Ah, how Christmas-time makes my heart leap with joy! O the gaiety! O the merriment! O the poor orphaned children begging in the street; how the pennies do flow into their threadbare caps via the hands of benevolent souls throughout the month of December! 'Tis enough to make one sing and weep with joy, simultaneously! And Dr Schultheiß says I am rid of my consumption! Can there be a happier lass on Papá's estate?
Whate'er reason I may have for ungratefulness, at the very least my Yuletide sha'n't be passed in the fashion of the waifs above! Hooray, I am wealthy!
Music has eased my spirits as of late. I miss the dashing Horace and his Euphonium, but my nieces Millie and Fannie have visited me at the Glensheen estate, which we are currently renting from its owners, and brought the latest popular sheet music to play on the piano-forte. I am certainly not well enough to dance, or, verily, to sit upright; Papá would disapprove of such liveliness, even in times of health.
Dr. Schultheiß has prescribed to me an array of compounds, tinctures, and patent-medicines to aid in my recovery. They are of the most modern extraction, using the latest technology: Wolcott’s Instant Pain Annihilator, Dr. Guertin’s Nerve Syrup, Buffalo Lithia Water, Mug-Wump Specific, Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People, Dr. Morse’s Indian Root, glycerited asafœtida. He discovered that I was taking Dr. King’s New Discovery for Consumption (not under the advisement of any of my physicians; rather, this was brought to me by Nurse-Maid Tillie) and has insisted that I cease ingestion of this product. It is a wholesome compound of morphine and chloroform, and since I began taking it in aught-nine my inhalation and exhalation have been less laboured; nonetheless, Dr. Schultheiß tells me it is nothing but to my detriment.
A sampling of the nostra recommended for my manifold conditions.
I am recovering from the awful restive lung cure; my convalescence is to be spent in the horrid town of Duluth, Minnesota. Dr Schultheiß insists that next to the Himalayan air, nothing can benefit my ill lungs more than the vapors of the great Kitchi Gami.
Dr. Schultheiß has proposed drastic measures in order to speed my recovery from the dreaded Consumption: either rest my affected lung by causing it to collapse, or undertake what he calls "the Himalaya cure:" 8 months' time passed in the culturally nefarious environs of Nepal. He assures me that the mountain air would cause the tubercles staining my delicate lungs to evaporate like morning dew. Papá did not waste time with equivoques: "NO" was his answer, and No it remains.
"Why not a Mediterranean cure?" Step-mother Celestine wanted to know, "Last year Katharina's physician said nothing could be more beneficial to her lungs than the salty air."
"Zat vass before recent developments in medical technology," saith Dr. Schultheiß.
"How about time in Colorado, or Wyoming?"
"I am afraid, Madam," the good Dr. stroked his beard, as Teutonic physicians are wont to do, "zat zee altitude is quite simply insufficient for vat vee are trying to accomplish."
In the end it was agreed that a surgeon shall rest my lung, a horrendous procedure that shall inflict upon me greater pain than the disease itself (much as my thrice-weekly vibratory treatment is more gruesome than my frequent bouts of hysterical fits). Should this fail to eliminate all sign of Consumption from my ailing body, I am afraid I have no choice but to make the arduous journey to the Orient.
I have spent an extended period in a medical facility off of the estate. My tubercular symptoms have worsened. Horace commented, during one of his frequent visits, that I never looked so lovely: all the rosy color has drained from my face, and my wrist circumference is so slight that Horace jested that I must be mistakenly ingesting Orpha’s daily ration of barley gruel. I could not summon the strength to titter.
Verily, my appetite is such that I no longer have appetite even for Cook Effie's sorghum gelatin mold, though Dr. Schultheiß cautions that I must eat, at the very least, a steaming bowl of veal consommé with soda crackers daily.
A doctor’s assessment of a consumptive patient ca. one century past; how medicine has advanced!
