No disclaimer this time. Unabashed graphicness up front. I hope that's OK.
These are my cat Macho's two teeth that got pulled at a recent vet visit. The vet assistant offered to let me take them home inside the plastic bottle that you see pictured along with the two bloody remnants. On cats, routine dental procedures such as cleanings are treated like major surgical procedures because the cats are put under anesthesia. (That makes sense. My cats barely even let me touch their mouths with my fingers, much less let a vet scoop out tooth decay with metallic instruments while they're awake.) If a cat gets a cavity, the tooth is usually pulled instead of drilled. So, these tiny little teeth were pulled while Macho was knocked out, and taking care of him afterwards was a majorly huge deal for Macho, me, and my entire household. This was actually the third time he's had the procedure done, but this was the nastiest and most dramatic time. I've never had surgery, but you know me -- this entire physical process of a surgery-like procedure reminded me of a spiritual process that I've gone through and am going through. I might get a tad redundant from some of my previous posts, but I thought it would be neat to take a fresh look at a pungent topic.
I had to leave Macho at the vet's office overnight, which I think was a somewhat traumatic process for him. After wrestling him into his carrier and sitting in traffic while he howled, I lugged him into the examining room where he was weighed (and he had a pretty strong tabby-grip on the scale) and given over to the technicians so they could do bloodwork, etc. I hoped he didn't think I was giving him away and not coming back, but the next day I returned to the vet's office at the time when they said he'd be ready. They warned me about the aftereffects of the anesthesia. He was very loopy, and instead of his usual "meow" or "wow," he communicated with me during the car ride home with a muffled "mrrr." They also warned me that he would be drooling, but oh, my goodness, Macho's mouth emitted a manly amount of drool for the next couple of hours after I got him home.
The anesthesia would take a couple of days to wear off, and the next 72 hours were very critical. Macho had an extremely awkward time readjusting to home life at first. In addition to the chronic drooling, he limped around the apartment and appeared extremely uncomfortable. A couple of times, I saw him reclining on the carpet and panting very quickly while closing his eyes. He had been stuck inside a boarding area at the vet's office, so he more than likely went for about 32 hours without grooming himself. His fur was shedding and covered in stress dandruff. As if his condition weren't humiliating enough, the vet people had had to shave around part of his forearm to insert an IV. (Now he's got a bald ring around his arm that will probably take quite a while to grow back completely.) I monitored him pretty closely while I fed him a soft diet (in a room separate from Choochie, who ate crunchy food as usual) and intermittently administered (forced) medicine into his freshly cleaned, recuperating mouth. So, Macho's recovery process, even after I stopped following him around the apartment and cleaning up his drool puddles, was a complicated mess.
Choochie had her own truly surgical procedure many years ago when she got spayed. After I brought her home from the vet, I kept a very close eye on her (I had the time to do so because I was unemployed at the time), and I was instructed to keep her away from other animals, so she lived inside the carrier for a few days. The first day, I let her out of the carrier to go to the litterbox, and she stumbled out of it, and then she gladly returned to the confinement of the carrier so she could sleep. She had a fairly large incision that was surrounded by an area of shaved-off fur (that took about 6 months to grow back completely). Being the curious feline that she is, she became obsessed with her stitches and scrape-licked them until they and the shaved-off area became infected. The infection emitted a rank stench that scared Macho away after I could allow Choochie to interact with other animals again. So, I took her back to the vet so that they could treat her infection by removing the stitches. Since her surgery was pretty major, her recovery process took a long time (especially with the infection). I remember the first time she jumped on a nearby piece of furniture after the surgery, she had a look on her face that seemed to say, "Owwwww."
"The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the exiles of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." (Psalm 147:2-3)
"He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul." (Psalm 23:2-3a)
"The Lord is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made. The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down." (Psalm 145:13b-14)
So, while I was hovering over and staring at Macho one evening during his 72-hour critical recovery time frame, I was reminded of the truths that God was teaching me during Choochie's long recovery process many years ago. God reminded me once again how gentle He is with me and how much He intricately cares about my spiritual/emotional/soul healing, recuperation, and recovery -- my soul restoration. Sometimes when we talk about emotional healing, we compare it to having surgery. John 15 says that God the Father prunes us if we bear fruit. Sometimes when God spiritually prunes and/or does surgery on me, it can be a major procedure that could possibly involve some anesthesia and a temporary knockout. Or -- and this is usually the case with me -- He skips the anesthesia altogether and performs the procedure while I'm awake and can feel every slice, every pierce, every drilling, and every stitch.
Then the recovery process is an extremely crucial, delicate, and messy one. If God removes something from my soul -- perhaps the procedure was a decay-ectomy -- I might be a little sore later from the incision, and I might seriously miss whatever it was that was surgically removed. I may drool, groan, and wander around aimlessly in my Father's house while He patiently dotes on me and cleans up my drool after me. I may become obsessed with my new stitches and start picking at them until a disgusting, stinky infection develops that might scare other people away for a while. (Acquiring an infection could lengthen my treatment time.) The recovery process may require some healthy isolation while I am put on a diet of special food and am given some special medicine. (Some battles are meant to be fought privately. Even Jesus was led out into the wilderness in Matthew 4 to be tempted by the devil.) Or other times, I'm surrounded by technicians, nurses, and other patients. (Galatians 6:2 says to bear one another's burdens.) Regardless, after carefully following the Doctor's orders, I can enter back into regular life eating regular food, no longer requiring medicine, and waiting for that metaphorically shaved-off part of my metaphorical forearm to grow back. It may be a bit awkward and embarrassing for a little while, but I'll get to bond with my Shepherd more closely than ever during the entire process, and I'll get to metaphorically whip out my little metaphorical plastic bottle from time to time and display my metaphorically bloody remnants: "Hey, everybody, see what God removed during my decay-ectomy? No anesthesia! It made me want to get a tattoo afterwards!" Eww, that's nasty! But hopefully if I encounter anyone else who may need God to perform a decay-ectomy on them, hearing about my surgery and recovery may help them.
So, Macho is scheduled for a follow-up appointment next week. He had a somewhat unstable past before he officially became my cat, so I'm usually concerned that he'll think that I'm stuffing him into the carrier and driving off with him so that I can give him away (instead of simply taking him to the vet). Nope. He's mine forever, and I hope he knows it. I wouldn't go through all this trouble if I didn't intend to keep him for good.
