Bunny Boy and Me by Nancy Laracy

Author:Nancy Laracy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2018-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

The stress of Bunny Boy’s pending surgery combined with an upper respiratory infection caused another major flare-up in my mixed connective tissue disease. Practically overnight, I felt like I had been run over by a truck. My energy source was completely drained. By the morning of the surgery, it was difficult to walk more than twenty feet without feeling out of breath. Carrying Bunny Boy around had become a chore; he felt so heavy. But I simply had to push through the pain and fatigue for Bunny Boy’s sake.

Always striving to be efficient, I had also scheduled an appointment with my rheumatologist Dr. Brown that same day, assuming Bunny Boy would be stable and out of the recovery room by the afternoon. My mother had agreed to accompany me so Ward wouldn’t have to miss an important meeting. Mom was remarkable. Nothing stopped her. Not widowhood, not a crippling back or a failed hip replacement. She was always there for her children—and their pets. She also loved New York. When she left her small hometown of Franklin, New Hampshire, in the late 1940s to affiliate as a nurse in Jersey City, Manhattan was her backyard. She was perfectly at home roaming the great metropolis.

We approached the AMC parking lot after sitting in two hours of traffic. My cell phone buzzed as I edged my way forward in the line of cars waiting for the parking attendant. It was Dr. Hess. Bunny Boy’s surgery had been canceled. The surgeon who was to operate on Bunny Boy had had a small family emergency.

“I do apologize, Mrs. Laracy. Dr. Irwin assures me that it was just a small emergency and that he can perform the operation tomorrow morning at the same time. He’s the most qualified surgeon we have on staff, and Bunny Boy deserves that.”

I wanted to bang my head on the steering wheel. It had taken a Herculean effort for me to make the trip. What could I say?

“Can we count on Bunny Boy in the morning?” she asked nicely.

“Yes, we’ll be there,” I said in my best amicable voice.

I moved my rheumatologist’s appointment from two o’clock to eleven. While my mother went to a Starbucks around the corner to pick up some coffee and muffins, Bunny Boy and I waited on the ground floor entrance of the hospital. I was too weak to go for the walk. We hailed a cab around ten thirty and directed the driver to NYU.

“For a moment, I thought that you were holding a cat,” said the cab driver in a thick Lebanese accent. “But that’s a bunny, and it’s big.”

“And heavy.” I smiled.

“Why all of the hospitals?” he asked.

“This ride is too short for the story.”

With Bunny Boy in my arms, I announced myself at the receptionist at Dr. Brown’s office. When she replied curtly, Bunny Boy took it upon himself to put an end to her attitude. He hopped onto the counter in his flirtatious style and knocked a pen onto her lap, which only annoyed her more.

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