I work as a veternary assistant/receptionist at a local animal hospital. I absolutely love my job. Most pet owners will call in as soon as they notice a problem with their animal. If there is an emergency after hours, the office will stay open late or have a doctor make a house call. If the emergency happens within office hours, we will reschedule less critical patients or have people wait. (Definition of emergency–bleeding, open wounds, abcesses, broken bones, fainting or passing out, poisioning, loss of balance–there are probably a few other cases in there that qualify as well.) With all of this in mind, I’ll begin telling what I saw.
Yesterday, Tuesday, a lady calls in, wanting to schedule an appointment. She had brought pets to the office in the past, but not recently–so long ago that we have no chart for her. I asked what was wrong with the animal, a cat. She gave me the following information–that the cat was an indoor/outdoor former stray, that it had a cut on it’s head, that she had been keeping it inside and that the cut was healing but she still wanted to see a vet. I explained that any open wound is something we need to see ASAP, and that I could schedule her later that same evening. That wasn’t conveinent for her, and I noted that on the appointment book. (Little did I know I needed it.)
Today, when there was a conveinent appointment for her (I’ll call her Mrs. Stupid Bitch), she came into the office, checked in, and sat down while she waited for the vet. She had brought the cat in a carrier. She opened the carrier and brought the cat out. The carrier was about the size of a shoebox. The cat was quite a bit bigger than the carrier. She had shoved this poor thing in that little box. But now that the cat is out, I get a good look at this “cut” on it’s head. This isn’t a cut. This cat’s right ear was hanging by a flap to its head. There was another cut starting at the left ear and moving across the head over to a bit in front of the left hanging ear. A flap of cat fur and skin was hanging off of this cat’s face. It was attached at the left cheek and the nose and underneath the right ear. You could see the facial muscles of the cat–the wound was that deep down. Parts of face were hanging in front of the eyes of this cat. And you could smell that the flesh was starting to decay and rot. This was by no stretch of the imagination a cut. This was a definite emergency. I am so grateful that no one else was in the waiting room, because the site of this poor cat, face hanging off, trying to nuzzle it’s owner was heartbreaking. The smell was nauseating. I could not believe Mrs. Stupid Bitch waited to bring the cat in until now or even thought this was healing.
I brought the doctor out right away. He took Mrs. Stupid Bitch into an exam room. He took the cat into surgury. I had to hold down the cat while the doctor tried to anestitize this cat–first with gas via a mask and then by several injections. When the cat was out, he cut off the dead tissue, flushed the wound, and sutured it up, with a drain for any oozing of the wound. The cat lost most of its facial muscle mass, will have scars, and look like someone slegehammered him. If he survives. The doctors gave him antibiotics, but with the wound being open for so long and starting to rot, he may not survive.
Once the doctor finished taking care of the cat, he went into the exam room to yell at the owner. He YELLED. People in the waiting rooms could here him. To paraphrase–never in his 35 years of practicing had he seen a wound so blatently in need of medical attention that was neglected for so long. Mrs. Stupid Bitch tried to say that I wouldn’t give her an appointment and he brought the book back and showed her where it was written that earlier appointments were “inconveinent.” The woman was made to pay for the surgury up front, plus 10 days of hospitialization and medicines. She did. And then we called the SPCA on her ass. Mrs. Stupid Bitch said on the phone that she had other animals. She won’t any more. And the cat in the hospital, if it survives, will be adopted by the office. That woman doesn’t deserve to have an animal, let alone children. She should have her face partially ripped off so its hanging in her eyes and be left to rot. FUCKING BITCH!
I can’t fathom how people can do that to their animals. It’s beyond me. When she left, I went into the bathroom to cry because that poor cat may have spent his last few moments loving someone that didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone or anything but her own conveinence. If that were my animal, it would have been in the office within 15 minutes of me seeing the wound (and that’s just the time it takes to drive to the vet). Appointment or not, conveinent or not, that’s part of being a pet owner–is the care of the animal. (On a side note, Mrs. Stupid Bitch has children…I wonder if they were sick and it was an emergency if she would make them wait for a convenient appointment. She should have her kids taken too, as a precaution.)
(sorry about the length of this–this really upset me. And I needed to rant about the bitch who is at fault.)
