Today Lilly gets her left eye removed, her right eye, already blind and injected with some magic solution used to keep it stable. Last year, the cornea operation on her left eye had been a failure. Now in the last few months that eye bulged and turned an ugly shade of purple, a rotting jellyfish trying to ooze out of its socket. The vet said it had to go. While under anesthesia she will be shaved clean to give the dermatitis shampoo a clean palette. Almost completely deaf, when we pick her up tomorrow, she won't know that it's me until I put my hands on her...this overweight, hairless throw-away dog wearing a clown collar, a newly concave socket sewn tightly shut as she shivers with her own nudity, I'll hold her in a blanket very close and sing loudly, directly into her ear: “Lilly Belle, Lilly Belle!”
Her truncated tail spinning, she'll love it, be comforted by it, and so will I.
Lilly's been home for almost two days now, hitting the ground running upon arrival. She's elated to be back, it's almost as if she can't believe how wonderful it is, waging her tail constantly as she takes an olfactory inventory of everything familiar. The vet's cage must have reminded her of the early years, locked in a small wire prison with only the occasional company of a stranger/rapist given access to impregnate her to create more “pedigreed” pups destined to be sold at the flea market. All of them victims of inbreeding that will leave them blind and deaf within three years, long after the puppy farmers have paid an electric bill or two. When she held no more value to them, they left her at a shelter to be adopted or destroyed, it didn't matter which. She thinks the smell of my feet, covered in sweaty gym socks, is about the sweetest perfume she knows, often just sniffing and wagging. I feed her pain pills and antibiotics in bits of hot dogs, like caviar to her. Life is good again for Lilly. The revengeful part of me kind of hopes it's not so smooth for the original owners.
