I hadn't screamed like that in my entire life. I couldn't figure out whether I was hurt or not but I knew I had to do something. Ears were going to be torn off. Eyes bitten out. I needed someone else with me. Fuck.
Maybe I should start from the beginning. I was running late to my dermatologist appointment. I think I should have been in the car about 15 minutes before hand, but I didn't get up soon enough. Oh well. I'll get there. Thats all that matters. I just needed to feed the dogs, grab a pb&j and leave. I'll only be a little late.
Hm... no, I think I need to rewind a little more. There's two dogs that stay at my house. Ones mine and the others my dads, Beau. Beau's been around for far too long. I've wrote about him a lot. He's annoying and pisses where he wants to and is sloppy and huge and can't really do much. As much as I despise him, he's been apart of a lot of my memories. Once, he ate a pill of ecstasy off the floor during a party. He ran away for 3 days in sub degree weather and was found shaking and frothing at the mouth in a fenced off area. Later that year, I fed him mushrooms. He had fun. I think. He sat on my bed with us as we made flowering fire balls with aerosol cans in my bed room. I didn't really think about the nature of what I gave him. A few weeks after, I realized I had given an animal who can't see colors a psychedelic drug.
Let me start over. I rescued my dog before she could be inevitably put down. She was a fighting dog. Left chained up behind houses and underfed. My ex and I decided it'd be a good idea to add more things to our relationship that would make breaking up even harder. Regardless, I ended up with Mercedes. My ex could keep her car and her new life but I was keeping this dog. Whether she liked it or not. I wasn't giving up on her like I was giving up on the relationship. I wasn't going to let her be taken house to house with my ex. She was going to grow old and grey and flawed with me.
She's had several slip ups where she regresses back to her fighting years. I've trained her pretty much everything; how to sit, shake, lay down, roll over, speak, stay- all the necessities and some of the fun stuff. But I've never figured out what her triggers are and how to stop them. How to understand what makes her shift from a lovey, cuddly bundle of cute into a ferocious stereotype. As long as I could catch her soon enough, right before she latches on, I can choke her out and get her away. That was always my thought. It was the only thing that worked. Even if she got ahold of the other dog, this method was the one that I could insure the least amount of damage with.
I was supposed to be at the dermatologists at 2:40. It was already 2:30 and I hadn't done anything but get my clothes on. As I was grabbing miscellaneous items- video games, work out clothes, checks to pay for the visit, my keys, my wallet, my pb&j- I let Mercedes out from the her eating spot to go outside. Beau was walking in. I grabbed a cup and started getting water. Everything went silent. No claws pattering across wood floors. No swaying of the dog door. Nothing. I walked around the counter and saw Mercedes standing over Beau underneath the table. I took a bite of my sandwich.
Everything happened so fast. It feels likes a movie thinking about it. But somewhere, some how, Mercedes grabbed a hold of Beau. Right on the top of his head. He didn't have much room to roll or fight back so he just laid there barking. I was wearing nice clothes. I thought maybe I could just use sentences she likes to get her off him. I asked her if she wanted a treat. That didn't work. So I knew I had to do something; she wasn't letting go this time.
I ran up behind her, threw my arm underneath her chin pressing against my other forearm, and to save her from ripping his head, I leaned over, pushing her head closer to his so if she didn't let go, I wasn't pulling her teeth through his skin.
She fell forward. So did I.
Beau rolled over and took this opportunity to bite back. He missed.
As my head hit the wood floor, I felt his teeth sink into my mouth and my face. I screamed. He let go.
Mercedes wasn't though. And I didn't know if I was hurt or not, but I had to get her away from him. I had to do something. Suddenly, my face felt hot. My saliva started tasting sweet and thick. I stood and backed up. There was blood all over my kakis. It was on my shirt. I reached up and ran my hand over my cheeks and my lips. It wasn't the dogs blood...
I grabbed a towel and screamed again. Mercedes wasn't letting go. Something bad had happened to my face. I couldn't look. The towel was already soaked through. I ran to the bathroom, put my face under the faucet and watched the sink turn red. I needed someone else there with me. I can't ruin my clothes. I can't have my face ripped off. Fuck.
I called my dad. I wasn't talking really, more so just frantically crying and holding a towel over my face screaming that Beau had just fucked me up. He said to drive to the hospital and he would meet me there.
My brother called right when I was leaving.
"Hey man I gotta call you back later. Beau just bit me in the face, I gotta get to the ER."
"Wait what?"
" I'm bleeding everywhere man, I gotta get to the hospital. I'll call you back later."
"Which one you going to? Borgess? Bronson?"
"Borgess."
"I'll meet you down there."
I took my clothes off. I couldn't ruin my nice clothes. Turned the washer on, put them in, grabbed some shorts and a towel and my keys and left. My face wasn't hurting yet but the blood was making me sick. It was hard to drive. There was music but I was crying too loud to hear what was playing. I had to keep my face close to the steering wheel so I could drive and put pressure on my wounds.
I parked and ran to the front desk, holding my face together.
"Yeah I just got bit real bad, I need a doctor," I mumbled through the towel.
After some ridiculous paper signings and processing, I got put in a bed. My brother showed up shortly after. I think he anticipated half my face to be gone. Missing lips or eye lids or something. I guess me holding gauze over the lower half of my face wasn't the most hopeful sight. My dad showed up. I gave him a high five.
He said Beaus gonna have to be put down. I didn't even want to think about the dogs or what was going to happen with them. I began to cry. I felt guilty. I dont want to lose those dogs. They're good dogs. Beau was just trying to defend himself... I can't have these scars. I'm already insecure about my looks. This is going to shatter me. I just ruined my dads work day. I just made my brother drive all the way out here. I just ruined my kakis...
My brother wiped the tears from my eye and told me to focus on my breathing.
"Take deep breaths brother. Deep breaths...At least your nurse is cute though right?"
I laughed.
"Yeah, fuck..."
Smiling hurt. I needed a god damn shot of morphine. My face was on fire and I still didn't know how bad it really was. Hurry the fuck up.
The nurse came back 20 minutes later with some pain medication. She told me it had to be shot into my ass. Thats the first time I've been more than happy to pull my pants down and moon a hot chick. Finally, I could breath.
I took the gauze off my face and my brother sighed in relief.
"Oh thank god thats all that happened. Thats fixable at least. I was expecting you to be missing most of your face."
That made me feel good. I'm repairable.
The doctor came in and assessed the situation. He asked "how we were doing?" and by that, he meant "are you fucked up yet from the morphine?". Which I was. I told him that I was ready to get patched up.
I've never had a more disgusting, nails on a chalk board type feeling than what happened next. The doctor proceeded to inject my face several times, in several different spots with lidocaine. I hate needles.
They didn't know I used to be an addict. Everything they had just given me felt like a regular day 6 months ago. I wasn't really numb, I was just high. I noticed how much this sucked as he started to poke at my wounds, drag flaps of skin out from underneath punctures and begin stitching me up.
I ended up with 5 stitches, from my nose to my lip. One stitch on the side of my left cheek. Two on the right side of my cheek above my lip, six more on my cheek itself, and one on the inside of my mouth. The wound on my cheek almost crushed my saliva duct. Not good news.
This all happened yesterday, and I'm still trying to develop a meaning out of all of this. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to learn. Its ironic that, the day I'm supposed to go to a place to perfect my skin, I end up getting my skin shredded apart but other than that... this lesson is just icing on the cake of unnecessary hard ships I've endured this past year and a half. I just started getting on my feet again. Pulling myself back together from the destruction I called my life. I just started gaining my confidence and self esteem back. I just got clean. I just began... to try to be happy again.
Now I'm forced to not be clean. I am prescribed my drug of choice. I am smoking to take my mind off my elephant man appearance and the looks I get when I walk past people. Its hard for me to look at any of this in a positive way. This is the last thing I needed.
I'll post pictures soon.
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