“Life comes at you fast,” tweeted a cartoonist friend of mine, Julia Gfrörer, along with a photo of herself in a hospital bed, her arm bandaged. She referenced another photo she’d posted two days before—this one of her arm covered in small red scratches and bites, captioned: “I fought a cat and the cat won.”
Gfrörer is a New York-based Gothic fine-art cartoonist whose stories frequently delve into magical worlds where the real terrors are human relationships—the monsters merely observe human self-destruction. She’s been known to tweet joking, martyr-like selfies—such is her brand—but the hospital setting was a new one. I was shocked that something as innocuous as a cat bite could put my friend in the hospital! Gfrörer, though often private, answered my questions about her run-in with a mother cat who—all things considered—was terrified and doing what she thought was best.
MERCURY: Julia! Under what circumstances did a cat bite you?
JULIA GFÖRER: My friend was fostering seven feral cats—six of whom were kittens and pretty tame. The remaining adult cat was not tame. They needed to go to the vet, and—rather than see my friends take the subway with all these cats—I offered to drive them. I’ve dealt with feral cats before, but I was worried about getting to the vet on time and I wasn’t as careful as I could’ve been. I tried to catch the adult cat and put her in a carrier, and she fought back.
What did you do after the cat bit you?
I poured hydrogen peroxide on the bites. Then I adjusted my strategy and successfully got the cat into the carrier.
Why did you need to go to urgent care? What were your symptoms?
Within a few hours my wrist hurt badly and was swollen. There were red blotches around the bites and red streaks going up and down my arm. It was hard to drive home—because I couldn’t really use my left hand—so I had to steer with my forearm when shifting gears. When I got home, I splinted my wrist with cardboard and masking tape.
The next morning I outlined the red blotches in marker. In a few hours, they’d grown beyond the line and I couldn’t move my hand or wrist without pain.
