The doctor that operated on my leg, Dr. Williams. And then I went to
their doctor. I'll tell you how that was. See, I had six doctors in the
hospital. I had my doctor. Then we had the doctor that wrapped my leg up
and sent me home. And then when my doctor sent me to the hospital, he
hired Dr. Williams; that was the third one. Well, Dr. Williams went to
California before they put the skin graft on me. He hired Dr. Tyner;
that's the fourth.
[Laughter] Then
something happened to Dr. Tyner; he wasn't my doctor but a couple of
days, though. Then Dr. Larry was my doctor there at the hospital. He
wasn't my doctor but a couple of days. I didn't put in for my disability
for a good bit, because I was still hoping I'd get better where I could
go back. I'd rather work. Because I wasn't but fifty-six years old, and
that ain't old, I mean to maybe set down and not have nothing to do.
When I did have to and I realized I'd have to, I made the best of it,
though. And this brother-in-law of mine that I raised fell on the ice
and broke
Page 86 his wrist, and he was at home. He was
working in Asheville in a government plant, because he'd spent
twenty-one years in service, and he'd learned his trade in the service.
So he was doing it; he was working in the government plant. So he was
driving me around to the doctor's office and different places I had to
go. So by that time it had been a good while; it had been a year or
over. And Dr. Williams asked me, "Have you ever put in for your
disability?" I said, "No, I ain't never went." He said, "Why, you better
be going. That's got a deadline on it. It can't wait forever." He
thought Bill was out there, my husband, but it was George, and he told
George, "Take her down there and make her sign up, because that's got a
deadline on it. You tell Mr. Cobb I said to make her go." So on Monday I
went. I was on compensation. I was drawing sixty percent of my wages.
And I went by the mill and told the personnel manager that I was going
by to sign up for my Social Security disability. He said I wouldn't get
it, but I went on. And I said, "Well, I'll tell you one thing. If I
don't get it, I'm going to come on into Washington after it, because my
doctor tells me, and he's pushing me to do it and told me to do it, I
never would stand on this leg and walk." So I went on down there, and I
signed up, and I put Dr. Williams. He's the one that operated on my leg.
And Dr. Wallace got me over the heart attack, blood clot. You know, some
doctors will not sign them papers, and everybody don't know that. But I
didn't know Dr. Wallace wouldn't sign them. And so I give them two
doctors' names—you've got to have two doctors to give—and so Dr. Wallace
wouldn't fill out that paper. Never did. So that made me wait months and
months on. So Dr. Ward from the Social Security Board called me up and
told me she couldn't get him to sign the papers, and so she asked me if
I'd be willing to go to one of her doctors, and I told her yes. So I
went to their doctor, and I never did hear from it more till my
Page 87 it come in. I got $800-and-some back pay.