I could not wait to tell Andy what his mother did. It’s funny how that was always important for me to do. Since I felt Clara did not want to inconvenience her daughters by asking them to help with her care while I was recovering, I told Clara with her compromised immune system with being on dialysis, it was not in her best interest to have close contact with me. Once I expressed to Clara that she could become gravely ill by having close contact with me and that she would have to ask her daughters to help over the next week, she said she would have them look after her. Although I was truthful in what I was saying, I thought it was sad that it was only when Clara felt her health was in danger that she would ask them for the extra help. By now the small bumps on my arm had grown into a disgusting scabby mess about an inch wide and eight inches long. It was cracked and oozing and I could not imagine my arm ever recovering without a significant scar. I was on so many prescriptions; an anti-viral medicine, an anti-biotic, a decongestant, an expectorant, an inhaler and ibuprofen. It seemed like the shingles kept breaking out in new places each day. I returned to the doctor to find out I had an allergic reaction to one of the medications, but which one? Trying to figure that out delayed my recovery, I was sick for a month. I only had that extra help for one week, and at least after that, while I wasn’t recovered, I had improved. I had a talk with Clara about the selfishness of her eating creamed soups knowing the affect it had on her. Months later, to my great surprise, the scar from the shingles actually faded away completely.
