I heard a scream - high and desperate.  I was still in bed, waiting on myself to rise, messaging with a friend after a more emotional than normal few days.  I had just messaged, "I think I am coming out of my depressed zombie phase." Then the scream.

After a breath of confusion and disbelief I convinced myself that it must, in fact, be my daughter, and no she is not normally a dramatic screamer, so, yes, something must be very not okay.  My husband and I ran to her bedroom.  I opened her door to find her holding the right side of her face with panic in her eyes and our 7 month old cat desperately trying to leave. On a leash. Attached to a collar.  She doesn't wear collars. Oh, yes, now I can picture it. Sliced and diced kid who overstepped some major  boundaries with a wild animal with razor claws and dagger teeth.

One bite, and, somehow, five puncture wounds. Two above the jaw line and three below. That cat opened up her mouth wide and took a big ol' chomp.  My daughter said that, at first, she couldn't detach the cat from her face.

I set the freaking cat free and then we got to the bathroom and washed and washed and pressed to induce bleeding and washed some more. Her initial panic was growing as she looked in the mirror and watched her own blood rivulet down her face and drip into the sink. I have a tendency to make her take responsibility for things, so she was in charge of soaping and washing while I made sure as much bleeding was happening to flush out bacteria.

I have always been interested in random and mostly weird facts. I know, therefore, that cats and humans have the most bacteria ridden mouths, and that cat and human bites are two of the worst bites one can receive. Cats have the added quality of having teeth akin to hypodermic needles, so they basically inject bacteria deep into the flesh where it is impossible to flush it out with anything except the blood produced from the wound.  Only one of my daughter's punctures was willing to bleed.

I called the doctor, hoping for a video consult or something to keep us out of any medical anything, while my husband put antibiotic ointment and bandages on her face. Antibiotic ointment, I found out later, is not good to put on puncture wounds. It ends up acting like a cap for the wound hole, apparently, and keeps bacteria trapped inside. Huh. Add another random bit of knowledge to my brain files.

As my daughter was getting pale and faint and fear vomiting into the toilet in another room, I was told we would need to go to the emergency room. I started to cry and exclaimed, "Shit! Really?" The nurse was very nice.  She understood. These are extraordinary circumstances we are currently existing in, and I think "shit" was pretty mild, considering. She was very nice and told me it was going to be okay. I did not really believe her, but I let her think I did.

We got ourselves together in a calm but brisk manner. I packed hand sanitizer, changes of clothes and towels for the car seats for after the hospital. I packed water, breakfast bars and leftover peanut/almond butter cookies from the day before. We had our breakfast in the car. Faintness and pain had passed, so we marveled at all of the beautiful flowering trees busting out their Spring awesomeness.

I anticipated a more virusy looking ER entrance - cordoned off areas, people in masks outside waiting to direct people.  The description of what we should expect had sounded more official. Instead we got a woman in a mask, hat, gloves and protective robe thing, sitting inside the alcove between the two sets of automatic doors, ready to give us a mask along with a spritz of alcohol on our hands. The spritz was offered only after I asked if they had gloves for us.  They did not have gloves for us.  Rules were that only one parent was allowed in with a child, and I was the only parent not possessing a mask nullifying beard.  My husband waited in the car.

There was no one in the ER right then except for the intake staff and a few nurses.  We were "fast tracked" to the room closest to the front so we wouldn't have to walk through too much of the hospital. We were seen right away by two nurses and a doctor's assistant. The mask my daughter had received had to come off because, well, face wound.  Antibiotics were prescribed with one pill administered immediately. Follow-up procedures were handed to me, and we were able to leave.

We changed clothes in the car, sanitized the shit out of our hands, and had a cookie.  While we regrouped, we decided to discuss if there was anything else we needed to do in Flemington - the town with the nearest hospital, 20 minutes from our house.  I figured, since we had already been forced to break our isolationist streak, I might as well make a fruits and vegetables trip to the grocery store. We went to the more low key natural foods store, mainly because we like it, but also because it had less potential for encountering people.

A few days earlier I had seen a much shared FaceBook video on sanitizing your groceries. I decided that, instead of washing my hands a bajillion times throughout the day as I encountered potentially contaminated packaging and produce, I would take inspiration from the video and wash everything in the sink. I usually give produce a quick wash right before using it, but that's it.  This felt like next level.  As I was filling the sink with soap and water to soak everything in, I remembered how I had scoffed (to myself, of course) at a SUPER over the top health conscious acquaintance who had instructed me to soak my produce in vinegar. This all felt so weird and SO laborious.  Putting away groceries had never been so tedious and time sucking.  I did it though - two sinks' worth of sudsy produce.  I'm glad I got a shit ton of it because I will be happy to wait to do that again.

                                          One sink's worth