Fur Babies at the Vet

Fat Old Jack and Dana sit on my chest.
15th January 2018

8^th April 2018

Dear (Devium),

You’ll be happy to know that fat old Jack is in very good health. I took the big black cat to the vet this week, along with your little Calico Dana, and had them both looked at. Dana was a pain to get into the cat carrier, I didn’t use yours, and she ran about the house until I cornered her. Jack, well, Jack just sat there without a care in the world until the car started moving then they both cried until I got them into the examination room.

In the car one of them peed on the pad in the carrier, and I had to get a new one at the vet. I think it was Dana and I think she left a present on the way home as well. I really need to clean up my cat carriers now. So nasty.

In any case, Jack got his blood drawn because he was old, and they said he was doing very well for his age. The doctor looked at his silky fur and felt its softness and commented that he was surprised the cat was that old. He told me that he wished all the cats he looked at were as well behaved as fat old Jack.

Dana was a trifle as it was hard to way and hold her. We found that she had blood in her intestines, and I have been given medications to calm her because they vet thought it was the stress of losing you that made her sick. Dana being so skittish of an animal this is probably true.

Dana is rarely far from me when I’m at home, and she has made a point of sleeping in the crook of my neck when I’m on the computer. She was a little standoffish after the vet for a few hours but Jack made a point to spend some time with me. He’s normally spending time with Pickle to be honest.

Your fur babies are doing well, and I hope you are too,

Richard Leland Neal

The World is Sick - Lenny Bruce

This Grizzly Reality

14^th March 2015

Dear Cassi,

       

I have so much to say about my wounded little cat. Well, writing about my pain dulls it some and gives me the strength to face this grizzly reality. When I gave Ire her medication that first time Pickle started crying. He’s thirty nine and crying over a wounded cat that isn’t his. Well, the liquid painkillers helped.

       

In any case, when I took my little silver gray cat to the eye specialist they quoted me for two separate operations. To simply remove the eye was almost three thousand dollars and to repair it, which would likely not save Ire’s sight, was nearly four thousand. Treating the condition medically would only cost six hundred.  I read later that she had quoted someone else twelve and eighteen hundred for these operations.

       

Now, as I mentioned, the specialist’s tools looked very old, and I told her so during the examination. She ignored me. It left a silence in the air that made me question if those tools were still modern. Further, there were old dusty books in the examination room and other objects that would have been hard to keep clean. A bit of dust in a damaged eye can make all the difference.

       

One thing that I did care for was that the vet wrapped my cat in a towel before conducting the examination. This kept her legs firmly secured so that she couldn’t scratch. It was a green towel, which I didn’t care for. White towels are kept for medical use so that they can be kept clean. It’s hard to miss dirt on a white towel.

       

The final point was that the vet didn’t bother to discuss the medications with me before I left. She said they were just strait forward. I didn’t know that there was a medication that needed refrigeration until I had slept and woke up again. I need to find a better eye doctor.

Know the world, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

The Eye Doctor

13^th March 2015

Dear Cassi,

Yesterday I went to the veterinarian, and today I went back to the veterinarian. I told you that my troubles were not yet over and they had only started. Ire, my little silver gray kitten, was bleeding from her eye, and I knew the morpheme would only last so long.

       

I was the eye doctor’s first client of the day, and still they had me wait before being seen. At this point it was past eleven. It could have been that they had simply started a new sign in sheet, but there were no other clients waiting.

       

They sent me into an exam room and had me sit waiting again. I set Ire in my lap and stroked her back as she purred. I looked around that room noting that all the equipment looked old and the Hooker Green paint on one of the test tools made me think 60s or 70s. It was a hundred and thirty dollars just for the doctor to look at my cat with her eyes. She didn’t take a temperature, but she did shine a light at my cat in the dark.

       

She billed me for a pressure test and she billed me for a dye test. When she took the pressure test she used the same cap for both eyes then threw the little white bit of latex away afterwards. I think she should have changed caps. If Ire had an infection in one eye it just got transferred to the other.

       

It was more than five hundred dollars to walk out of that office, and if I’m late for the next appointment I’ll pay ninety but there’s more. The pain medication they gave my cat was in pill form. There was no way I could wrestle with her to take a pill with her eye swollen and bloody. What if I had hit the eye and damaged it somehow? I had to call my regular vet to see if I could get a liquid pain killer and they obliged.

       

I read up on that eye specialist and she has gotten bad review after bad review. This is kind of to be expected with a veterinarian. I mean, no one likes to pay big bills. The only thing is that when I read one of the reviews she had quoted someone else much less for the same operation.

Do your homework, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Hotheaded Doctor