My grandfather got mustard gassed in WWI. He was shipped stateside and immediately put in the "kick-off ward" of Sparks’s hospital. Doctors assumed many injuries were fatal and had a special area for the dying. Every three or four days a new soldier would be put in the bed next to his only to die and be replaced by another. This went on for about a month. He asked the nurse, “When is the doctor coming?” She always replied. “He can’t do anything for you. Don’t you know you’re going to die?” The Spanish flu was rampant. Nurses and doctors got sick as well. They sort of lost track of how many months he spent in the kick-off ward.
 

Finally he had enough. He started forcing himself to raise his arms, then his legs, and then sit up. Finally the day came when he stood up just long enough to pass out and fall back on the bed. He kept setting himself small goals. The day came when he could walk to the door of the room and back, then down the hall and back. One day he was going to go out the front door to a little soda stand. The nurse at the desk said,”Where do you think you are going? Don’t you know you’re going to die?” Well if I live five minutes more I’m going to get me a Coca-Cola!
 

Eventually he left the hospital against doctor’s orders. It cost him a medical discharge. He went to Arizona where he met and married my grandmother. He worked as a grocer till he was 81 and lived to be 86 when he had a heart attack splitting an oak tree he sawed up by hand.
 

He used to tell me this story. At the end he’d get this mischievous twinkle in his eye and say,” And all those doctors who told me I was going to die? They’re all dead now!”