Editors note: Lest you think I am not tender hearted …..although I did write this at the time, the actual event occurred in February 2007.
On Monday night, the day after we got back from Disney, Oreo,
our cat, started drooling. It was weird
– but we assumed he ate bad mouse or something.
Tuesday morning he wasn’t any better & the vet said to bring him
in. It was a snow day, and we had an
entire houseful of kids and friends, and no one could find the cat anywhere. (In retrospect had I known where the cat was
hiding, I would have joined him).
Tuesday night the cat reappeared and was not any better. We gave the dog a free pass & put Oreo in
the crate, so we would not lose him.
Wednesday morning arrived, and my less than please furry friend and I, head to the vet. I had done some research and figured it was tongue cancer, common in cats, (she says all Dr. Doolittle like), and the end was near. The vet said he suspected cancer, but for $ 45 bucks he would sedate him, clean his mouth, make 100% sure it was cancer, & if it was, put him down while he was sedated. I say ok. So that is $ 35 for the office visit and $ 45 for the sedation, and we figure the cat is on his way to greener pastures.
Wednesday morning arrived, and my less than please furry friend and I, head to the vet. I had done some research and figured it was tongue cancer, common in cats, (she says all Dr. Doolittle like), and the end was near. The vet said he suspected cancer, but for $ 45 bucks he would sedate him, clean his mouth, make 100% sure it was cancer, & if it was, put him down while he was sedated. I say ok. So that is $ 35 for the office visit and $ 45 for the sedation, and we figure the cat is on his way to greener pastures.
The vet calls that afternoon … it’s not tongue cancer; he
thinks it’s a bad mouth infection due to either biting an extension cord or
ingesting poison. If it’s a slight
poisoning, he just needs a few days of antibiotics, and he will be fine. If it’s a bad poisoning, he is in kidney
failure and he’s on his way to meet his maker.
The vet asks if I would like to pay $ 75 for blood work to
see if it’s kidney failure, or, just put him down now. Ok well how can I kill the cat without a
blood test, when all he might need is $ 20 worth of antibiotics? Fine … so now it’s $ 35 for the office visit,
$ 45 for the sedation, $ 75 for the blood test, & of course you can’t have
a blood test without $ 20 worth of fluids to hydrate the cat. So it looks like the cat I wrote off Wednesday
morning might actually be ok.
Thursday morning arrives and the cat’s back on death
row. The blood tests shows kidney
failure, but they can’t guess from what.
Great. I’d rather draw a cat
chalk line in the hallway then have to answer the eternal kid questions “what
do I think happened”. So now it’s $ 45
bucks to put the almost dead cat down.
We can have the dead cat for free, or, for $ 35 they will do a mass
cremation. I figure since it is 20
below, Howard, not really a big cat person to begin with, probably won’t want
to pick axe through the frozen tundra to bury the very expensive , very dead
cat.
So for those of you playing along at home, that’s $ 35 for
the office visit, $ 45 for the sedation, $ 75 for the blood test, $ 20 worth of
cat hydration (isn’t water free), $ 45 to kill the cat, and $ 35 to gather his
kitty friends for a cremation party. So
after 3 days of playing “dead cat, live cat, dead cat, really dead cat”, and, $ 255.00 later, we are officially a pet
down.
In the immortal words of Billy Mays …. But wait there’s more
… come back tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment