The Free Spirit

Domestic Celebrity, 1967 (Part Two)

"He'll find that he cannot hide what lurks within his soul..."

Despite the fact that Don and Phil were considered pretty big stars, many people neglected to remember that they were human beings, much like themselves. The boys were subject to routine doctors' appointments - and if the reader recalls, Don hated jabs - of all kinds, such as general physicians, dentists, eye doctors and the like. In early April of 1967, shortly before Stacey's seventh birthday, Don found that his teeth were starting to hurt him quite a bit. He didn't have bad oral hygiene at all, but like most human beings, Don's wisdom teeth had come in and were starting to cause trouble for him. At first, he refused to go to the dentist, and it took me three days of constantly pushing him in order for him to make an appointment with Trixie's finacé, Christopher Dockerill, who was a dentist at St. Cuthbert's. "You're going to need these surgically removed, and the sooner we do it, the better," said Dr. Dockerill, and Don's eyes widened just a little.

"Ah, no, I ain't got time for that. Sorry, Doc," he said to Dr. Dockerill.

"Unless you want to have lasting pain and potentially lose feeling in your lower jaw, I suggest you have these surgically removed sooner rather than later," Dr. Dockerill told him again.

"He'll have the procedure if I have to do it myself, Christopher," I said to him, and Don shot a glare in my direction. "You're having it done, Donald. You can fight me all you like, but you're having it done." Don had had a minor surgery only once before, when a guitar string broke while he was playing it and struck him just below the eye, but it wasn't anything serious. This, on the other hand, was a little more serious and needed to be taken care of, even if making sure he went through the procedure was the last thing I ever did.

"I'm supposed to be tourin' all summer. If I get this surgery, I'll be out for weeks," Don told me in the car as we were leaving the office. Don hadn't quite learned how to drive in England yet, but I was rather skilled at it. He bought us a car and I drove it.

"It'll take you a good week to two weeks to heal enough to go back on the road, Donald. You're overreacting. Wisdom teeth surgery isn't that big of a deal!" I said to him.

"Oh, and you've had yours out, then, hm?" he asked me.

"As a matter of fact, yes. When I was fifteen," I told him. "I wasn't a big baby about it, neither. You know what I did when I got home that day? I got to babysit my little brothers, that's what, because my parents had some kind of event to go to. I forget what it was now."

"You was young! It's different when you're young!"

"I was fifteen. It's not much different getting the procedure done at fifteen rather than thirty except for the fact that my wisdom teeth were less developed than yours. You'll be fine, and I'll be with you the entire time, all right? We've had the consultation, now we'll make you an appointment sometime at the end of the summer, if it'll make you happy, and you'll rest at home until you're well enough to tour. Mouth injuries and procedures heal very quickly."

"Fine, if I gotta get this surgery, then you gotta go for that lady test I've heard ya tell women about," Don said defiantly, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"A Pap smear? Joke's on you, I never miss that one." He huffed at me and returned his eyes to the road. Don could be a bit of a baby whenever it came to going to the doctors. He hated shots, he hated being probed and poked at, he hated admitting he had a problem, however, he had no issue with forcing either me or the children to go to the doctor even if we felt all right. I made him an appointment in August, and to make him feel better, I scheduled it with an oral surgeon in Los Angeles so he could recover at home in California and the children could go back to school in America.