This is verging close to the Pit, but I’m more rueful than pissed, I’m not in the mood for folks being asshats just to be asshats and it’s about cats, so MPSIMS it is.
Oliver Cromwell here has just now made his third weekend visit to an emergency vet in three years. This time it was entirely my fault, as I caught the tip of his twitching tail in the corner of a louvered window and degloved it :(.
Not bad, as such things go - the emergency vet ( who I like a lot - friendly and straightforward ) said that if it were her cat, she might be inclined to just let it go, keep an eye on it and let it heal naturally. But the drawbacks to that would be:
a.) He’d probably be in a little more pain for a little longer ( as opposed to surgically dealing with it ).
b.) There would be more chance of him re-opening the wound.
c.) He’d have about a centimeter of exposed tail-bone for the rest of his life.
So, since it really was my fault I decided to do the more “sure” thing, which is pay the cash to have him sedated, the last joint of the tail clipped off and then the whole thing sealed over with a couple of dissolving stitches. The vet is cutting me a break, since it literally is about a five minute procedure from the sound of it and not charging me for an amputation ( just “minor wound care” instead ). But it’s still surgery with sedation, examination fees, etc. at an emergency vet hospital with their normal high overheads - $450-500.
But why, oh why must it always be on the weekends? The last two times ( urinary crystals, much more expensive ) it was on a Sunday. Today a Saturday ( my own vet does surgeries on Sat. and couldn’t see me before 3:30 and made it clear that most they would do is bandage it and make an appointment for later in the week ). So the emergency vet it is. God love them, they’re charming folks and very competent, more so than my regular vet I’m guessing. But lord are they expensive. It just seems cosmically unfair, somehow.
Well, look at it this way. Your cat’s namesake, Oliver Cromwell, got his head chopped off after he died. Your cat got his tail chopped off while he was still alive. You are keeping the opposites of the karma in the universe balanced.
Yeah - never, ever do a search on it with images on unless you have a strong stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was commonly hyphenated or not, but the search in passing turned up images I just barely glanced at, but still wish I could unsee.
Yep, when our kitteh decided to pop her splenectomy sutures and start oozing red stuff, of course it was a Sunday night. She was fine, but it took quite an emotional toll on her human mama.
And I bet you’ve never even seen a cat with its entire tail degloved; I have and it’s something that I’ll never forget, no matter how much I’d like to. She was okay after the amputation, though, and didn’t even seem to notice she’d been turned manx. The lack of a tail for half her life didn’t slow her down much, and she was still less clumsy than her agemate uncle.
Our black and white kitty, Lefty, required three emergency vet visits (all urinary blockages) last summer – all three on Sunday evenings. $3100 total. Sometimes when I’m petting him and the wife asks what I’m up to, I say “getting another $1.89 in value.” She hates that.
We got full pet insurance for our two dogs (75-90% coverage depending on procedure), paid in regularly for a couple of years and then Kaia needed some minor treatment for a boil. Reimbursment came fairly quickly, no problem. Then she broke a tooth and needed to be put under for the removal. Again they paid the bill but then they sent us a letter stating that due to the procedures they were going to limit her coverage to 50% and increase our rates.
So we did some calculations of the premiums we paid minus what they paid out. They made out like bandits even after paying for the two procedures so we cancelled our pet insurance and started an automatic payment into a savings account.
Ouch. I figure Ollie has cost me north of 3 grand as well, just thankfully spread out more. This is excluding food, regular vet visits, treats and toys. But including emergency vet visits and his damnable tendency to chew cords ( multiple window shades, computer speakers, headphone cables… ).
Good thing he’s cute and plays to my ego - he prefers me to all others, unlike my other cat who loves everybody and would rather sit on a visiting strangers lap because they’re a novelty :).
Our kitten did us the favor of eating sometime that caused intestinal blockage - twice - once over Christmas, the next time over the 4th of July. The first time was right after a $1000 lumpectomy bill (at the regular vet).
The damned emergency vet did not put a zipper in the second time - I think he’s just looking out after his own profit.
Your Oliver Cromwell looks just like my Paris . . . except for that little white patch. Paris is the best kitty I’ve ever had (don’t repeat that to his sister, Vienna).
Perhaps you should introduce Oliver to the Julian calendar, so his crises will fall on a different day of the week.
Just back from my regular vet, covered in blood and cat fur. Despite the e-collar, he apparently insisted on creatively self-mutilating himself. Apparently flopped his tail around the collar and gnawed fiercely enough at his sutures to not only rip them off with tissue and expose the bone again, but gash the tail slightly further down. My flat looks like a slaughter house ( profusely bleeding tips of cat tails get everywhere, including the walls ) and his tail is now bandaged and we’ve added a second tranquilizer on top of the buprenex he was getting for pain.
Unfortunately bandages tend to fare poorly on tails and given his predilections and the look of the re-injured tip my vet was pessimistic. Getting steadily pricier and we’re probably looking at a more severe amputation down the line, if it isn’t showing signs of noticeable improvement by this weekend. I may end up with a Manx cat yet.
Oh, I hear you. I have a perfectly healthy cat who got sick twice, on the weekend, while I was unemployed. The only thing I’m grateful for is it was never as bad as it looked when I went in. The first time, I get up one day and her whole eye was swollen shut. Turned out to be the cat version of pink-eye, as opposed to like, an eye injury.
Second time, she starts drooling heavily, opening and closing her mouth spastically and throwing her head around. I was afraid it was poison, so something neurological. 1 AM my husband and I got to the e-vet. Infected tooth.
Why is it never during the day?
(Hope your kitty’s tail heals soon, Tamerlane. I’ve been through wound care with a cone-resistant cat, it’s not fun)
