Just talk to me

We're changing veterinarians and here's why.

It’s not that the cost for two of the kitties exceeded the estimate for all three by 30% (and meant that one cat—Chloe—didn’t get sedated, have an IV started, have any x-rays or have her teeth cleaned).

It’s not even that Chloe’s procedure wasn’t done. I get it that you don’t know how complicated a procedure will truly be until you’re actually in there doing it. I do appreciate that Wally and Eddie took longer than anticipated.

And it’s (sort of but not fully) not that four teeth were removed (two from each cat), instead of the one we knew about. Again ,I get that things can end up being in worse shape than preliminary exams indicated.

It’s about the utter lack of communication.

I expect to hear if something’s more complicated, going to take longer and going to cost a lot more money as it’s happening. Not at the end of the day when it’s a done deal, and not when I’m told the bill.

I expect that once it’s obvious that all three cats won’t have their procedures done that the one who’s not getting sedation would get at least water and preferably some food too.

She never does this.
She drank for a full three minutes.

We followed directions and picked up the food and water at 9 PM Wednesday night. That means that Chloe, who is 17, was without food or water for over 18 hours. It shouldn’t take a phone call from me asking if she’s had water for veterinary health care providers to think, gosh, she might need water.

And it’s about the lack of partnership. Eddie had one blood test come back in July with a slightly unusual value. We weren’t interested in tracking it down, but Thursday when we picked up the cats, the vet told us she’d run that test. No touching base with us, no “hey remember that one blood value, I’d like to run another test,” nothing.

I want any health care provider (whether for animals or humans) to work with me, tell me what’s going on, what to expect, any alternatives and then let me make an educated decision. It’s clear from our two experiences with this vet that we won’t get a collaborative partnership.

That’s fine. I’m voting with my wallet and my feet (paws?) and looking through the recommendations I got from my friends.

Pumpkin heads

Last year, Eddie (he whose picture is at the top of this blog) suffered a blow out of epic proportions. Seems one of his anal glands got massively impacted with disgusting solid stuff, developed an infection and then blew up like a volcano. He showed no symptoms before the blow out, so we had no idea until we saw the gaping wound. In fact, I didn’t realize that cats could even have this problem. I thought it was strictly a dog thing. That was an expensive lesson to learn. He needed to be sedated to have the wound treated, and then needed a long term antibiotic plus the donut of shame. We endured non-stop hissing from Wally that lasted for nearly a month and poor Eddie was horribly traumatized by the entire event.

This year, not to be too graphic, his butt started smelling weird. Yes, I know, animal butts and butts in general don’t smell good but his smelled weird. When I’d pet him along his spine, I’d get to the tops of his legs below his tail and I could feel big solid things in there. They seemed to be the size of big acorns and when I’d squeeze, I’d smell more of the weirdness. As was the case last year, though, he had no other symptoms – he never dragged his butt on the carpet or anything. Still, just to be safe, I took him to the vet.

I am so glad I did. Once again, both glands were horribly impacted. The vet told me that the stuff she got out of there was almost entire solid, so I’m sure the poor cat was in pain. She gave him a shot each of antibiotics and steroids, because she knew there was no way we could get pills down that cat. I’ve given pills to plenty of cats before but Eddie is not only large, he’s quite strong. When he doesn’t want something, well it’s just not going to happen.

She also suggested getting more fiber into his diet. She gave me a couple of cans of prescription fiber food to get us started. In the meantime, I asked around my friends for advice – I’ve got some animal experts among my friends and the suggestion that came up over and over again was to add some canned pumpkin to his diet.

Folks, the cat loves his pumpkin. In fact, all three of them love it. I stir it into their canned food and they eat every bit of it. This week, Kent tried an experiment and just stuck a dollop in each bowl next to the canned food. It was all gone, as though they'd used a vacuum on it.

Sadly, we aren’t yet seeing any change in Eddie’s weight. Chloe and Wally have drifted ever so slightly down but my fat boy is growing ever larger and more in charge. As long as his glands stay clear, I guess I’ll have to be happy with that.

Saving money takes work

We rejoined Costco on Sunday. We’d tried BJ’s but didn’t like it as much as Costco, although we were prepared to switch since BJ’s membership costs $5 less a year. But when our free 60-day membership expired, we returned to Costco. It’s always shocking how tiring it is to make a full Costco sweep, and we were there probably a full two hours.

The cats are always enthralled when we bring in stuff from the car, and Sunday was no exception. As you can see, Wally made himself right at home in the box our groceries were in. I love this picture because you can really see the color of his eyes.

Eddie has a new fascination with Kent’s vitamins. In this video, he’s gotten between Kent’s monitor and keyboard, pushing the keyboard practically into Kent’s lap—all so he can get closer to the vitamins. Cats are strange.




Today I'm hauling two of the cats to the vet for their yearly check up, and I'll be walking since finding a parking spot near the vet's office is pretty difficult. Chloe will be in the soft-sided carrier we got last year that they know how to unzip (I'll use a twist tie to secure those zippers). Wally will be in the soft sided backpack pet carrier we got this weekend. I'm sure I will look quite hilarious carrying 20 pounds of wailing cats about a half mile to the vet's office.