Alma Russell Letters
Letters of British Columbia men on active service with Canadian and British Expeditionary Forces, 1914-1918. Learn more.
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and put me on the balcony in a water-bed. I remember when coming out of the chloroform pretty late that afternoon, the sister was standing beside my bed and I said to her “I don’t like gas, I prefer chloroform, it is so hard for me to breathe and I feel so sick”. The reason of this was I was so very weak. Well, for over a fortnight I was never left alone either day or night, a sister or nurse always sat beside my bed in case my wound started bleeding and I was in too weak a state to loose any more blood; during that time I was fed on a quarter of a teaspoon of solid beef extract and champagne about four times a day, when eventually my appetite came back, and “believe Muh”, it has never gone back since. From then to now I have been progressing steadily every day. When the weather is bad and wet, my poor old leg is rather painful, but when the sun is shining and the day is warm, I feel very fit, in fact so fit that I feel like kicking a football about. Although I might say that during these five months in bed, I have had the great pleasure of sitting up, or rather being propped up twice, so you can well imagine how I am looking forward to Friday. I hope everything goes off O.K. They have started to massage (I don’t know how to spell the word) my leg today, being the fourth day, and the swelling has gone down a little. The masseuer says it won’t be a case of weeks, but months before proper movement is obtained in my knee.
BC Archives, MS-1901 Box 1 File 6 / RUSSELL, Alma M., 1873 - 1964. Victoria; librarian. / Selected letter from Lieutenant Gordon Patrick Heinekey, 1917.