20 November 2011

. . . house parts . . .

. . . a three-part post . . .
. . . and yes ~
i do remember all three parts . . .


{part one}

. . . drew was sixteen . . .
. . . he was in the midst
of a round of accutane . . .
{a wonderful/awful drug}
. . . a much higher dosage
than he should have been on,
we later discovered . . .
. . . that stuff is strong! . . .
. . . good thing he turned out pretty
in the end . . .
. . . but, during? . . .
. . . oh, my ~ his poor fingers . . .
. . . the tissue around
every single nailbed
was swollen, inflamed, infected,
and {shall we say?} oozy . . .
. . . an extremely painful/messy condition
for a basketball player . . .
. . . but only when you need
to dribble, catch or shoot . . .
. . . his body was
in such a state of stress
that this happened . . .

{please don't be jealous that
a professional photographer documented this momentous occasion
in the middle of our family photo shoot}
. . . you'll recognize this as shingles . . .
. . . and a belly button . . .
. . . drew referred to this condition
as fingles . . .
{you can thank me later for tastefully cropping!}


{part two}

. . . sixteen years earlier . . .
. . . we were at a romney family party . . .
. . . lots of aunts, uncles, cousins . . .
. . . amanda was five . . .
. . . she showed all of us
a rash forming on her tummy . . .
. . . then ~ exactly two weeks later . . .
. . . i was in labor
waiting for drew to be born . . .
. . . when we got a call
at the hospital
telling us that three-year-old amelia
and all the little romney cousins her age
were breaking out in chicken pox . . .
. . . amanda'd already had them
a couple of years before . . .
. . . but the herpes zoster virus
lives forever . . .
. . . her shingles had exposed
all her relatives
to chicken pox . . .
. . . we like to share! . . .
. . . my favorite part of this story,
though, is that
amanda loved telling
anyone who would listen
that her ouchy rash
was called "shutters" . . .


{part three}

. . . our home celebrated her
twenty-eighth birthday
this week . . .
. . . i'm just not
a very good gift giver . . .
. . . it's hard to come up
with exactly the right thing . . .
. . . this year, we decided we'd go
with something practical . . .
. . . so, she got
a fresh coat of black paint
on her shutters . . .


. . . you say shingles {or fingles} . . .
. . . i say shutters . . .
. . . parts is parts, i guess . . .


2 comments:

Karen said...

Gotta say it...I shutter when I think of shingles!

chris+amber said...

This is one of your most clever posts ever. Love it!