Doc, I'll tell my wife to watch the mail for the bill. We'll just throw it in the pile with the others that are coming in.

 

Send them to your elected President.

 

Back to Jim

It's always good to hear someone with a warm enough heart to save a life. Here is a pic of Elle and me. The pound found her wondering alone at 6 to 8 weeks of age. For some reason they had her spayed when she was way to young, and she had picked up kennel cough by the time we found her.

I took almost a year and a lot of care from our vet of 20 years, answering a few calls after hours and a few weekend visits. But here she is spoiled rotten, happy, and now healthy.

 

Bob, Im sorry to hear about your Sons condition. It sounds like there was a lot of miscommunication that has made the matter very frustrating . Ill pray for not only your sons health, but also for your family, and all of the technicians, Doctors and other folks in charge of his care. God bless.

 

Thanks Jim, didn't mean to take away from your original post but I was so frustrated this morning after my wife called me to tell me they were jerking my kid around again. I have to tend to customers all of the time, they are extremely demanding and don't give me an inch of flexibility. I could never give this kind of service and survive. I am basically a one man shop and don't have the management structure the clinic and hospital has that are suppose to be professionals and are suppose to have a system set up to handle this type of situation on a daily basis.

I have always been in awe of veterinarians. They are not only presented with patients who cannot easily communicate what is wrong but the vets also have to tend to many different species. The vet who comes to the farm tends to deal with the larger animals, cattle and horses, but he also will take a look at our dog or any other animal. It is amazing what this guy can tell by just looking at the eyes and feeling the ears of the cows.

 

Bob, when surgeons and various specialists jerk my patients around like that, they don't receive any further referrals from me.

With regards to your high esteem for veterinarians, I agree that they are very talented. But let me give you a little perspective on that--when somebody grabs a cow's ear and tells you that it has some crazy disease, they're taking a big educated guess, and they're right most of the time. On the other hand, there's a saying in medicine--if we don't know what's wrong with you 20 seconds after we walk into the exam room, we're probably not gonna figure it out very quickly. And that is indeed the case usually. So, sure, we could grab hold of somebody's nose, crank on their ear, or poke on their belly and say "Yep, you have congestive heart failure." But there's the HUGE difference between being a vet and a human doctor--cows don't sue us. Farmer Joe isn't gonna slap a multi-million dollar lawsuit on the vet if his cow dies anyway. Get my drift? I'm not gonna take a chance on your child. I'm gonna know beyond the shadow of a doubt.

 

Besides, MD's don't have to stick their arm into your butt all the way up to their elbow...

 

They don't????

Dang! I thought there was something fishy about my last doctor's appt.

 

Dang! What a cartoon that would make!! If only there was someone sick enough to come up with one


My in-laws wouldn't pay the $8 to have the breeder do that, they did it themselves. I told them they'd have to pay me 100X that and then I really think long and hard before doing it.

Did you make another appointment yet?

 

We had one of our dogs 12 year old dogs rupture her ACL (think it is a CCL in dogs) in her back leg chasing an animal in the back yard and popped it doing a quick 90 degree turn. The surgery cost us here in VA about what you will be charged so don't feel the Vet is ripping you off. The big problem you will have is the recovery and rehab to keep the repaired leg and the other leg from having setback problems. It will take weeks to get things back to normal with a lot of babysitting. We had it happen about 20 years ago to another dog and the cost have risen greatly since then - like the cost of an old Ford truck. If we had to go between our dogs family and the truck - the dogs would win out. With all our kids off and having their own families our dogs are family here and besides that they treat us better than our kids do. If I come across a cheap bumper out this way, I'll see what I can do to help out.

 

Hey Bob,
Hmmm.. I wouldn't let your son's issues keep you from doing smart preventative health exams. That could be a big mistake. You sure don't want to die from something very preventable.

That particular exam has gotten much better over the course of the last (10) years in my experience. Not much more than 1/2 day of inconvenience & the knockout stuff is great.

Good luck over there. Now back to Jim's vet.

Ben in Austin
1950 F1

 

Hey Jim,
I'm sorry to hear about your dog. You are doing the right thing.
My brother had knee reconstruction surgery done on his dog Divot last year.
It worked like a champ but it was tough keeping Divot from jumping/hopping all over the place.

Hang in there.

Ben in Austin
1950 F1

 

Well, I was able to get an appointment set up for tomorrow morning, Wednesday afternoon, Thursday afternoon, and Friday morning....

.....too much??

 

Information. Yes.

 

We just got our dog back from the ACL/CCL post-surgery visit and she got a good report. All wraps are off and she can walk better than I could after that ordeal and she is doing much better. It is our second round with dogs and the operation. Hope Jake has it OK as well. It was expensive but worth it. The truck can wait for seals and engine work to get done. I limp, my wife does, our dog does, and at times our truck does. All four of us are getting old.