I promised a story about this.
My cat is dying. Velvet was diagnosed with an extremely rare
autoimmune disease called Feline Progressive Histiocytosis. She is growing
cysts on her paws and on her face. She is in no pain, though the vet says she
may be licking at the cysts because they itch. Or she may be licking at them
because her paw is suddenly one-third larger and 3 times uglier. She’s on
Predisone for the itching and I don’t want to keep her on it because it’s not
good for her, especially at age 17, so I’ve got an assortment of recovery
collars that I’ve been trying on her to see which is the most comfortable,
since she’ll be wearing them for the rest of her life. That, too, is a mystery.
I have no idea how long she’ll live. It’s basically a “quality of life” question,
which is especially hard to answer if the animal is not in pain.
I was sitting around with these collars around me, picking
them up, contemplating them and laying them back down. The red one in the
picture is an old one. I had just bought the clear one for her because she was
much heavier when I bought the red one, some ten years ago, and now it seemed too big. Trying to get an
idea of just how aggravating these things probably are, I stuck it around my
neck. That’s when I got the idea for the photo. I went through my vintage clothing
that I collected as a teen. I pulled out the vintage jewelry I had, as well. I
put my hair back and pushed it up again. I wore very little makeup. I wanted a
portrait, and I wanted some sort of realism. Or hyperrealism. I had my husband
take a bunch of shots and I picked what I thought looked best. Velvet looked
amazingly good, given that black cats don’t photograph well unless you’re using
a camera that is not part of another type of electronic gadget. You can’t see
any of the cysts. The one on her face is on her chin and it blends into the
shadows. I was happy to have a great photo of my cat and an absurd one of
myself.