When I was 8 years old, my mother bought me my first cat.
I wasn’t even supposed to have a cat, but she took pity on the fact that I had no friends. That’s what Moms do, and we love them for it. The reason I wasn’t supposed to have a cat and
had no friends was directly related – I was chronically ill. I spent my days and nights in a cold, wet oxygen tent –- or, if that was out of order for any reason, I slept under a card table draped with sheets, fitted with a hot vaporizer. Whether in the tent or under the table, I was consistenly soaking wet. My mother had to change my pajamas constantly. For most of my childhood, I floated on an incessant flow of oxygen and a steady stream of viscous, purple Codeine syrup. The Codeine quelled the barking, which is exactly what my cough sounded like. My father, who commuted about 2 hours each way to work in Boston, had to sleep with earplugs and a pillow over his head. In fact, before I was born, my parents planned on having another child -- hoping for a boy. A few weeks after my birth, my father came home in the middle of the day, which never happened. "Why aren't you in work?" my mom asked.
"I had surgery today..."
"Surgery? What happened??"
"A vasectomy, that is what happened. NO MORE KIDS."
So, that is one of my claims to fame -- forcing my dad to have a vasectomy, and killing their chances for the son they always wanted.
When not squirreled away in some boxlike construct fitted for breathing ease, I was huffing on a nebulizer. Or else flat on my back on the floor staring at the ceiling while gallons of blood ran from my nose, down the back of my throat, and generally all over the place. My mom would put an ice pack beneath by neck and another across my nose. And, after 10 minutes or so, it’d stop. Sometimes, it wouldn't, which called for another hospital trip and eventually a few surgeries to seal the blood vessels in my nose.
So, long story short, all of these things had to do with respiratory and ear/nose/throat defects. So, for me the word “phlegm” was as chldhood-friendly as “ice cream” or, in today’s terms, “Playstation”. The cat was an orange tiger cat with long whiskers, and I proudly named him Phlegm. I dressed him in a red gingham fabric babydoll dress and made him dance with my Donny and Marie dolls. And if my little girl heartbreak was not enough on a daily basis, Phlegm died after only one year - leaving me friendless once again. Phlegm died of feline leukemia. I tried to keep him going as long as I could, covering him with baby blankets and rocking his withering body. I quit taunting him with doll dresses and disco and just helped him live out his final days as comfortably as possible. I remember the last time I saw Phlegm; he was perched on the table at the vets, right before he was euthenized. His nose and gums had turned snow white and his fur was flying everywhere. He looked at me right in the eyes, gold to blue, and sent me a message. He said "I'll be back as long as you quit the dress crap" and I believed him, but I cried over the loss of Phlegm for months and months anyway.
I wasn’t even supposed to have a cat, but she took pity on the fact that I had no friends. That’s what Moms do, and we love them for it. The reason I wasn’t supposed to have a cat and
had no friends was directly related – I was chronically ill. I spent my days and nights in a cold, wet oxygen tent –- or, if that was out of order for any reason, I slept under a card table draped with sheets, fitted with a hot vaporizer. Whether in the tent or under the table, I was consistenly soaking wet. My mother had to change my pajamas constantly. For most of my childhood, I floated on an incessant flow of oxygen and a steady stream of viscous, purple Codeine syrup. The Codeine quelled the barking, which is exactly what my cough sounded like. My father, who commuted about 2 hours each way to work in Boston, had to sleep with earplugs and a pillow over his head. In fact, before I was born, my parents planned on having another child -- hoping for a boy. A few weeks after my birth, my father came home in the middle of the day, which never happened. "Why aren't you in work?" my mom asked.
"I had surgery today..."
"Surgery? What happened??"
"A vasectomy, that is what happened. NO MORE KIDS."
So, that is one of my claims to fame -- forcing my dad to have a vasectomy, and killing their chances for the son they always wanted.
When not squirreled away in some boxlike construct fitted for breathing ease, I was huffing on a nebulizer. Or else flat on my back on the floor staring at the ceiling while gallons of blood ran from my nose, down the back of my throat, and generally all over the place. My mom would put an ice pack beneath by neck and another across my nose. And, after 10 minutes or so, it’d stop. Sometimes, it wouldn't, which called for another hospital trip and eventually a few surgeries to seal the blood vessels in my nose.
So, long story short, all of these things had to do with respiratory and ear/nose/throat defects. So, for me the word “phlegm” was as chldhood-friendly as “ice cream” or, in today’s terms, “Playstation”. The cat was an orange tiger cat with long whiskers, and I proudly named him Phlegm. I dressed him in a red gingham fabric babydoll dress and made him dance with my Donny and Marie dolls. And if my little girl heartbreak was not enough on a daily basis, Phlegm died after only one year - leaving me friendless once again. Phlegm died of feline leukemia. I tried to keep him going as long as I could, covering him with baby blankets and rocking his withering body. I quit taunting him with doll dresses and disco and just helped him live out his final days as comfortably as possible. I remember the last time I saw Phlegm; he was perched on the table at the vets, right before he was euthenized. His nose and gums had turned snow white and his fur was flying everywhere. He looked at me right in the eyes, gold to blue, and sent me a message. He said "I'll be back as long as you quit the dress crap" and I believed him, but I cried over the loss of Phlegm for months and months anyway.