not that anyone asked but i'm gonna tell you anyway :)

ransom
(yashica mat-124, kodak ektar 100, film)

so the cultures came back. hemolytic staph. your basic staph aureus infection, unknown at this point if it might have been a resistant strain, or if i brought it home to him from the hospital, a definite and real possibility. agreed that his compromised immune system set him up for such an infection in the first place. mysteriously, the lesions and last scabs fell off on their own over the weekend and now only scars remain, and (grateful again!) no new lesions have appeared, so we hold off on a second round of antibiotics.

i'm taking him in next week for a "peace of mind palpation" of his tumors by his primary internist. suckers decided it was time to start breeding with the advent of spring i guess. where once i could only feel them by knowing where they were and massaging deep, now he only needs to turn his head for them to be detected with the naked eye. a mere brush of my fingertips along either side of his neck surrenders a firm and protruding knot or two, as they push outward, upward - wherever they will- toward his jaw line... and deeper into his neck. suckers, i say.

my first and most important conviction is to give him the most painless and peaceful passing from this world to the next.

i hear him snoring in the next room. content. last night or maybe it was the night before, he licked away my tears and in his compassion i heard: not yet, not yet.