Oh....we forgot about that

4 years ago, in rural South Africa, we had our dog spayed. Simple? No. Actually not. We used the state vet which was fine, she was great. Really helped us with our horse, chickens, sheep, cats and dogs. It gets interesting because her assistant wasn't available the day Nick took Ember for the procedure, so she asked Nick if he would assist with the anesthesia. All he had to do was push a button when she said to. Really not a big deal, just not normal for us, but of course he was up for the new experience. But...he also had Adalind with him. If you can't stand anything graphic, maybe just stop reading here. Because Ember was bleeding and the vet couldn't find the bleed. So she made the incision significantly larger, and laid our sweet girl's organs on the table to find the source while Nick and Adalind watched. Thankfully Adalind didn't pick up any of the language she heard that day. Meanwhile, I was at home getting updates that were way too spread out due to spotty cell phone service. Praise God, the vet was successful and got Ember fixed up and she was on bed rest for a little while, but she recovered just fine. This is where our memory of this event ended until today.

Recently, Ember has been dealing with an infection at the spay site. Nick took her to the vet today and found out the problem is almost definitely that the sutures were not dissolvable and whatever was left in there, her body is finally rejecting. Well, as Nick and I were discussing this, the memory came back. Why exactly we didn't make the trip out to Elukwatini to have the stitches removed, I'm not quite sure. Probably just to save time and money on something that was reasonably simple. Nick cut the stitches and then held Ember still so I could pull them out. Ember is such a good girl and is so at peace with Nick, so I'm sure she behaved wonderfully. But. The day we were meant to pull them out, we had no power due to load shedding. So I pulled out my dog's stitches under the soft glow of a headlamp. And, it has now become evident, missed one.

We have been back in the States for 3 years, but the African adventure continues...

P.S. It should be pretty simple to get Ember fixed up, no Priscos will be in the operating room, and the stitches will be dissolvable this time.