I’d made an appointment with the Lort Smith Animal Hospital to take Boodie to have his horrid claws clipped. This is so … so FRAUGHT an occupation that the last time we had such an appointment the clipping didn’t happen; as the vet – a large bloke – was unable to hold Boodie (and I am utterly useless: when he’s having anything done to him, his strength is astonishing). The next time he was there it was to have most of the rest of his teeth extracted; so of course they did it while he was under.

I bought a new cat-carrier: one with wheels and a pulling handle – or not – and had put it, open, on my crochet table in the loungeroom, ready …

I picked him up in the bedroom and he was immediately wary as I carried him out. Then he spotted the cat-carrier and went absolutely ballistic. Like, BALLISTIC !

I was trying to stuff him into the carrier and he was doing his insane starfish imitation – his very, very strong insane starfish imitation – and suddenly he’d twisted half around, knocking the carrier to the floor and inserting ONE SINGLE CLAW into the back of my right hand.

Dunno about you guys, but on the backs of my hands there are two very large veins that form a Y – the two hands matching fairly well – and you can make it out under that long horizontal wrinkle. Will you be astounded if I tell you that this single claw sank into the junction of the Y (on the other hand, I mean) …?!

Well, I screamed and swore very loudly indeed, flung him down and sat down on the couch to sob – largely with fear, although it was fairly sore. After a while of doing this I realised the inanity and stopped. My fears appeared to’ve been greatly over-dramatised because there wasn’t a shitload of blood. In fact, having blotted the hand with several tissues, I was able to make a cross of bandaids over the wound …

I spent the next 20 minutes cancelling the taxi (had to go down and pay the driver, as he’s been requested and had come out from the CBD) and Boodie’s appointment, this latter being much more difficult as the LSAH takes forever to answer the phone.

And then I realised there were blobs of blood popping through the bandaids – where they were in a double layer, as well …

I crossed the corridor and asked my neighbour Michelle to give me a hand with replacing the bandaids with something larger, of which I had a collection (no idea where they came from).  She came in most willingly and we started to remove the normal-sized bandaids … and then we stopped immediately. There was blood almost gushing from underneath – kind of dark blood. She said, in a matter-of-fact kind of tone, “I think you should go to a hospital” and I agreed fervently, but hadn’t the faintest idea of how this was to be done. Happily for me in my ancient hopelessness, Michelle – roughly young enough to be my daughter – has a functioning brain: she called for an Uber and off we went to The Alfred because it’s only a few blocks away.

That was somewhere around 3:30; and I managed to persuade Michelle to leave me and go home somewhere around 6:00 but was myself home again only at 9:30. During these six hours I had bled over various areas of The Alfred’s emergency section and myself,

was re-bandaged, had my hand X-rayed in case of any bits of claw-casing’s remaining in the wound (anyone whose household contains a cat will understand this possibility when recalling cats’ claws’ castoffs so often found), was given a tetanus shot and then, as the bleeding had triumphantly regained its momentum,

re-bandaged again. All seemed well; they allowed me to go home by taxi.

I was welcomed home by a totally unaffected Boodster, who fell over sideways as is his wont upon seeing me so that I can rub his beautiful tummy. Then I ate a DELICIOUS warmed meal from my current (and forever, I hope and trust) supplier called Perfect Portion Meals, drank much mineral water and sat down for a few moments before going to bed.

Uh-oh …

It had started AGAIN. Sighh … I returned to where I’d tipped all the bandages and large bandaid thingies onto the table and started to apply them. I must’ve used about 7 or 8, sticking them madly all over the bandage and encasing/enclosing the gore. THEN I went grumpily to bed.

During the night I got up to have a wee, but as ever didn’t turn on any lights. Thank all the gods …

In the morning I awoke to find myself in an abattoir.    😦

This time I organized myself, as I was no longer in a state of fear and confusion. A pair of ambo drivers turned up without too much delay; but in the meantime I’d been kept talking, on and off, in a most pleasant manner, but a young woman who’d answered the Ambulance section phone when I dialled triple zero. Eventually she decided I could be left on my own; but about ten minutes later I was called by someone else, who carried on with the care. It’s impressive !    🙂

And back we went to The Alfred, where I was attended to by a young woman who had a secret solution, apparently: it’s a kind of soft bandage that you cut to fit a wound and press on it for a while as it works its magic – and that’s its being impregnated with something that causes the blood to congeal ! Then you cover it was one of the soft sticky plasticky bandages and a compression bandage over the hand and wrist, and Bob’s yer uncle !

I feel sure there must be a moral to this tale; but I’m not nearly as witty as someone like Hilaire Belloc –

so I can only think it has to do with remembering cats change their minds about things. Whereas Boodz was once perfectly amenable to going into a carrier, he ain’t any more.

B stands for Blood. It also stands for Boodz.
Remember that the latter makes the former ooze.

Sorry about that … [grin]