Tales from the vet's office

[ralerin]

The one time I truly lost my temper

SC comes in with a dog with a huge abscess on the side of it's muzzle. Vet looks and makes up an estimate for the cost to fix it. The total comes to something like $500 (it's been awhile, so no exact prices). The SC is adamant that they cannot afford that and is there anything we can do instead. We offer CareCredit (no interest credit card to pay medical bills, including the vet), not interested. They only want to spend $200.

*chop*

I go up front to see the SC and what do they have? A cute new puppy that they paid $1000 for!!!! So rather than treat the old faithful companion they have properly they went out and bought a cute new puppy. ARGHHHHHH! SC also informs us that it's because of the puppy that they are late. They got stuck in traffic on the way back from getting it.

I have never in my life been so angry. I literally couldn't say a word to them. I just turned around and walked into the back shaking. I let loose a tirade of epic proportions and I truly hope they heard every word. Luckily at that point in time I was the head tech (I have since resigned as it was beyond stressful) so no one was around that could yell at me and the SC never complained.

This story would be when I would take one look at the new puppy, one look at the old dog, and see if I could force the owner to sign the old dog over to you guys.

Edit to add: We recently rushed my J.J to the vet because he decided to eat 6/8 squares of a dark and mint chocolate bar. Total cost of having him throw up because the dog has a MONDO sweet tooth? $135 and change. (Not kidding about the mondo sweet tooth, he ate over a POUND of pseudo chocolate, the Palmer's kind that's chocolate but not really, plus wrappers last Christmas and thankfully, puked all of it up within an hour after he ate. On my bed. JUST before I wanted to go to bed. Of course.)

My Sally, a few years ago, was outside playing with Charlemagne on New Year's Eve when he fell on her and injured a tendon in her hip. The screaming was awful. >_< And we were going to go to a party within 15 minutes. So, Best Friend and I went to the party and my parents simply changed their plans and went out to eat instead. They spent about 2 hours in the emergency vet's waiting room the next day. $500 for that tendon. Sally healed up nicely, except every so often she "skips" on that hip.

[DrasticSarcastic]

I go up front to see the SC and what do they have? A cute new puppy that they paid $1000 for!!!! So rather than treat the old faithful companion they have properly they went out and bought a cute new puppy. ARGHHHHHH! SC also informs us that it's because of the puppy that they are late. They got stuck in traffic on the way back from getting it.

That makes my heart sad to hear. That transcends plain old SC. I don't think I have a board appropriate phrase for that...

[Salted Grump]

That makes my heart sad to hear. That transcends plain old SC. I don't think I have a board appropriate phrase for that...

I'd suggest borrowing from Gravekeeper's Stock of... colourful phrases he uses to describe what he deals with.

Then add onto it. Repeatedly.

More than that.

More.

Still not enough.

More.

C'mon, you can add more.

Okay.

NOW you have an idea of my mental term for people like that.

[MoonCat]

First off, let me say that I really, really appreciate vet techs and all the work they do! I love the techs at my vet's office!

So sorry about your finger! Where I live, an unlicensed dog that bit someone could be taken away from the owner.

Whiskey, it's probably better that you had that abscess taken care of. Anything like that is a way for bacteria to get into the body, leading to infection. Those cones do like kinda funny, though, don't they?

[elsporko]

I forget how much I spent, but it was probably around a 100 dollars, to find out my bunny didn't have an infection, just a floppy ear.

[Cat]

Couple hundred dollars of vets not knowing what was wrong with Riley's eye
$300 for a specialist in the next state over to tell he it was feline herpes and the eye has to go
$300 or $400 for my vet to remove the eye (and I got a gleeful discription of the operation for free!)

That was 1 year

Following year:
$300 at the ER Vet because Rile ate string, 3 Xrays later, no sign of string
$1300 at normal vet to make sure string is indeed gone, Riley gets cut open, gets fever, won't poop (because he doesn't like the itter, I though) and a week long vet stay

I love cats?? ha.

[Magpie]

sadly, in my experiences as a vet tech, it was the small dogs that were the biters, poodles generally for me had about a 80% chance of biting (of course, the owner does absolutely nothing about it).

This has something to do with the fact that they didn't consider things like the wonderful temperament that poodles have when they decided to breed the toys.

Now, we didn't have a lot of money to spend on the rabbit. He saw the vet to get fixed and when he was injured. And even had he not died (fear) on the last visit, we probably would have had him put down instead of taking him every couple of months to get the liquid drained from his chest cavity. However, when he was injured we had him cared for. Broken paw? Go to the emergency clinic (actually really cheap, because we could take him to a regular vet for something that simple). Bad hairball? We took him to the vet. If you don't even like your pet why did you get it in the first place?

[Teskeria]

had to have a cone on my cat when it was younger. Poor thing couldn't quite manage to eat and drink out of her bowls. So we put an small ordinary plate with food on a box, and filled a plastic shoebox with water. Took her a few seconds to realize she could put the cone into the water and drink easily. She was happy (well as happy as a cat ever is in a cone)

[Treasure]

My poor kitty, Razz, had a gland rupture - i freaked out, took her to vet, they said, "oh yeah that happens from time to time, do you want us to drain the other one?" yes please
couple of hundred dollars later, i have an unhappy kitty with a cone - she's not supposed to lick at it (how do you think she got to rupture in the first place?) or go outside, as they don't want dirt etc in the "wound"

umm yeah, about that... Razz is an indoor-outdoor kitty and she doesn't go out the doggy door, unless she has too, even then she doesn't go out it "normally" ie just walking through; and she "knocks" on the front door to get let back in... No, Razz lives up to her name and will sneak out the front door anytime you open it - i caught her one time lying in the "garden" (i use that term loosely, it was mostly dirt, nothing will grow b/c of the shade tree) and she's managed to get the gauze that holds the cone to the collar untied. Pick her up, and the tie, take her back inside... next think i know she's s t r e a c h e d out, to lick at the 'wound' around the cone....

i gave up after that.... she's going to be a Razzmatazz; i got no way to stop her, and i'm in school during the day. *sigh*

i miss her

[Seshat]

One of my cats isn't going to have any heroic measures done on her anymore, if/when she next gets sick or injured. But that's because she's fifteen.


In the meantime, she's snuggled up on my lap and making it hard for me to type.

[chainedbarista]

when i read about the older dog, it reminded me of a sergeant who brought in his dog to be put down. why? to this day, i still haven't figured it out. he wasn't sick/ailing, he didn't have a broken anything; the owner just said, 'because he's a piece of shit.' wtf? this guy worked as an animal tech too. >

one of my dogs had to be put to sleep back in oct of 2005; she'd been acting strangely, not eating, yelped when i hugged her, somewhat lethargic and just all around not herself.

we took her in for xrays: $400; had an ultrasound done: $500; final was exploratory sugery because xrays and ultrasounds didn't define the problem: $1000. cause of illness? her pancreas was so overtaken by cancer that she had less than 3 months to live...rather than let her suffer any longer, we had her put to sleep (which was hard, i still cry about it sometimes).

[Sonoma]

I'm so sorry you had to go through that, Chainedbarista. I woke up at 5 one Friday morning to find my Flame Point Siamese had thrown a blood clot (saddle thrombosis, I think it was). I couldn't bear to make him deal with any more than he had already been through that year (long story), so had to make that call at 6 AM. Not a fun day.

On the flip side, my sister & I once rushed her Siamese mix into the emergency vet hospital at 2 in the morning. He wasn't resting, wouldn't walk, and was just overall in pain. She agreed to the x-rays, and when they went to position his foot on the plate, it popped the dislocated toe back into place. Beavis was suddenly all better. Don't remember the cost for that one, but my sister was just a college student living at home over the summer, had no extra money to justify spending for that, but what choice do you have?

[Magners]

Some people just shouldn't own pets.

[Seshat]

ChainedBarista, I completely understand your decision, and agree with it. I don't know if that helps any, but there it is.

Elderly Kitty has been my companion, and during the worst of my depressions, one of my reasons for living for fifteen years. She's a sweetheart to us, a terror to the vets (seriously: we tell the techs to warn the vet, and tell them to do 'as much preventative medicine as possible without hurting yourselves. Even if it's none').

Every so often we pay for sufficient anaesthesia to get her checked over. I don't know if they simply make her drowsy or put her completely under - whatever the vet's judgement call says - but it's the only way the vet can do a thorough check. We do the 'pat her all over, check eyes and ears and paws and butt' sort of check on a regular basis, though.

It's a rough decision, but veterinary work, tablet taking and anything of that sort stresses her out SO badly that we've had to decide quality of life trumps quantity of life in her case.

Now, WhiteKitty or our dog - both of those it's much more worth doing heroics for. They both enjoy the company of the vets, the clinic setting doesn't bother them, and they're not particularly stressed by being given tablets. So the loss of quality of life is much less for them.

....

But having had my father in law die of pancreatic cancer, well. If it progresses in dog the same way it does in humans, you did ABSOLUTELY the right thing. The only reason to delay would be to let her say goodbye to her People.

[vettech4life]

You all have no idea how nice it is to be on a site where people can actually sympathize (well, maybe you do ).

I work odd hours, 3 days a week doing a 12 hour shift each day. We don't get any breaks (sadly, this is totally legal) and to say I'm stressed at the end of the day would be a HUGE understatement. To come home (left the house at 9am, it's now 11pm) and see this thread is terrific.

More stories to come, I promise! For now, just want to say thanks