Story, as promised.

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.