Did you know column DRGS

 

Did you know…..how important medical records and death records are?

As the family record keepers in our large maternal family, Linda TILLEY and I also bring family medical record forms to our bi-annual family reunions.  We ask family members to list their diseases and conditions, and after an appropriate time has passed, we also ask for death certificates.  These records not only have important genealogical information on them, but they can help chart our own health.  I have quite an extensive collection of older death certificates as well.  Did you know there is a very good reason for that?

As new moms, my sisters and I carefully paid attention to our babies' urinary out put and colic/spitting up habits.  That is how our sister Joan HARRIS saved her son’s life in 1971.  She had been old enough to remember how our brother John had acted before his death in 1959 and didn’t let the doctors dismiss her as a nervous new mom. She demanded they test him for the family trait (pyloric stenosis), and baby Scott immediately  underwent life saving surgery.  He had the same genetic condition that caused John’s death. Our maternal aunt Helen WICKENHEISER, who died at the same age. Her cause of death way pyloric stenosis as well.  Knowing about this genetic condition enabled us to watch more carefully than most moms might.  This condition affected two of Joan’s grandchildren as well.

I was even able to diagnose my friend’s grandson’s illness. She was describing how the baby was acting, and how worried they all were, and I exclaimed, “My God, have your son tell the doctors to check for pyloric stenosis!”  She immediately called her son, and the baby was quickly diagnosed and had the same surgery as Scott.   She credits me with saving her grandson’s life. 

Through other death certificates I have been able to chart the number of deaths related to heart conditions, multiple types of  cancers, and other illnesses.  It is heartbreaking when I see causes of death, especially among babies and children, which are so preventable today.  Sometime some detective work is necessary, such as my great grandmother’s cause of death. Pontic Regurgitation.  It took our pathologist nephew to figure that one out, and even he needed help.  There are web sites that will decipher older records and give a modern-day equivalent of the cause of death.

SOME REFERENCES

www.csidixie.org graveyard-old-diseases

www.thoughtco.come historic causes of death

www.verywellhealth.com outdated-disease-names

Rana Joblinski WILLIT  7/14/24