Alice
Alice claims she could have fun in a closet. When she was 19 years old in 1948, her humor was tested when she was diagnosed with TB of the spine and sent to live at Firland TB Sanatorium for two years. Although Alice spent nearly seven months in a double-layered cast from collarbone to upper knee, and 2 months in a Stryker frame while she recovered from her spine fusion, her attitude stayed positive. Humor helped the hours and days pass while at the sanatorium. She credits her positive attitude, the medical staff, and friends at Firland with saving her life. Alice met and married Clarence, also a patient at Firland, at the Firland Chapel. She lives by the phrase, "this too shall pass."
In Alice's words...
“I got streptomycin twice a day in the buttocks for 30 days and I’m convinced that it saved my life. If had been 50 years old, I probably would have died, but I was 19 and had youth on my side and had a whole stack of very fine doctors. The surgeon who fused my spine in 1948 was Dr. Darrel Levitt. I worship at the man’s feet. I literally do.”
“My mother’s and father’s friends felt that they would bury me when I went away to the Firland TB Sanatorium. They cried not because they were so terribly fond of me, but they cried for the emotions my parents were feeling that maybe she’ll never come home. They thought, ‘maybe she’ll be an invalid. Maybe she’ll die.’”
Alice, King County