Hello, it's mal just before we kick off today's episode of Lucky Dip. Quick warning that today's story has some medically graphic details attached to it that might be not great for those of you who are a little bit queasy, so just take that as a little warning. But it is a fantastic story, so I would suggest you keep listening, and I usually give you a little bit of a heads up of when the gory stuff's going to start, so you can just skip forward like thirty seconds and
you'll miss it. But into the show, we.
Goddle, it's Lucky Dip time. It's your lucky time today. It'd smel the monty. It's Lucky Dip time. Good eh, Hello, Hello, thanks for listening to the pod. Hope you well, whatever you're up to, let us know. Shaw Metel Podcasts is where you can find us on Instagram.
Best place to get us. I have a little story a lot of people might be aware of.
But it's fucked her as per But I think you've done one or two uplifting ones and they're not as good. We're just programmed to like a next story.
Yeah, there's something insincere about it. When in my delivery because I'm I'm just naturally dark. That's how it is. Anyway. Have you ever heard of Rosemary Kennedy?
No?
Okay, So Rosemary Kennedy was born in nineteen eighteen, and she was the third child and the eldest daughter of JFK's parents. Okay, Joseph and Rose Kennedy, JFK's sister. Yes, she's jfka's sister. Anyway, When she is being born, it's around the time of the Spanish flu outbreak. So the doctor that is meant to come to the home to deliver her is being caught up with you know, like saving people's lives. So remember the nineteen eighteen The midwife is like, oh, no, I have to wait for the
man to come and deliver the baby. So for two hours she held the baby's head.
I don't know how you could do that.
Howd the head there held the head into in the birth canal. So God, can you imagine the excruciating pain of that when you are in those that moment of labor where you're ready to deliver. Yeah, the pain is Unbelievause the.
Head is the hectic bit. The shoulders like squirt out like jelly.
The head is like.
But also I am like, you know, birth four years ago, so it's still relatively fresh. There's no way when you get the pushing sensation, you cannot so it's torture.
It's torture. But so she's holding the head in two.
Hours, so dangerous.
This poor little baby Rosemary was deprived of oxygen for quite some time, so, you know, like toddler years, they're starting to notice developmental delays. And the dad was in politics and was quite ambitious in his career and wanted the perfect family. It was all part of like you know, how you look to society and all this sort of shit. So when she is eleven, it's becoming really obvious that I'll hang on, there's some challenges going on here with
this little girl. So they decide to send her away to a private boarding school, you know, like send her away just to get rid of her, so she's not in the public eye anyway. Her literacy level at sixteen, they say, was around the level of a nine to ten year old, which listen, isn't great, but I mean you can get by. Yeah, we've spoken before. My mum like didn't go to school, so yes, you know, and she got by anyway. She goes to this private boarding school.
This is a really sad detail. So the dad was like the ambassador to the UK or something, and the queen came over for a visit and like the whole family were being presented to her, and Rosemary apparently had come home that weekend and she practiced her curtsy for hours,
oh my hours to try and get it right. And then on the day she tripped because she was nervous, but apparently she was fine with it, and you know, like by all accounts, she was a bit of a firecracker, like she was just it seems like she had a lot of spirit to her, like she just wanted to have a good time, you know. Anyway, so when she's around twenty two, she starts having real bad mood swings and you know, like what they call violent outbursts. They're
saying she's becoming increasingly irritable and difficult. So the dad thinks that this new procedure that's come out, well not new. There is a doctor called doctor Walter Freeman, and he thinks he's going to revolutionies the lobotomy, which used to be like a full cutting the skull open.
And is it taking out the brain.
Well, like, what is it? He's fucking with the brain. This is why Walter Freeman, this doctor was like people were going in droves to see him because it was an in office procedure. Now, my god, what he was doing was basically it was called an ice picklebottom don't now, Well, I'm going to have to tell you this is part of this. It gives context to this story. But if
you are squeamish, maybe go forward twenty seconds. Basically, put an ice pick let's say we tear duct is and yeah, shove it in and then it'd wiggle around the brain.
Oh my god, I didn't ever know what party was touching.
And what would happen was people were going if their wives were hysterical, and we've previously discussed what hysterical looks like. But you know kids that now we would look at that would say would be neurodivergent or whatever. People would take their family members there and then things were great afterwards because they just sat around almost catatonic and didn't do any personalities fully changed. God anyway, So mister Kennedy, God does this apparently not in consultation with his wife.
He just decides to do this look. One camp may say that this was because he just wanted his daughter to fit into their perfect family, so she acted the way he expected. Others might say that it was a last ditch attempt. He just wanted her to be happy the whole. Right. Yeah, they go in and the procedure Rosemary's I mean, like, if you're going to say a bit more gentle, it's still not. But this is how they described it. After Rosemary was mildly sedated, we went
through the top of her head. I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the sky. It was near the front, it was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch. What this doctor used looked like a butter knife, and apparently he swung it up and down to cut the brain tissue. They put the instrument inside and then doctor Freeman asks Rosemary to recite the Our Father, which is a prayer and seeing God
bless America or count backwards. And when she became incoherent so she couldn't sing anymore, or she was losing her words or whatever, then they thought that's enough. We'll stop cutting now that was their baromina for winter. Stop Like, obviously this did not go well. She was institutionalized immediately and she stayed there for the rest of her life.
She could not speak, she was wheelchair bound. All the kids were just told that she went away to another school, but they were not allowed to go and see her. The mother was forbidden to go and see her too. Apparently she never saw anyone in her her family until I think it was for twenty years afterwards. Then the
dad died and apparently this is so sad. When the mum went to see her after all this time, she started like beating at her mum's chest and grunting, because I guess there was a level of awareness in her, like you fucking left me. You let that happen to me, and you left me. Yeah, so she yeah, she stayed there until she don't Oh my god, she lived until her eighties. I think.
So that's a long time. Jo.
It's like, you've got all these siblings, because they were a big family, think of like seven kids or something, and you're probably sitting there seeing your brother become president, you're seeing your brother assassinated. You see, esn't anyway yeah, I mean times have changed, well, thank.
God, they've changed far out. Don't you think they will look back like our kids or grandkids will be going so when my grandma was around being asked they used to do this, or they used to drink a drink called this or something like that. It's going to be hectic because we think whereas we're wear in the stage where medicine is as advanced as it is. Because this is where we are, it's going to keep advancing more and it'll be like I can't believe they will know that and they did that.
I know, like everything seems revolutionary at the time, but even back then, you're putting a nice pick into someone's brain wally nearly soiling it around, you know what it is. It just shows how much how much faith people having doctors and assuming doctors have all the answers and they don't really.
No, Nah, they're humans as well. I know they're science, but they're humans as well. I mean, there's been a lot of depressing stories you have told that takes the cake or the icing or whatever it is, the icing and the cake and you eat it all. That would be wild.
Yeah, there you go for more happy stories.
Make sure you subscribe to our podcast, leave us a comment and getting touched on to our podcasts is where you can find us.
We'll chat to you soon.
Bye for now, Love you,