Wipe That Smile...
Sure it all SEEMS very funny to write about a cat who’s having a penisectomy until you go to the hospital to bring him home and there he is looking so thin and compromised, wearing one of those ridiculous-looking satellite dishes around his neck so he won’t use his little exacto-knife/tweezer teeth to pull out every last one of his stitches.
My junior high history teacher was always telling me to wipe that smile off our faces and helped me do it too, with a hard wooden paddle he used freely, even on us girls, swinging the thing fast to come down hard on the tips of my fingers where even just the one blow stung like you wouldn't believe.
Well, life wiped that smile of my face 36 hours ago when after six days of IVS and ultrasounds and dips down into the Land of Anesthesia poor Abraham was released at last to my care . Even as I write this he huddles some in isolation some 30 feet away in a back bedroom where he must remain for another 14 days. He cries from time to time but that’s not the worst thing. The worst thing is going in there and seeing him: his expression of pained resignation; the way he can’t set his head down or stretch out on his side because of that foolish cone; the way he can’t seem to pee much; how when I lift him ever so gently into my lap to give him some water, which I can only seem to get into him using the syringes his pain meds came in and we have now used up the last of the pain meds. I may have to use my mother’s universal remedy straight from the Emerald Isle and give him whiskey.
I’m kidding about the whiskey, but all my kidding falls flat now. It’s not funny what we have done to save his life. Is it wrong of us to order up these heroic rescues for our animals just because we can't imagine doing without their sweet company while we shine our shoes or pay the bills or watch TV?
David saw where the surgeons were getting at before I did. He saw our oldest girl on Friday and said to her “I’m not sure but I think Abe is having a sex change operation today.” I thought it was going to just be a couple of catheterizations to drain the bladder then boom he'd be fine and home, trotting through the yard and snacking on his favorite foods.
Tonight because I promised the use my house some 10 months ago, 30 Shakespeare enthusiasts are coming here. We spend three hours reading the play that has been chosen and carefully cast. Then at 10:30 or so the is we adjourn to the dining room of the hosting house to enjoy the collation as has been the custom since the group’s founding in the 19th century when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s brother, and daughter, and grandson were enthusiastic members.
Lucky for me our girl Annie who is a professional chef is coming over after her other, more mainstream 9 to 5 job, to prepare the rest of the food which she began upon over the weekend. This means that in the next several hours all I have to do is go back to the animal hospital to ask them how the HELL to get the cone off just for meals since Abe can’t even get NEAR his food dish without knocking it over. Then I need to get five bags of ice and a little more wine, try to see to it that the whole HOUSE doesn’t smell like animal illness and then have another look at the living room whose furniture we shoved all around last night so that the Shakespeareans can see one another as they read the play aloud.
Then, until around 6 tonight when I have to jump into my pantyhose and start setting out the salted nuts I can sit with the patient, my pal from his babycat days in 1995 when he was a small grey ball of fluff who when he came down our big stairs one a time looked like nothing so much as a Slinky toy. I’ll sit with him and MAYBE try to write a little, but mostly just try be with him I think, as he makes his way through this moment and the next and the next one following, even as we all must do until day comes quick or fast when for us all both time and moments are forever done.
