there's a bathroom on the right

If you can sing the title of the blog post out loud and automatically know which song lyric Katie's brother rewrote, you win!! I don't know what you'll win. I'll be impressed?

It was a weird past week in the house because I was alone for most of it. I decided since nobody was around that it would be a good time to get Ellie spayed.

Poor Ellie! On the "operating table"

 I called a vet that Beth knew and who had previously neutered her cats and done a good job....the Tororo vet has this odd way of showing up out of nowhere in a pickup truck, running in and doing whatever you want him to do, and running out. I didn't really want this to be a rush job so I called Bernard instead.

He was still 2 hours late, but when he finally came he did a good job. Agnes and I both helped assist. After watching this surgery I'm pretty sure I could have done it myself - if I could have found the ovaries. That was the hardest part for Bernard too. But seriously, after doing the pig lab during my surgery rotation at Hopkins, I think I have enough skills to successfully spay a small dog. Take that as you will.

Don't worry. It's a pig, not a human.

Pig lab was really the only part of my surgery rotation I enjoyed (that's only a slight exaggeration). But it was the only time when you got to make decisions and actually do some of the things surgeons do, and because of that it was the only time surgery was even mildly appealing to me. It's a pretty awesome experience...so much better than just standing around and retracting during a 7 hour pancreatic surgery.

Anyway, Ellie had a rough couple of days....it reminded me of when she was a small small puppy and I had to baby her all of the time. Poor Ellie! But then she totally recovered like a boss. She never even vomited after the anesthesia and generally was totally better by Tuesday, when Katie's family came. It was amazing.

Most interesting comments by Bernard the vet:
"You could never operate like this on a human. They'd get sick immediately. Dogs are tough." - on operating outside in the backyard, as aseptically as we could make it

"Um, well once a dog pulled the stitches out in the night and all of her intestines came out and she died. But that was only once." - after I asked what to do if Ellie messed with the surgery site. I was like REALLY?? Thanks for that anecdote. Thank God that didn't happen.

Anyway then Katie's family arrived on Tuesday! (After a very long, very arduous journey from the Masai Mara.) They decided to hang out in Tororo an extra day instead of heading to Sipi because of said arduous journey. That means we finally got to meet for more than 5 minutes! It was fun to meet everyone and hear about their trip experiences. It made me really excited for Dad and Amanda to come! Get ready to have adventures!!

We ended their last night in town by googling some guitar tabs and lyrics so Katie's dad could play the guitar while we all sang. It was like a Briggs get together but without the Return to Pooh Corner song...which both of Katie's parents knew but none of the kids did. Haha!

I'm heading to Jinja next weekend to raft the Nile! I'm sure I'll get some pictures of that magic.

But for now, pictures of the two hammiest hams I know. They do love them some Christmas hats.