Call It a Discount

....because Jamie is now 25% off. By that, I mean Evans cut off his leg.

I know the above seems heartless and cruel, but Jamie was the one who made that joke. Granted, he was pretty smashed on pain medicine at the time, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

Working in medicine for so long, I saw more than my fair share of people who had undergone amputation of one limb or another. I had a world war two veteran who had his arm taken off at the elbow by a heavy machine gun. He tied off the stump with his own belt before dragging one of his fellow soldiers back to safety.

I had an old lady have both her legs removed. I forget why it was needed, but while she had moments of sadness and loss about it, she remained happy and positive for the most part. Though she was in her late eighties, she had a lot of hopes and plans for the future. She was optimistic as hell.

So given my experience with those who've lost limbs, maybe you understand why I find a lot of hope myself in Jamie cracking wise about losing his leg. Yeah, it's a dark joke. But it's a joke. It's an attempt to make light of something that should be crushing. As far as I'm concerned, it's as good a sign as could be hoped for.

Of course, Jamie isn't out of the woods yet. There is always the chance for infection or any number of other problems. It was good luck on his part that he knew his blood type and that we have a list of people for matches (and a few type O negative people, which is handy), or there wouldn't be any Jamie to make snarky jokes about. Just a pile of ash and the tears of those who mourned him.

I've got to go out with my brother shortly to take a look at the work being done on the trench that's slowly being dug around the compound. With so many other problems being dealt with lately, our hope is to at least make the zombies wandering outside the walls less of a threat than they've ever been.

We can hope.