowed me into the OR at the hospital in Fayetteville, where he had privileges.  He also allowed me to use our Pentax 35 mm camera to snap excellent color shots of Eldest Son being brought into the world.  They really vacuum pack those little ones in there, and cover with a material that looks all the world like cream cheese, a natural lubricant for vaginal birth.

Dr. Harrison did such a good job at the Cesarean section that our next two children were born vaginally.  Lots of times the OB will weaken the uterine wall so much that all subsequent children have to be Cesarean as well, but not Dr. Harrison.  He did well.

My recollections about visiting his office whilst the former Mrs. Translator are vivid.  Anti abortion protesters were everywhere, one of them sort of famous in Fayetteville for being a crank and on probation for burglarizing a “head shop”, which were legal at the time there.  They shouted at us, waved signs at us talking about saving innocent lives, and all the other rot.

They were stupid!  Several of them were there for month after month, as as the former Mrs. Translator went from barely showing to full fledged ready to drop, they still taunted us about killing our baby.  Did they not ever think that if we had desired to do that only one visit would be needed?

No, they were stupid.  Even as she waddled (this is not in any way an insult to pregnant women, you know that walking changes as your get nearer the delivery time), the anti crowd would taunt us about being baby killers.  We never responded.

Looking back, I am glad that they did not follow us home to do harm to me, at least.  In those days there was a bit less violence, and Fayetteville was a really nice place to live at the time.

In any event, Eldest Son is now married to a extremely wonderful female.  He is just about to get a Master’s Degree in Zoology (he takes after his mum), and his wonderful wife is a medical professional.  Please join me in wishing them well, and also Dr. Harrison for making it all possible.

On the bright side, many folks his age (he is 74 now) die with leukemia, not from it.  He most likely has many years left.  My aunt had it as well, and lived for almost 20 years after diagnosis, but did feel tired lots of the time.

Please join me, again, in wishing this fellow Kossack well.

Warmest regards,

Doc

Crossposted at Dailykos.come and Thestarshollowgazette.com