"When the student is ready the teacher will appear with drool dripping off his chin..."
Morris the Cat
The surgery to deal with Oswald's oral cancer has created a seeping leaking furry maw and I am hard-pressed to maintain a saintly demeanor in the presence of the gelatinous strings that appear on the old guy's whiskered face when he's finished sucking up a plate of mashed tuna...
The vet took off a significant piece of the right side of his tongue and tissue from the back of his throat. His mouth ain't what it was. The good news is that he's eating like a pig now. That's also the bad news. He eats exactly like a pig. He grunts and snorts. He gets it in him the best way he can.
God bless and love him. We do, that's for sure.
Added to his daily close care conditions is a face wipe after every meal lest he drag one of his post-meal mouth boogers into the bedroom. We wash his little face and we wipe his little paws. He has stained his once snow-white face fur a beige-brown with a kind of tuna melt paint. He tries to groom with his mutilated licker, but to little effect.
This is his life now, and ours. Sometimes he sleeps by himself. Sometimes he curls up with us, and we are gifted with head bunts and a running cat motor lullaby. When I find myself less than charitable with Oswald and his dribbles I make a good act of confession to Lynda and she smiles. She's glad to know he is taking his food. So am I, and so we carry on...
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