Mary Magdalene and my illnesses

I started first grade at Mary Magdalene, and felt like such a big girl. I got to walk to the bus stop with Kathy. I loved that part because I loved being with her and she always did a good job of looking out for me. My teacher that year was Sister Mary Neil and I absolutely loved her. It was this first grade of school however that I began having so many ear infections and eardrum perforations. Ear pain is the most severe excruciating pain I could ever think of. It is a series of piercing stabbing shots right through your eardrum. For those of you who have never had problems with your ears, consider yourselves fortunate. I missed a lot of school that year because of illness. Kathy would bring my schoolwork home for me each day and mom would help me with it at night, then Kathy would take it back to my teacher and so on. I missed so much school that Sister Mary Neil wanted to hold me back a year. There was also the factor that I was really so young. Mom convinced her that I knew the work so I was passed on a sort of trial basis---if it became too hard for me to keep up I could still be put back. I of course worked real hard so that wouldn't happen. If I would have been kept back from the beginning for missing so much school , would have been alright. But I didn't want to be put back after passing because I looked at that as failure.