I don't care how many years the vet  went to school and how much his
new offices cost him it is totally unfair to ask a person to pay
nearly $2000 to operate on a cat. The surgeons time and someone to
assist and two nites in the hospital.

It seems unfair to ask a person to make that decision we all like to
say that we will not put a price tag on our pets life......maybe the
vet could do an unusually high dollar treatment for cost or
something.......

I'm sorry I know its not fair to blame the vet but these kind of
things hit home very hard for me.....my Golden Retriever who was my
saviour when I had a terrible accident at work that has disabled me he
always did stay pretty close to me but once I was hurt that dog never
left my side......I would let him outside to do his thing and he would
eat and maybe take a walk around the house making sure everything was
in order but then it was right back to my feet.......

Blaze was 12 years old.......I won't get into the lengthy explanation
of his problem but what I faced was surgery between $4000 and $6000
and a fifty percent chance of living through surgery......then another
fifty percent chance that he would live a near normal life without
pain......I was on limited income and sure to be badly in need of my
retirement investments......I was only 50 at the time .....how can a
vet ask someone to make that kind of decision.....??....I asked the
vet if he would take half down and $100 dollars a month in payments
and he informed me that he wasn't a bank.....

I put Blaze to sleep......I had two boys in college I still planned on
having 15 years of work and 401k deposits to give me a comfortable
retirement......I still sometimes think that I am very wrong on making
that decision......if it was me alone I would have done it in a
heartbeat and eat oatmeal the rest of my life if I had to.

Sorry for the rant but when I see these stories about large medical
expenses for pets it all comes rushing back to me....I later called
some of the animal insurance companies to see if they would have
covered the expense and the answer was no....three of the four said
that the animal had to have a reasonable prognosis of complete
recovery without defining reasonable .......pretty giant loophole I
would say.......

I hope no one has to ever has to make a similar decision and I can
tell you one thing its a lot easier to say what you would do right now
than when its staring you in the face.....

Brad

LIFE'S JOURNEY IS NOT TO ARRIVE AT THE GRAVE SAFELY IN A
WELL-PRESERVED BODY, BUT RATHER TO SKID IN SIDEWAYS, TOTALLY WORN OUT,
SHOUTING... " HOLY @#$%... WHAT A RIDE!"

That was your regular vet who did the work? Take them to the emergency vet
and you might as well turn over your children's inheritance.

W

Much better to take blocked male cat to your regular vet, who may work w/you
re payments and total cost, rather than strangers @ 24/7 ER vets! The bald
fact that
affects the whole scenario is this: the *time* and *day* your male cat gets
"blocked" urinary tract....if wrong time you can't get regular vet and will
be forced to use ER, as your cat will surely *DIE* in agony in a matter of
hours, not days, w/o the surgery. In Miami we paid about $300 (regular vet
we used for years). It was explained to me by vets that female cats, like
hoomins, have relatively short urethra (tube to outside for urine exit)
compared to males, whose urethra is much longer and harder to deal
w/blockage for this reason. I believe discoveries re food
content ingredients has lowered incidence of blockage in
last 10 years or so.

We haven't even had time to find a new vet since we moved last month, so
this guy was the vet literally around the corner. I called around 11 am,
took him in before noon, and they gave me this estimate that took my breath
away. Yes, vets are a bit higher south of you, but still...triple the price?
I don't even know if they charged me an emergency fee, but how could it
possibly be $1000?

We went to visit him today. He's a satellite head which is always comically
sad, and the catheter is working and he's dripping clean pee, so I'm hoping
he'll be able to come home tomorrow as planned. I'm also hoping that the
estimate and the actual bill are WAY different or we're going to have quite
the chat.

Thanks, Kelly and everyone else.