AWAY FROM HER & THE CAT SHAMPOOS

I’m away from her now, home again in Boston, and my big sister Nan is still in Florida; still in that Boy-in-a-Bubble world that this MRSA infection has put her in, where she can’t even take shower on account of the crucial porthole the hospital opened up in her arm. Since her week-long stay there in mid-June she's only been allowed to have little kitty-baths  - and this in a household where the real cat showers daily.

Nan and Chuck designed their bathroom in such a way that instead of a curtain the shower has two walls made of chunky glass tiles, which the cat scaled one day to oversee Chuck in his ablutions. Now Chuck is crazy about this animal and so “asked” him if wanted a little spray to the face and what do you think, the cat loved it. He now BEGS for out-and-out shampoos, complete with an Irish Spring lather-up to the head and ears. It must be like getting massage for us humans, or even massage with the special dessert thrown in for the folks who go in for that sort of thing because this cat just adores Chuck now, and follows him all over the house thanking him and licking him and sleeping in his truck when he can't get at his lap.

Nan named the cat when he first wandered into their yard as a homeless kitten. Duke she dubbed him, like they called John Wayne because little as he was he had that certain leadin'-with-ma-big-wide-shoulders-style swagger - or anyway he had it before a kitty stroke a couple of springs ago rearranged his posture some. Now he wears his head in this permanent cocked angle so now Nan calls him Two O’Clock. “Hey, Two O’Clock!” she’ll call out when he slinks by. The cat pays her no mind though; he’s too busy following Chuck, hoping for more shampoo and lap-dancing.

If you read the post underneath this you know that I went down to Florida to help Nan and Chuck as they weather this summer of Nan's sickness. This past Monday she let me go with her to the clinic that houses the Hyperbaric Chamber she must lie in for two hours every day because its oxygen-rich environment promotes healing in her foot, the site of this grievous infection. The thing looks like a big Tylenol capsule and she eases into it after the handsome tech Brian takes her vitals. On Monday he closed the cover and there she stayed, for a little over two hours before the doctor undid the dressing and looked at her poor foot, which even inside the bone is infected with this highly resistant staph infection capable of claiming your toes, your feet, your limbs and even your life.

I meanwhile sat stunned in the waiting room. I looked at the big live oak tree outside the window, wearing its Spanish moss like the torn lingerie the young Elizabeth Taylor wore in all those movies where she was for sure SEXUALLY AVAILABLE but strictly in that violet eyed upper-class British accent way.

I looked at the other clients waiting their turn, the woman who gave birth ten days ago and is one big open wound in the C-section area and so has to come have that seen to, poor dear, falling asleep in her chair.

And I brooded over the thought of what it costs to come here: a whopping $4500 per session and even with Nan's insurance she still has to pay $150 per. That will have been five days a week times ten weeks and well, you do the math.

And yet still she smiles and makes her funny remarks. She introduced Brian to me as "the Crypt Keeper" for example. He didn't mind. He gets her. He just smiled his nice smile and undid the blood pressure cuff around her little arm. "Wave to your sister," he said and she did that and he closed the lid and the session began.