Here I am at SS' iMac, with its turnip-like screen stand and elegant white and lucite keyboard and mouse. SS and her daughter are packing to go with me to Pinewoods Camp, where they are long-time attendees of the Labor Day weekend, and I am on staff as the English dance leader.
Much of yesterday I spent at FSG's bedside in Mount Auburn--from about eleven in the morning until just after six in the evening. His condition has altered without improving: doctors have now sighted nodules in his lungs that they believe to be bacterial in origin, and the bulk of the day was spent readying ourselves for the lung biopsy they hope will give them certain and clear answers about the sort of bacterium responsible--and the right antibiotic to treat it. FSG distressed and upset--inasmuch as a sanguine, solar spirit as his can be--by all of this. His color is better and his eyes brighter than when I last saw him, but he is drawn, and has lost a great deal of muscle mass. He is now sporting a quasi-Amish fashion of facial hair: a moustachio, but beard only under the chin--he has shaved all that he has energy to shave. He will not hear any of us say that the moustache is fine; he is wildly eager to shave it all again.
BH and I wait out the lung biopsy together. It is a blessing to feel the deep affinities that bind us, to see that our experiences, willy nilly, have brought us to not dissimilar conclusions, and that our unquestioned common impulses have brought us to this hospital and this bedside.
I have omitted to mention, from last week, the Museum of Fine Arts' breathtaking exhibition on Art Deco--but all of that, with my report from Pinewoods, must wait on another day.
Saturday, September 04, 2004
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