The cat seemed a little scruffier than usual last night, but as I was pretty tired from a three-hour drive and dealing with a very sick Kid Peligro, I didn’t pay that much attention. Today I took a closer look and noticed that the left side of his face was about twice the size of the right side, plus aforementioned sluggishness. Luckily the vet lives just down the road. Unluckily, as we suspected, the problem was an abscess requiring immediate surgery.
Total cost of surgery, anesthesia, surgical tubing, collar, medicines that we have to administer over the next three days, etc. etc.: over $800.
“As long as we have him under anesthesia, do you want to go ahead and have his teeth cleaning done?”
Oh sure, why not. What’s another $65 when you’re paying enough money to buy a whole new cat, perhaps one not stupid enough to get into fights with other cats half his age.
I spent another $25 on the way home to buy three big bags of potting soil, and dragged it along with months’ worth of dead leaves in mounds along the bottom edge of the fence. If he wants to sneak out and pick fights with the locals again, he’s damn well going to have to work for it.
mythago
6 Responses to “Expensive Cat…..Is Expensive”
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Oh Good Lord, Myth…
You need an irascible old country vet, and my best Bud, the psycho vet tech, C. L. Jablonsky. (Crazy Lady J.) Or me.
We’ve been lancing massive abcesses for years, and then dosing with Amoxicillan (sp?) for roughly $10 a bottle. Haven’t lost a critter yet.
All you need is a stong stomach, as the smell is truly vile.
The very few times that the abcesses (facial/genital areas) were best handled by our curmudgeon of a vet, the bill has never exceded $50.
It must have been a whopper of an infection in a truly dangerous area, as I’ve never seen anesthesia used to lance an abscess.
Just heard back from my favorite pet message board that “anesthesia” may simply be the common numbing of the area, and also that there are indeed severe cases where putting the critter under is absolutely the way to go.
Those cases are truly severe, and so I send “get wells” to your feline.
This was pretty severe. As I recall he had a similar abscess a few years back, but it was in his tail, and they just had to dope him up a little bit. This time it was the entire left side of his head and was a truly massive infection.
I have no illusions that he will learn anything from this episode.
They never do. So just because they never learn, old-time country vets will often sell you the Clavamox? amoxicillan outright if you also care for the semi-ferals in the barn. Such vets are a vanishing breed. Luckily, our vet has an “apprentice” who is equally curmugeonly.
For what it’s worth, Purple Pyrate seemed to think the charge for the teeth cleaning was quite reasonable and the rest seemed in the ballpark for our neck of the woods (once anesthesia is factored in).
Painful but it doesn’t sound like they gouged you. Glad he’s doing better. Any chance of making him an indoor only cat?
The house is a little small for that. We’re working on totally enclosing the yard.