A great article worth perusing, especially for those who assert that marriage should be just about who you love and therefore be without regards to gender (or the morality of who you love).
Loss
At 4am on Thursday, February 28th, I lost a longtime friend.
Jess Roe was no ordinary friend. I met him on March 18th, 2016, when I was 15 years old. Yeah, I remember the date. A lot of important stuff tended to happen to me on the 18th of a month for a few years straight when I was a teenager, it made remembering it easy. I was a Freshman in high school. I had met a couple of girls in health class who said that they did martial arts and such out at a place called the Ranch. Since I’d been doing medieval long sword and dagger for about a year, I was really interested, and they eventually took me out to the Ranch.
The Ranch was Jess’s home, called such because it used to really be a Ranch. By the time I first went out there, there were only roughly a half dozen horses on it. It’s not the prettiest place by far. The house is very run down. The property is mostly gravel and mud, except for some nice parts of the horse pasture. There’s old trailers and run down cars and other junk, and most of the outbuildings are pretty makeshift. There was a blacksmith shop right at the entrance to the property when I first came. It burned down a couple years later and was re-established behind the house instead. And there’s lots of guns on the property. I mean, lots. I’ve said for years that they’re equipped for WWIII out there. You can even shoot on the property.
The best redeeming quality of the place is the dojo. The students built it to get out of the mud and the weather, and although it could use a little more weather proofing and some replaced floorboards now, it really is a wonderful building. There is a wide open wooden floor with a yin-yang symbol inlaid in the center, and mirrors along one wall. The place is very open, with removable plastic siding and a plastic roof to let in the light. There’s plenty of room to swing a couple of staffs or to dance a tango, whichever you prefer.
April 2012, photo courtesy of Benito
Jess was 82 when I met him, although he didn’t look it. He kinda freaked me out, to be honest. He wasn’t a very big man, being only a few inches taller than my 5’2″, but he could be intimidating nonetheless. He had pointed teeth, for one. They were dentures. The real ones were knocked out with the butt of a rifle, I believe. I never saw them, but I’ve been told that he had dentures that looked like normal teeth, and he looked even scarier with those in. He looked probably 20 years younger than he was and acted at least half his age. He could certainly beat many people far younger than him in a fight right up until the end of his life.
I remembered being very surprised and a little uncomfortable when he gave me and the girls I went to school with a dance lesson. It was the foxtrot. I’d never ballroom danced before. And he flirted with us. I had no idea how to handle that from someone old enough to be my great grandfather.
I kept coming out after that first time despite my initial hesitations and surprise. I really started to get over that at the Gig Harbor RenFaire, actually. I went with one of the girls who had first taken me out to the Ranch, and while there we worked in Jess’s booth a bit–he sold knives and swords and such for a living, many of which he made himself, being a blacksmith. I think I missed seeing some of his best work, though, as he didn’t do as much forging by the time I started going out there. I remember standing outside of his booth, and being very startled when a man’s arm went around my waist and he growled in my ear. It was Jess, of course. That didn’t startle me whenever Jess was around after just a little while.
He was a flirt, but it was very easy to tell him no, and he listened when you did. Any woman who spent much time around him learned that very quickly. In fact, we all knew that he’d flirt until he died, and if he didn’t then something was very wrong. That’s exactly what ended up happening.
Shooting at the Ranch in 2007
Jess taught me to shoot. I fell in love with his Colt .45 1911, and I know I’m not the only one. I already carried a pocket knife before I met him, but he is at least part of the reason that I own and carry guns now; I was very used to people on the Ranch being armed, and often not seeing it. I remember him teaching me to handle a “civil discourse” with a snub-nose revolver, and when I was shooting to slow, he said, “Do it like this,” and pulled a gun that I hadn’t known he had and unloading it quickly, shattering the CD’s that were our targets. He was probably 87 when that happened.
Jess was at most events I attending: RenFaire, Cons, and especially medieval events. SCA and EMP soon became part of my life because of Jess and the people who had brought me to the Ranch. He was always there, with his booth and his swords and knives and even sometimes some pink fuzzy handcuffs for sale. My favorite blades came from him, whether they were ones he and his apprentices made or ones he bought wholesale and resold. Sometimes I worked at his booth. I even sold a knife to a guy who would (briefly) be my boyfriend once. I could always count on Jess and his booth to be at the events, and even attended some events based solely on Jess and the other people from the Ranch going.
Radcon 2009
I learned a fair bit about fighting from Jess and his other students. I am no expert. I have much still I wish to learn. But I can honestly say that I could probably handle myself against the average person on the street, who usually has little or no training, even though they are usually much bigger than I am. I’m one of those weird people who says, “Look at this bruise I got last night!” in excitement because I got it sparring or learning a new throw or something else along those lines. Heck, men who fight are attractive to me because of my love for martial arts — it’s part of why I married a man who puts on armor and hits other armored people really hard with rattan for a hobby. Life would just not be as interesting and exhilarating without hitting the ground or learning how to hit harder on occasion. And nothing beats the feel of a knife or a sword in your hand and an opponent standing opposite you. Jess and his dojo and his other students were where I found that knowledge and thrill for a while, although I sadly didn’t attend very regularly for a few years.
Jess taught me to dance. I can foxtrot, tango, salsa, waltz, and more thanks to that old man. I don’t even have to know a dance well in order to do it if the man has a strong enough lead, because Jess taught me that as well. The tango was my favorite, and he taught the Argentine tango: the real tango. For my 18th birthday he took me out to dinner and ballroom dancing in Seattle, and the first place we went to was a Latin dance place. All the Latino boys wanted to dance with the white girl who could actually dance! In the last year or so, a bunch of us would go out dancing with Jess; students, most of us in our 20′s, out at a bar with live music and a dance floor, and we’d all take turns dancing with Jess and each other. I even was able to get my husband out onto the dance floor thanks to those nights. I had my last dance with Jess on one of those nights.
Our last dance
Jess was a friend. I remember shortly after I turned 21, I went out to the Ranch one evening after work on a whim. It wasn’t a training night, I just wanted to see the people out there. Jess and I ended up chatting for hours, occasionally passing back and forth a bottle of Sangria, and just enjoying each other’s company. He told me that he was very glad I had become a friend, and that we was proud of how I’d turned out over the years. That meant a lot to me. Jess’s opinion of me — and by extension my husband, my marriage, and other significant things in my life — always was important. Probably because he was usually right, and I knew it.
Jess had lots of stories. And jokes, usually dirty. But the stories were more interesting. A man who had been as many places, done as many things, and been shot as many times as he has ought to have some crazy stories, and the scars to prove half of them. (He did.) I once asked him what he hadn’t done in life. He thought for a very long moment, and finally said, “Wrestled and alligator.” But then I found out later that he’d brushed a crocodiles teeth once, and I figured that counts.
When Jess first got cancer, he kept outliving the doctor’s predictions. It was his modus operandi, and I wasn’t really worried for a while, even when he said things like, “I think this is my last RadCon.” Jess was going to live to at least 100, in my mind. For a while, I was right. His cancer went into remission, training nights went on and he was still at events. I wasn’t around very much during his first fight against cancer, as I was a newlywed and didn’t make much time for training, but I started getting out there regularly again a while after the cancer went into remission. He made it to another RadCon. We still went dancing. Many of us students became very close, being close in age and all in Rose Haven, the EMP household run out of the Ranch. And the old man was always there.
But then he got lung cancer. We thought we would still have a couple of years. And then his first cancer came out of remission, and his health started to go downhill quickly. In the fall of 2012 we found out he’d been given 6-12 months. We didn’t get that long. He went into the hospital just a few days before Christmas, where he was told he had no more than a week to live and could die there or die at home. He went home, but didn’t die right away.
RadCon February 16, 2013
He made it to another RadCon. Mostly by sheer force of will. He had plenty of that. The fight demo and fire show were very much in his honor, and he even got out of his wheelchair to attempt a light saber duel during the fire show.
Jess decided when he wanted to go, and went when he decided to. He said that on Wednesday he was going to let go. He died a few hours after midnight Wednesday night/ Thursday morning, with friends and students around him, many of whom considered him a father. I was not one of them; it’s hard to explain it, because I would have been there had he requested it and I could have been there, but I didn’t really want to watch the death of a man whose life I treasured so much, especially since I knew he was already surrounded by others who were more willing to stand vigil at the hour of his departure and who would see him through to the end.
I am one of many who will miss Jess. I feel this world lost someone who was an amazing repository of wisdom, knowledge, and experience. I can’t even begin to describe everything I’ve learned about the old cowboy, Korean war vet, martial artist, and unabashed womanizer who was Jess; certainly not in a simple blog post. But hopefully much of his memory and knowledge will live on through us, his students, his friends.
Rest in peace, Jess.
Yes, Our Ancestors Ate Meat, and Most of Us Should Too
We know that human beings were hunter-gatherers before they started herding and farming. We also know that herding and farming hasn’t been going on long–it only started maybe 15,000 years ago, which is only a fraction of the timeline for homo sapiens and other hominids that scientists say were either our ancestors or closely related to us. (I haven’t looked too closely into the science on that yet; as a Christian its particularly important to me to really understand certain things before I decide what I believe about them.)
However, no matter whether humans were created essentially as is, or whether we did come from some other hominids first, our homo sapiens ancestors were still hunter-gatherers. And a lot of people miss a very important word there. Hunter.
“But they just hunted rodents and insects and other easy to catch gross things!”
Well, no.
Our ancestors invented tools like the atl-atl tens of thousands of years before they ever invented a blow. Tools like these were invented in the Middle Paleolithic period, even as early as 90,000 years ago, allowing game to expand to fish in abundance and even some larger prey–even the woolly mammoth! Imagine hunting something that size! More complicated tools like bows and spears developed as early as 60,000 years ago, allowing hunting to be even easier and abundant. So let me get this straight. Our ancestors were possibly not hunting big game before 90,000 years ago, but still ate meat when they could get it. And they have been increasingly more able to hunt big game since 90,000 years ago.
Think about Native Americans. The teepee made of animals skins is one great example of how a hunter-gatherer type nomadic society utilized their abilities to hunt. The body of just one animal was thoroughly used and highly valued. I remember learning about the hunting parties and the tools used and how much of the animal got used in elementary school during social studies. This isn’t new news, people!
There are still some tribes that live a more hunter-gatherer lifestyle, such as African bush tribes. They are often physically fit, well nourished (except perhaps in times of drought and other factors beyond their control that we don’t experience with the grocery store just down the street), and have very few chronic diseases. Not to say they have none, their incidences are just significantly lower. Most of their causes of death are related to things that we are less likely to encounter and more likely to survive because of modern medicine, and from societal traditions that more modern societies don’t have. Which basically means, even if we don’t want to adopt their social practices and shouldn’t give up an emergency room when we need it, we shouldn’t be afraid of the hunter-gatherer type of diet.
We also have access to a diversity of plants and meats that hunter gatherers usually don’t because of geography. If they have a water buffalo in sight, that’s what they’re going to shoot. They have only their local flora and fauna–what have much more available to us, and we can make use of that.
I’m not saying you should shove your face with tons of bacon–although some days I won’t say no. But I am saying that you should eat lots of vegetables, lots of berries, a fair amount of fruit, some nuts and seeds, a decent amount of meat, and little or no grains, legumes, and dairy.
That’s not to say you can have no cultured food to follow a healthy diet. For instance, a lot of foods we have available, like sweet potatoes, are rare at best if they’re not cultivated, but they’re a perfectly good food choice for you.
I had this in my last post too, but its worth repeating
Anyways, back to meat. I honestly get tired of people trying to say that animal products are horrible for us and our bodies aren’t made to handle them. Especially when those same people say you should eat lots of whole grains. Guess what we’ve been eating for tens of thousands, perhaps even a million, years? Meat. Guess what we’ve been eating for no more than 15,000 years? Grains. Guess which our bodies are most adapted to? Uh, yeah. Meat. We’re meant to eat lots and lots of plants, and meat. Especially fish, which were probably some of the first easily caught meat our ancestors had in abundance. Do you have any idea how good fish is for you? Even most doctors and scientists who advocate plant-based diets have to admit that fish are pretty darn good for the human body.
No matter what I believe about macro-evolution, I do accept micro-evolution, and I believe very firmly that our bodies are designed by both God and nature to handle meat.
The Western Diet and meat eating are not synonymous with each other. You can have a diet that includes meat and be very healthy, as the hunter-gatherers above were before their diet was Westernized. Making the two diets synonymous is a disfavor to people who really want to know what our dietary problems are. The problems aren’t a high protein intake from meat. The problems are sugars, grains, refined foods, bad carbohydrate sources, and in many cases consuming primarily the fattiest, worst meats which are often fed on corn and genetically altered. The solution is to have a more natural diet of more raw, whole foods, choosing lean, good sources of meats, and getting rid of the problem foods.
Principles of Paleo
I’ve decided recently to start going towards a paleo diet. I know I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but I’ve been learning more and doing more towards it as time goes on. My sister-in-law’s sister has been on it for three weeks and has already lost 11 lbs, and that’s after eating clean for a few years!
What Is Paleo?
Paleo is short for paleolithic. The diet is also known as the caveman diet, the primal diet, or even the ancestral diet. It is basically a “back to the basics” diet. Our bodies are essentially identically to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and since it takes so long for things to change significantly genetically in our bodies, we still process the same kinds of food best. That means that natural, raw, organic fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, tubers, and meats are best for our bodies. Our ancestors didn’t have much, if any, dairy, legumes, or grains, and certainly none of the overly refined and processed stuff we have.
The Bad and Kinda Bad Stuff
Refined Foods
Refined foods are the sort of things you find in bags and boxes all up and down grocery store aisles. It is food that is processed, has all sorts of artificial ingredients and preservatives, is loaded with things like sugars (often disguised by different names), high fructose corn syrup, and preservatives, and which are consumed by Americans in alarming amounts every day. Many of these are so stripped nutritionally that they have to have vitamins added back in–that’s why you see things like “enriched flour” in the ingredient list. It is so bad for you that they legally have to add back in some nutrition so we don’t die of malnourishment as we stuff our faces.
What’s particularly horrible about this is that our bodies can’t digest most of these refined and process foods in the state they are in. Whole foods carry all of the vitamins, fiber, etc, necessary to digest them. If a food requires calcium to digest it, it contains enough calcium. They often carry extra vitamins and nutrients, in fact. But processed foods are so stripped that even the nutrients added back in don’t compensate for what was lost, so our body has to draw from its own resources to digest the food. If the food requires calcium to digest it, our body draws the calcium from–guess where?–our bones! These foods are health problems in a package.
That’s not to say that all foods that come in a box or wrap are bad. It just takes some discernment. A few, natural ingredients aren’t bad. Just read the label.
The Grain Verdict
The USDA food pyramid recommends grains to be the largest portion of food we eat every day. And frankly, a lot of Americans do that, and often not even whole grains. But get this–the USDA is a government department. The government subsidizes grain agriculture (that includes corn!). They profit from us eating lots of grains! Is it any wonder they grab at anything that says “grains are healthy” and shove it at us in their recommendations?
It is true that whole grains are better than the refined grains so many of us eat, and many people do maintain fairly good health with a moderate amount of whole grains in their diet, like in the eat clean diet. Whole grains like whole wheat, brown rice, and oats are more suited to our bodies than processed grains like white flour. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re great for our bodies, and for some people they’re downright bad. Look at gluten intolerance and other grain-related issues! A lot of people do best with grain moving much higher up the pyramid and being only whole grains, or disappearing altogether. You can replace your white or wheat flour with something like almond flour for baking.
The paleo recommends that grains disappear altogether, but the 80/20 rule (the rule that you will still get the benefits of the diet if you do it 80%, as long as the other 20% is mostly healthy still) allows for a little bit of whole grains if your body does alright with them.
Legumes
Beans, beans, the magical fruit….! Okay, I’ll stop. I’m not talking about green beans when I say legumes, though. Green beans are…well, are they a fruit or vegetable? Don’t they have seeds in them, which would make them a fruit? Oh well, doesn’t matter. They’re not a legume. I’m talking about thinks like kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, and lentils. Legumes are actually poisonous if eaten raw–I don’t think kill-you-if-you-eat-a-handful poisonous, but definitely something our paleolithic ancestors wouldn’t have eaten until they discovered that boiling the crap out of them made them not-poisonous and just gave them bad gas instead. They’re also not as good for us as many other food choices, and not as natural to our diet. It is another thing that might be part of your 20% in moderation, but which you should just avoid altogether if they bother you (such as if they give you indigestion) or if you want to be stricter paleo. Lentils are the best if you’re going to have legumes.
Dare to Eat Dairy?
Technically milk is a no-no, but many paleo eaters decide that cheese, yogurt, butter, sour cream, and heavy cream fall into a gray area that make them okay to use occasionally, especially if you get them from grass-fed and unpasteurized sources. These sources have little or no lactose left but the protein and fat remains, which is good. Grass-fed butter is great for cooking with. Some people say that raw milk is acceptable. Its okay to cut dairy out altogether too–the paleo purists would say you should.
Some people balk at reducing or cutting out dairy because they aren’t sure where else they’ll get their calcium and vitamin D. Okay, people. Seriously. Dairy is not always the best source for those vitamins–fruits, veggies, meat, and sunshine provide plenty, and often more than a glass of milk. Also, a diet based on those foods will help your body absorb nutrients better, which means you’ll get more of whatever calcium, vitamin D, and other good things that goes into your body. All the supplementation and dairy in the world won’t help you if your diet reduces or even prevents nutrient absorption.
How About…?
Chocolate? Dark chocolate that is mainly cocoa–so no Reeses, sorry–is okay to have sometimes.
Alcohol? A glass or two of beer or wine every day is alright. The occasional party out with friends won’t hurt, but moderation really is best.
Caffeine? A couple cups of coffee per day is fine. So is tea. Soda and energy drinks are a no-no.
The Good Stuff
Fruits and Veggies
Nom nom nom! Lots of these, of all sorts. Except potatoes. Those are so starchy they can be bad for you, especially if you’re already overweight. Try sweet potatoes or yams instead. Sweet potato fries fried up in bacon grease is…amazing!
Its best to get your fruits, veggies, tubers, berries, etc., local and organic if at all possible. Shipping a vegetable requires picking it early, when it hasn’t reached full ripeness and therefore hasn’t reached full nutrition value, and time it takes to ship it further reduces the nutrient value. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t eat fruits and veggies if you can only get them shipped and non-organic, its just to say that they’re better local and natural. Its also best to not overcook them or not cook them at all. Cooking fruits vegetables cooks away nutrients–when you boil the heck out of a vegetable it loses most of the vitamins it had. Raw or steamed preserves the most nutrients, but a bit of cooking or baking is okay. Its certainly better than no veggies.
Ideally, we’d all have a big garden and greenhouse of our own, but most of us don’t. A lot of health-foods store, farmers markets, and fruit stands carry local and organic.
Meats
Meat, meat, meat! The vegetarians and vegans are going to have a conniption!
Yeah, yeah, I’m mean. But its true. We are made to eat meat. For my fellow Bible-believers:
Genesis 9:3 Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
Woohoo! We were made to eat meat! That makes happy omnivores like me, well, happy.
Really though, vegetarianism isn’t necessarily bad for you, but its not necessarily as good as its proclaimed to be. Meat is really the best source of protein–in fact, a lot of vegetarians protein sources (soy) increase the risk of breast cancer! Meat also has enzymes that help us fight disease, and provide some of the healthiest sources of good fats, which are essential for good brain function and *gasp* even decrease risk of breast cancer! This seems like a no-brainer to me. Vegetarians are quick to point out that they tend to be healthier and have less diseases than meat eaters, but I must ask…what kind of meat eaters? Are we talking the average American who eats whatever crap that passes for meat at a fast food restaurant, the kind that also eat lots of empty carbs and highly processed foods? The steak-and-potatoes followed by a bowl of ice cream people? The huge meat lovers pizza every week people? Because I’ve got to say, duh. Of course you’re healthier than they are. But how do you compare with people who are on diets like paleo and clean eating? I think we’d measure up favorably, if not better, than vegans and vegetarians.
Okay, back to meat, because its so good. Do you know what paleo allows? Bacon! Yep. The world is a better place now. Really, pretty much any meat is allowed. To reduce fat, eat more of the leaner meats (chicken, turkey, fish), get leaner cuts of meat, and trim off excess fat on your meat before cooking it. But fat really isn’t bad for you, so don’t run away from it–just don’t have excess. There’s nothing wrong with some lean ground beef, a nice pork chop, or a juicy chicken breast. Many people who eat paleo also go for thinks like bison, lamb, even rabbit. You can go hunting and fishing for your own meat too, of course–nothing wrong with some venison! The more hard core paleo people, like the lady at Cave Girl Eats (cavegirleats.com) even try other parts of the animal, like liver or tongue, but I’m not nearly that brave yet. Eggs are also grouped in with meat–they would have been a chicken if they’d hatched, after all. They can actually lower your bad cholesterol, so don’t be afraid of them.
When you buy meat at the store (try a health foods store), try to go with the healthier, natural meats. Grass-fed beef, free range chicken, wild-caught fish, etc. Most of the stuff you get at the grocery store is grain fed and even genetically altered, not to mention kept and cared for inhumanely. You may even be able to find a local farmer or butcher who will sell their meat, and local farmers often keep their animals a lot healthier and treat them more humanely. That’s good for the animals and for you and me!
The Other Stuff
Oils–try stuff like coconut oil for cooking. (Or grass-fed butter or leftover fat, like bacon fat.) Olive oil is alright, but oxidizes at a fairly low heat, so not necessarily best for cooking anything on the stove top. Many other cooking oils are bad for you.
Nuts–peanuts are not nuts, they are legumes. But other nuts are good in moderation.
Natural sweeteners–honey was probably enjoyed by our ancestors when they could get it. It was definitely enjoyed later on when people learned tricks like smoking out the bees and began beekeeping. It can even boost your immune system and has some antibiotic properties. Agave and real maple syrup are yummy and natural, but have a high GI index, so they’re really a treat to be enjoyed only sparingly.
My Fridge
Okay. I think that’s a good overview. Its taking me time to get to this way of eating–we have to get rid of all the bad stuff first, and I don’t like throwing stuff away. But its getting whittled away. I got rid of my legumes this weekend. We’re almost out of oatmeal. Our top ramen is running low. Our rice will take a bit longer, but that’s going too. Flour is taking its time to go too–I need to make stuff to take to work and let me coworkers that don’t care as much about it finish it off for me. I know, I’m horrible! But that’s okay. Its not like they won’t know what they’re eating, after all, and its better than wasting what I paid for! In the meantime, I’m shopping primarily for paleo foods and eating more of them (except the eggnog…just couldn’t pass it up!), so eventually there will be very little to no non-paleo foods in the house. I’ll keep you all updated with the journey!
How biological convergence falsifies Darwinian evolution
Cornelius Hunter, a software engineer / biologist with a Ph.D in bioinformatics from UIUC explains the latest discovery of biological convergence on his blog. (H/T Tweet from J. Warner Wallace)
Excerpt:
The theory of evolution states that the species arose spontaneously, one from another via a pattern of common descent. This means the species should form an evolutionary tree, where species that share a recent common ancestor, such as two frog species, are highly similar, and species that share a distant common ancestor, such as humans and squids, are very different.
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Shawn McDowell Defending the Unborn–Good Video
Kitty Fiasco
As I said in my last post, Sharkbait got spayed last Wednesday. Well, I had to take her into the emergency vet yesterday. 
So here’s what happened. When I got her home Wednesday night, she was yanking at her stitches, so I had to get a cone for her. I was worried because the incision seemed more open than it should, like perhaps a stitch had been pulled or it hadn’t gotten as many stitches as it should have, so I asked about the gap and was told that its normal for there to be a gap between the stitches. I actually got the impression that they only do one stitch at the top and at the bottom and leave the rest open. Because of this, I thought all was well. There was no sign of infection or anything else that would give me cause for serious alarm over the next few days.
Yesterday that changed. Steven and I were getting out of bed, and Sharkbait came to cuddle on my lap. She was only there a minute or two, but when I got up I realized she’d left a spot of blood larger than a quarter on my pajamas. It was pretty watered down because there were other fluids mixed in. I immediately checked her and saw that her incision was oozing a bit. It should not be doing that four days after surgery, especially since it hadn’t been doing that previously; she’d had no more than a smear over the previous few days.
I freaked out.
I called the vet. They were closed. I called the vet’s cell phone, which was given in the voice mail recording in case of emergency. He didn’t answered. I called again. No answer. But his voice mail recording included a number to an emergency veterinary hospital that’s open when other vets aren’t, so I called them and told them what was going on, and they said to bring her in.
It was thankfully a quick fix; she needed everything cleaned and then more stitches. Unfortunately that meant local anesthetics and a very scared kitty, plus then they gave her an antibiotic shot in case any bacteria had gotten into the 3/4 inch hole in her stomach.
Today I got to talk to the vet who performed her surgery and cleared some things up. He hadn’t left a 3/4 inch hole, she likely yanked out one or two stitches (he couldn’t remember off the top of his head how many he’d put in) before I got a look at her and got the cone on her. Apparently if I’d left a voice mail on his cell he would have gotten back to me quickly and saved me the cost of the emergency services, but I hadn’t known that at the time. The bleeding had been light enough that an hour wouldn’t have made a difference, and the money would have been nice to save. But alas, I didn’t know, so the money has been spent.
The good news is, Sharkbait is doing much better today. The improvement is obvious now that she had the right number of stitches in. And I know that if something else happens between now and getting the sutures out, she can be treated for free if I just leave a voice mail.
