I Caught Mumps from My Sister. It Nearly Killed Me.

by Marlene Moulder

I was nine years old, burning up with fever, when my father carried me through the back door of a pediatrician’s office in Houston. Polio was sweeping through communities, and nobody knew yet what was wrong with me.

Marlene at about age three.

My illness had started with mumps—my sister’s mumps, to be precise. It was 1954. My family shared a home in Houston, Texas with my grandmother, a Londoner born to Russian Jewish parents. There were no vaccines for childhood diseases except smallpox. Measles, chickenpox, mumps, my sister caught them all, and was generous enough to share every one with me. I was almost over the mumps when I woke up one morning feeling limp as a dishrag, burning with a 104 degree fever. Our family doctor sent me to one of the few Houston pediatricians. My father had to carry me in through the back door. The doctor tapped my knees and elbows with his little hammer.

There was very little reflex.

Off we went to St. Joseph’s Hospital, straight to the isolation ward where I remained for two weeks. Doctors and nurses in masks and gowns huddled around me. They whisked me to a sterile room and had me curl into the fetal position for my first spinal tap. Then another. I don’t know how many spinal taps I had over those days, or how much blood they drew. My mother became my roommate for the duration.

I remember feeling like I was in a fog. “Modern medicine” at the time meant packing me in ice to try to break my fever. If I was given drugs, I’ve forgotten. But I remember the ice packs. A nurse named Mrs. Latham stayed with us, and I’ve never forgotten her name.

After a couple of days, I woke up more alert. Two nuns in full habit stood at the foot of my bed, a crucifix on the wall above them. I was a nine-year-old Jewish girl. My mother said I started crying because I thought I’d gone to the wrong Heaven.

I was just in a Catholic hospital.

And I was alive.

For the next several days, I endured more needle sticks while doctors murmured words like polio, meningitis, encephalitis. My mother was still by my side. One Sunday, my father came to see me and brought my sister along—he was taking her to Sunday school. When she got out of the car, I was not happy.

She was wearing my dress.

My favorite dress, a mint green and cream shirtwaist with little pink roses. My mother made most of our clothes; this was my only store-bought dress, and my sister was absolutely not supposed to be wearing it. My mother said that as sick as I was, I threw a colossal tantrum.

Some things cut right through a fever.

Marlene a few weeks after coming home from the hospital.

Finally, after much head-scratching and talk of sending me to Hedge Croft Hospital, the polio facility, the doctors had a diagnosis: spinal encephalitis, a complication from the mumps.

I went home after about two weeks, still very weak and with wobbly legs. An ophthalmologist determined that I’d become quite nearsighted, possibly from the high fever I’d had. Nearsightedness had never shown up in yearly eye exams before my illness. I missed the end of fourth grade, but I was a good student and passed. My summer was spent rebuilding my strength and coordination, and trying to avoid my grandmother’s curative beet and split pea soup.

I understand that though rare, complications from childhood diseases can do far more damage than I sustained. Before my illness, I’d been a real tomboy. Afterward, I was a bit of a klutz. My feet tangled and I couldn’t run the way I had before. As an adult, I’ve learned how fortunate I was to survive my complications at all. My mind works well. My wit is sharp, sometimes a little too sharp. The way I see it, a bad gait and klutziness is a very decent alternative to what could have happened.

I’m 82 years old now. I don’t know why I was spared more extreme aftereffects. Maybe I was so furious with my sister for wearing my dress that I needed to survive long enough to reclaim it. Maybe I had an immune system that defied the odds. Maybe those two nuns standing over that little Jewish girl’s bed had something to do with my recovery. Whatever the answer, I am extremely grateful.

My experience made me realize the importance of vaccines. I understand their safety, and know their benefits far outweigh any crazy anti-vaccine theory. A vaccine, had it existed, would have spared me from the most frightening experience of my life. Complications from childhood diseases are real. Death from those complications is real. As a nine-year-old, I went through real trauma and great risk. But I am still here.

If there’s a vaccine for something and it’s well tested, my arm doesn’t go out fast enough.

Marlene Moulder was born in 1944 and grew up in Houston, Texas. Her story, like all others on this blog, was a voluntary submission. If you want to help make a difference, submit your own post by emailing us through our contact form. We depend on real people like you sharing experience to protect others from misinformation.