Deepertruth: Miracles of Lourdes

The surgeon-general of the navy now advised amputation of the paralyzed arm, as there seemed to be no hope of ever joining the torn and shrunken nerves. Traynor would not consent. In November, 1916, another doctor tried to suture the nerves, bringing the number of unsuccessful operations up to four. By this time Traynor had been discharged from the service, first on 80 per cent pension, then on 100 per cent as being permanently and completely disabled. He had to spend months in various hospitals as an epileptic patient.

In April, 1920, a doctor realized that the epilepsy was probably the result of the head wounds, and operated on the skull. Whether bits of shrapnel were found and removed is not known, but we do know that the operation left Traynor with an open hole about an inch wide in his skull. Through this opening the pulsations of the brain could be observed. A silver plate was inserted to shield the brain. The epileptic condition was no better after the operation. The fits were as frequent as three a day. Both legs were partly paralyzed, and nearly every organ in Traynor's body was impaired.

An ambulance brought him back to Liverpool, where he lived with his wife and children in a house in Grafton Street. “We were very poor,” he told me. The Ministry of Pensions supplied him with a wheel-chair; in this he would sit for hours outside the house. He had to be lifted from his bed into the chair and back again.