WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT. If you are bothered by death and the clean up afterward, stop here.
My oldest daughter got sick about a week ago (she's almost better now). During the first few days she was holed up in her room and I thought the smell in her room was shut in sick smell, but slightly off. The day I took her to the doctor I realized it was so bad I had to do something about it. While we waited for the appointment time I stripped her bed down the mattress and put all of her bedding through the washer on sanitize. Then I remade her bed with fresh mattress pad and bedding, opened her window wide and shut the door.
I may have this slightly out of order but it's been a long week. In any case, on Wednesday (doc day) we ended up in the emergency room for what turned out to be only dehydration, not meningitis. We got to find that out without the cat scan or the spinal tap. We're all very grateful.
She tanked again the next day but kept drinking fluids and we'd moved her to the spare room until I could work out the problem in her room.
We had a young cat dying from kidney failure. We kept her home in what was basic kitty hospice because she was receiving a great deal of comfort and we wanted to give her that. She went missing a week or two (lost track of time here) before oldest got sick and we looked up and down, all over and found nothing. No smell either and thought maybe she'd managed to get herself outside and I was sad about that because she was a precious cat and deserved to be buried and turned back to earth. And we needed to do that.
Eventually I decided the cat had gotten herself into a crawl space from a hole in the hall closet and made her way to under daughter's room. Not wanting to cut up hardwood floors I decided I'd have to
get up into that crawl space and go after the body. I expected the very worst possible situation.
I went to the hardware store, bought blades and small hack saws, masks, Vick's for the nose, goggles, heavy rubber gloves and came home. I put on clothing I was willing to part with if a wash with bleach wouldn't save them and a hat on my head. I emptied out a very stuffed closet and then flashlight propped against the wall proceeded to hack up the overhang at the base of the closet, pulling sheet rock down in small chunks because it's so tight in there. Got enough out to get my head and the flashlight up there and saw absolutely nothing but one straight shaft all the way to the end. No additional holes and not a thing up there.
Back out of the closet. Not too much damage to the sheet rock, and no real way to repair it without buying more for patchwork because what I pulled down crumbled in the pulling. At least I didn't resort to banging it out with a sledge hammer (I was thinking about it Ala Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes). In any case, the damage is small, just widened the original and intentional gap to get to the pipes a bit.
Went to the crawl space at the front of the house not expecting much because I've been in there and there really is nowhere to go. It took a lot to get the stored cot out of there (tight squeeze) and I was making one hell of a mess in the foyer but kept going. No cat but a slight smell. Closed everything back up again and flashlight in hand went back into daughter's room.
Now, I thought I searched this room thoroughly. Really, I had. And I did it again from one corner to the next because she's just got so much STUFF in that room, turning over everything and into the closet and the wall cabinet and finally under the bed. Nothing on the door side. A duffel bag on the closet side. Back to the closet side. Small kitty shape laying on top of bag. I nearly cried right there. And also, the smell was starting to get through the Vick's and the mask and I'm breathing through my mouth and I don't know what's worse, the taste or the smell.
I got a pillow case out of the closet. One of the cases from early in my marriage that means something to all of us. I got two plastic bags, one for the cat and one for the duffel. I reached under the bed and gently pulled the duffel out to the center of the room and looked at our poor baby. Rigor mortis had already passed leaving a mostly pliable body on the bag.
Very gently I put that cat into the pillow case and then into one of the bags and tied a knot as close to the body as possible. I put the duffel in the other bag and tied that up too. Then with the cat cradled in one arm and the duffel in the other I headed downstairs to the garage. Duffel in garbage, that was easy. Kitty to the freezer. Stop there. Find another bag. Not willing to do this just yet. Out onto the deck where there are huge snow banks and with a garden shovel dug a hole a few feet deep and put kitty in the snow bank, covered her up and hope she'll freeze a bit before too much thaw in the next 24 hours. I'm counting on no animals smelling her and a good cold night before I put her in the freezer to wait until spring when we will put her where she belongs, under the catnip she spent the summer getting stoned in.
I am mostly clean now and wondering, what part of this was the hard part, really? Was it the fear and anticipation of decay or finding the actual body and dealing with it.
It was the fear. And it's over now and my heart rate's coming back down and I feel much better about having done it than not because it could have gone any number of other ways and this was best.
Oh yeah, and everything is cleaned back up, sorted out and put away properly. Tools too.
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