Slice of Life - Cat Scratch Fever

I love participating in Slice of Life, started by Two Writing Teachers and writing a story, reflection, or musing at least once a week.

This week my students are making Scar Maps in their writer's notebooks to generate ideas for future Slices of Life for their Kidblogs.  A Scar Map is a self-portrait (just a stick figure will do) with arrows pointing from all the places on your body where you had an injury, accident, illness, broken heart, etc.  Emotional scars count as well as physical ones.  After making a Scar Map, we wrote Quick Writes about one of them.  Of course, I have to write about one, too!

My Scar Map

Student's Scar Map

You thought Cat Scratch Fever was just a Ted Nuget song, right?!  Wrong.  It's a REAL illness.  Read about it here.  It happened right before my 8th grade graduation.  My grandparents were staying with me because my parents were taking a vacation.  I was out on the front porch when I saw a sweet black cat winding in and out of the bushes in the front landscaping.  Me being an animal person, I naturally wanted to pet it and pick it up, with the intention of trying to find out if it belonged to someone on our street.  I coaxed it over, and it seemed friendly.  It seemed clean and healthy.  Growing up in the country, I knew to be careful of petting and handling animals with abandon.  It started to rub against my feet and legs, purring a bit.  I smiled and decided to pick it up.  

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"  It BIT me!!!  Right on the cheek!  No sooner had I pulled the cat close, that it freaked out, yowled, and BIT me.  I couldn't believe it!  I pushed it away and ran inside.  I felt so betrayed.  How dare that cat!  I was just being friendly, and it deceived me into thinking it was a friendly kitty.  It was a demon feline!!

My grandma helped me clean up my cheek, and besides a couple puncture marks, we both figured it was a minor incident.  I might have felt shaky and duped, but I was okay. Night soon fell, and it was time for bed.  I noticed a slight swelling and soreness, but besides that, no big deal.  It wasn't until morning when I realized something was terribly wrong.  I felt like I had a bad case of the flu, and my cheek had swelled to the size of a baseball.  I was achy all over, feverish, and nauseated.  My grandparents were shocked when I walked out into the kitchen.  They immediately called my parents to let them know and made a doctor's appointment for that day.  The diagnosis?  Yep, Cat Scratch Fever.