Neelix had a cold, not uncommon for him except this time was a little more than a stuffed up, crusty nose. His eyes were leaking greenish goo in the corners. It was hard to tell he was sick at first because the tranquilizers he's taking for spraying make him so listless, I didn't pick up on the fact he was sick, too.
I was annoyed at the last two vets I took him to because the first one declined to prescribe for him unless I left him there all day for sedation and blood testing. The next one was able to get a blood and urine sample without sedating him or boarding him for the day, but that only resulted in a $350 bill saying there is nothing much wrong with him.
So I took him back to a vet he went to once last year for tranquilizers. They had not charged me much at all, had not run any tests, just gave me the Buspirone. They got me back this time, strongly advising that something was amiss with him and they needed to run many tests, including leukemia. Well, the last two vets I had gone to said if he didn't have it by now, he probably never would and I didn't even need to keep up with the boosters anymore. I signed an agreement to $250 worth of tests, and regretted it immediately. Even the "Cat Fancy" magazine I read in the waiting room said feline leukemia testing was unnecessary and often produced false positive results.
They sent us home with an antibiotic and an eye ointment, which is next to impossible to actually get on his eyeball.
Tonight, the partner vet, who didn't see Neelix, called with the results of his blood test and made them sound like something crazy, telling me red blood cells this and that, and homoglobulin levels, and in short, nothing too serious, but still....when I finish the antibiotics, let her test him AGAIN, plus do a stool sample and a heartworm test!
A heartworm test? Why? What makes you think he has heartworms, I asked. He gets these colds all the time. He's been getting them since he was an abandoned three-week-old kitten. His first two vets didn't know why I was bothering to keep him alive because he'll be sickly all his life. The vet on the phone said, oh. Okay, well, call if you need anything.
They don't even ask about the cat's history and want to run more tests. I went on the Internet and looked up the symptoms for heartworms in cats and there are no symptoms, and not even a cure! So what's the point of knowing if the cat has them or not? I am not going back to this place, although I can't send them hate mail because they're open until 8 p.m., and sometimes when you come home and find a sick cat, it's the only place. The emergency vet is downtown and probably charges just as much, but they don't run a whole bunch of unnecessary tests, at least. They just treat the emergency.
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