Letters to the Editor
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Soup's story
As I write this my cat, Soup, is curled up on my lap in the final stages of acute congestive heart failure. I found out about his condition two years ago when his vet detected a heart murmur. She recommended that he have an ultrasound done immediately to determine the cause. When I was told the cost for this procedure was $250 I decided not to go for it right away. I have always been an animal lover but I am also a natural born skeptic and, despite the fact that I did trust this vet, I saw this as a money grab by the vet industry in general. Eventually, though, I was convinced that it was an urgent matter and so I bit the bullet. The exam showed that he had a heart condition that was not curable but whose symptoms could be somewhat mitigated with medication. This past September Soup's condition suddenly deteriorated and he began to accumulate fluid in his chest cavity. If left untreated this could cause sudden heart failure. At the time the specialist who was now treating Soup felt he had at best weeks to a couple of months left to live. I was very upset by this news of course but still felt the tug of skepticism when I was given a couple of expensive options that could possibly give him a little more time. Fast forward to today and, thanks to a few thousand dollars worth of medications and procedures, Soup is hanging in there, still very sick, but happy and comfortable and as loving and sweet as ever. It has been a real challenge at times to figure out how to get the 5 or 6 pills that he gets TWICE a day into his little fang face and I have to be home twice a day to make sure he gets all of his medications on time. But I feel that when I adopted Soup I agreed to take on the responsibility of caring for him as best I could. To allow cost to influence the kind of care he has received would just be wrong. And although I agree that the cost of veterinary care can be unreasonable I am hardly going to scrimp on Soup's care to spite the industry or to make some kind of moral stand.
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Thank you for writing this article!!
My husband and I just found out this week that our 10 year old black lab, Cole, has lymphoma. This is after going through a series of tests last Fall, costing us $4,000, in which she was diagnosed with irritable bowel disease. We could do chemo and maybe get 1 year + more with her. But we wondered what quality of life would she have? Would we spending more time running her back and forth to the vet trying to get more time and not enjoying each day with her?
We, too, searched the internet for information and found all kinds of stories about people who treated their pet's lymphoma with chemo. But they didn't bother to mention how they handled the thousands and thousands of dollars it cost them to do it. Then I ran across a blog from England. It was a bachelor whose dog had died after two months of chemo treatment. He was heartbroken. I was heartbroken for him. I am heartbroken for us. But it made me realize that it's more important that we enjoy every single moment we have left with her rather than chasing after the chance that we MAY get more time with her.
This has been such a gift. I now laugh at her when she runs out to the living room with my sock in her mouth. And I give her an extra cuddle before heading out the door. I've never appreciated her more and I'm grateful for the chance to experience this without keeping track of vet appointments and worrying about how we're going to pay the mounting bills. Instead of the expensive chemo, we've opted for keeping her as comfortable and treating her symptoms with medication to make it less painful for her. And, we've scheduled a weekend trip to the ocean for one last run on the beach together.
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Coincidence?
After I read this essay and several pages of letters, I left my office for a bit and returned to find a voicemail from my dog's ... wait for it ... dentist.
Yes, my 2-year-old golden retriever has a mouth that, at this point, we've sunk about $1500 into. And it's about time for his next twice-yearly appointment.
Unfortunately, when Forsberg was a young puppy, he got sick for a couple days with a minor virus and fever. It wasn't until months later, when his adult teeth came in, that we realized what had happened - the virus had happened at exactly the right time to disrupt the formation of his tooth enamel.
Our regular vet referred us to the one canine dental specialist in Utah, and he's been working to protect and preserve as many of Forsberg's important teeth as we can. Leaving them untreated could very easily lead to horrible bacterial infection and many other problems.
And when we were told this, we swallowed hard, looked at each other and thought, "Oh, shit." But even though we'd had him for just a few months, we didn't consider getting rid of him or not treating the problem. We're not wealthy - we could definitely use the money somewhere else. But he's our dog. Sometimes I can save up for a visit, and sometimes it goes on the credit card.
So every six months, off he goes to the dentist for a cleaning and whatever restoration work is necessary at the time. The vet is great - he's knocked off at least half of what he could have charged (according to the office's billing estimates, which apparently have some wiggle room). Forberg is a rare case, and the vet is documenting everything he does in hopes of figuring out treatments that could work for other dogs in the future.
Perhaps my dog will be made "famous" in a veterinary journal someday. But for now, he's just our sweet, adorable, otherwise totally happy and healthy goofball who happens to have a money pit for a mouth.