Vet Bills: Lesson Learned

Reading: Empire Falls by Richard Russo

What my $8 kitten is costing me these days:

A very pregnant Denali

• Sterilization shot from shoddy vet - $12
• Sonograph to determine the source of mystery lumps - $45
• Hysterectomy - $120 
• Oophorectomy - $40
• Antibiotics - $9

Total cost: $226

Lesson learned: Just get your cat spayed the normal way, BUT make sure that it's done by a legit vet... and stay away from sterilization shots - they result in swollen mammary glands and an infect uterus and ovaries. Bad story.

Side note: I'll be back in the states for a nice little vacay (and Miranda & Mitch's wedding) in 25 days. So excited.

Infección de Garganta

Reading: The Moral Equivalent of War by William James

So on Sunday I managed to come down with a nasty case of something that left me with a fever and some good old body aches. Normally this would not be all that worrisome, simply remedied with some self-prescribed Tylenol, water and sleep. However, we are not in normal, this is Ecuador, which means that fever and body aches could be a whole host of things, the most problematic being malaria and dengue.

Now, I personally ruled out the two worse extremes, mainly because I’m currently taking mephaquin for the malaria and I’m told that dengue feels like death itself, which my state of being could not be exaggerated to. On Monday, since I was still freezing even though it was clearly hot out, my neighbor, Marilyn, decided that we need to confirm my claims by rubbing me down from head to toe with a raw egg. The idea is that the egg will absorb whatever ailment is possessing you, so when it is cracked open in a glass of water, one can read the position of the yoke and albumen to determine what is actually wrong with the patient. My egg voodoo confirmed that I indeed had a fever, no thermometer needed.