Suzy Says

Clyde and Audrey take a nap

Cats find the funniest places to nap. This is behind my bed in the sleeping loft. As you can see, part of the curved wall is made of corrugated plastic, which makes it warm for napping kitties, but makes rain noisier and is, as you can see, almost impossible to clean. Sometimes it’s so obvious that this house was built by and for a boy.

Clyde has been limping for the past couple of days. I’ve tried to keep him in more often, but it seems really mean to keep a 10 month old kitten in the house on a beautiful spring day, especially when his brother frolics around in plain sight through the sliding glass door.

Megan checked out both his front legs and paws – it seems to be the left front that’s the problem – and couldn’t detect any signs of breakage or injury. He didn’t cry out or anything, so we think he may have fallen out of a tree and landed awkwardly, or something like that. I’m keeping an eye on him, and he seems to be slowly improving.

Also slowly improving is A! She is now in a regular hospital ward, sharing her space with a 38 year old methadone addict with cirrhosis of the liver and a kid in jail and an ancient lady whose only means of communication is howling like a banshee. I imagine A has to keep reminding herself that this is better than Intensive Care, where she spent so many weeks.

I have been calling her once a week now, in addition to my regular silly emails which C prints out and brings her. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to hear her voice. She still has no feeling in her hands and feet, and is learning to walk again with the help of physiotherapists and a walker. She is hoping to be moved to a rehab facility soon. Apparently, it’s like applying to college, with your first, second, and third choices, hoping that the one you really want will accept you. The one she wants is near Sylvia Plath’s final home, though we shouldn’t take that as an omen.

A says she is covered in scars from the tracheotomy, dialysis and so on, and that she bruises very easily now. It seems that spending three months in the hospital is not a beauty treatment. Also, she has lost huge amounts of time. She doesn’t remember anything at all from C calling the ambulance on January 7 to waking up in the hospital around the middle of March. Nothing. Medical comas will do that to you.

She’s in remarkably good spirits, though, and determined to get back to work this summer, maybe working from home starting in June, half a year after her ordeal began. I can still hardly believe it, and she feels the same way. I am so thankful she is alive and has no brain damage. I need to save up my pennies and get over there and hug her!