|
Monday, Apr. 18, 2005 / 10:13 p.m. ~Afterward~ She smells like blood. It took me a long time to figure it out, to remember what that odor is, and it makes me feel sick to smell it. It's not putrefaction, but it's permeating everything, it's something that doesn't fit here. It went too well, yet he shows me the X-rays and when he imitates the cough I remember she does it, and I don't know how often, so I guess once a month, or less, and I can't add any more money to what the credit card company will be charging interest on now, we won't get radiological professionals on board yet, we won't worry about 'mets', I can't picture her with her belly cut open and cancer in her lungs, and tissue removed, and that smell. This went well, and this is what 'this went well' is like, but it's worse than I thought, and it's killing me to watch her walk from room to room, making that clicking sound her joints make now, and thinking she just needs to slow down, to rest, to stop, just stop, someplace soft and warm, and instead she finds a cold corner, presses her head up against the wall, and the cut belly is exposed, the blue stitches, and that smell, and I stop from gagging, I cover my mouth so I don't smell it, and the other cat walks over to see, tries to get closer, and she doesn't hiss at all, she's clearly concerned, there is no selfishness in it, not at all. I'll leave her tomorrow, and each day we'll be closer to knowing what's next, and I don't know what I can do from here, I don't think I can put her through it, even if she made it today, and made it well, and this is what 'making it well' is like, and that smell. I sit here and smell it and I can't begin to describe it except to remember that day, and it was a long time ago, when he and I came home, and I saw the blood on the floor, and then on the walls, and my cat's claw grown into his paw, and the way it bled and the smell when I cleaned it. And later, with the dogs killing the other cat, and I was on hands and knees scrubbing blood from tiles on the floor, and the walls, and that smell, you can't forget it, you can't place it, you try to remember it, but you can't forget it, and then it's all you can think of, and there was the other cat, the one who'd been declawed, and she'd opened up on her side, just opened right up, and that was putrefaction, that was, that smell was worse, and different, but this is the coppery one described in crime novels, that coppery smell of blood. And yet she's not bleeding, she's stitched up and she's restless, and what a hard day, what a horrible day, and I put her through it, she could have just grown that thing and we could have left it there, weighting her down and swinging when she walked, in her saggy belly. And now she's cut open and stictched shut and she smells like that horrible smell of blood on walls and floors. I can't always be here to watch her, to make sure she's okay. Tomorrow she's on her own. They both are, together. Quick healing, it's all we can hope for, and then we know the rest, but I don't want her body all cut up and more of it removed, and this smell filling up our lives. Cost of the War in Iraq
(JavaScript Error)
Recent Entries: It Was 40 Years Ago Today - 9:44 a.m. , Friday, Oct. 12, 2012 Dead Black Cat - 9:07 a.m. , Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 As Seen From Outer Space - 1:07 a.m. , Saturday, Dec. 05, 2009 I Survived to Tell the Tale - 7:29 a.m. , Friday, Sept. 18, 2009 Reading My Life - 12:55 p.m. , Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009 
  |