I thank the Lord that I know how to apply makeup well, as I’ve spent the week disguising my bruises.

My initial plan was to avoid everyone, especially family members. I wasn’t going to discuss my bruises and the only way to avoid that was to hide.

This was not to be.

As the week progressed my bruises blossomed. On Tuesday there was slight bruising around my left eye. By the time I left the restaurant after rehearsal Tuesday night (about midnight) I looked like I was auditioning for "Rocky".

So Wednesday morning things looked really bad. But fortunately it was too hot out to even consider going anywhere, so I didn’t bother to put on any makeup at all. It would have melted anyway, I think the temperature hit somewhere in the vicinity of 95 degrees.

On Thursday I lied to my mother, telling her I had an upset stomach, so I didn’t have to accompany her to the doctor’s. This was a big mistake as the walls came tumbling down.

When I called her Friday morning, the doctor had decided that she had an ‘inflamed artery" and needed an immediate biopsy and to start prednisone treatment immediately. She also had decided that she needed a blood transfusion because her anemia was so bad.

So this meant using every makeup trick that I knew to disguise my very black eye, and accompanying my mother to the hospital.

I hat hospitals, every experience is miserable and this was no different.

She was supposed to have the biopsy at 3. We were still sitting at 4:15 when the receptionist went home! Fortunately a nurse came out so I stopped her to inquire about what was going on.

Well they had no idea we were waiting, the doctor was running very late, and it was going to be a couple more hours before we even got into the operating room. I was fit to be tied.

Fortuantely this nurse was really on the ball, took charge and things started to happen. It took another hour, but we finally got into the day surgery unit, and at about 5:30 they took my mother to the operating room. The procedure didn’t take very long, and the surgeon told me that he didn’t think the artery was inflamed, everything looked normal.

This was good news, seeing this is the left temporal artery that supplies blood to the eyes.

That done, we went home, both really exhausted. I was praying that when my brother saw me he wouldn’t notice anything. He didn’t.

Saturday’s hospital experience was even worse. This time when she got to the hospital at 7, they had no idea she was coming and the primary care physician hadn’t sent any of the blood type information or the cross-matches. It was a FIVE-HOUR wait. Then it took four hours per pint to transfuse. She finally got home at 9:15. Fourteen hours later.

To prepare for the day I had gone to buy additional makeup, a yellow color corrector and pressed powder. My own makeup wasn’t going to cover up the bruise on my cheekbone or the bruising on my eyelid, seeing it was getting progressively darker.

I think I should have gone with spackling compound, silly putty, and a trowel. It was on about as thick as that.

But it worked. Neither of my brothers nor my nephew noticed it. I think it helped that the lighting in the hospital was dim, and that I was wearing my glasses, so the rim hid the spot where the bruise was the worst.

I also think that it has to do with the fact that males notice very little that doesn’t pertain to them.

In any case, I was a successful master of disguise. Now I have to be sure that I can do as well when I head back to school tomorrow.