Emergency Veterinarian Medicine

Sorry in advance for the essay here, but please stay with me. I do eventually get to the point.

I had to work in Germany for the past 5 weeks and since my wife is a teacher, she decided to come along.  We had lived there for 3 years previously, so we had plenty of friends to see while we were there.  Our original intention was to take our dog, Vander, with us.  But I neglected to read every little bit of airline fine print and did not realize until 10 days before the trip that pets were not permitted to fly on Delta’s 767 aircraft.  That plane happened to the one used on all segments of our flight.  So it was unfortunately not going to be practical for me to re-book our flight on such short notice.  On one hand it might have been a blessing.  The weather in our region was VERY hot with average daily temperatures in the mid 90s or even higher (not so much A/C in Europe).  But on the other hand, we really missed him.  So I was able to arrange for him to stay with my parents for all but 10 days.  During those 10 days he was staying at what I would refer to as a doggy vacation destination.  So I was feeling pretty good that things might work out okay.  And they were okay until our very last weekend.  We were flying out on a Monday and I got a call from my mother on a Saturday (8pm German time/2pm EST).  When I got the call I was actually about 2 hours into a wine festival but things started to become less festive from here.  She said that Vander had diarrhea for the past 4 days and that now he was throwing up.  He had thrown up his food at first and then threw up an additional 4 times.  I asked what his general behavior was like and according to my mother, he was “okay”, still somewhat active and alert.  My father however said he was not acting okay and was being very lethargic.  So I am 5000 miles away, only two days from being back home and maybe he is okay or maybe “it’s hitting the fan”.  Not being able to get a clear indication of how he was really acting, I asked them to call our vet office as they have an emergency consultation line on weekends.  I thought maybe the person on the other end of that call could coax some further details out of them and offer advice.  I didn’t think it would do me any good to call because I wasn’t in front of the dog and could only offer conflicting second hand information. Well the result of that call was that he should be taken in to see the vet.  And since Vander decided to make things more interesting on a Saturday that meant he had to go an emergency veterinary hospital.  And while I was not under any illusion that an emergency vet would charge a premium, I guess I just didn’t expect what I got.  And I will admit that I am no expert on veterinary medicine and that maybe it’s my ignorance that is the problem and not the vet’s treatment and price schedule.  He didn’t get to the vet until later in my evening so I said call me if there is anything critical.  If not, I will call in the next day.  Well the next day I found out that there was no obvious reasons for his problems.  And that answer cost me $1812.00.  Wow!  I will spare the fill itemized list, but the summary is as follows:

General Exams – $137

Bloodwork – $260

X-Rays – $450

Time in ICU – $120

IV Fluids and Meds – $785

cPLI (not sure what this is) – $60

The medicine, which I have not yet researched, includes Fentanyl, Zofran, Pepcid, Metronidazole, Ampicillin, and Cerenia.

So for me, the real troubling part is that I have no idea if Vander was really sick or not and no idea if this visit really made any difference.  I wrote the vet’s office saying that I felt the price for treatment was, in my view, too high for having no diagnosis.  I could (and did) guess a material blockage or virus.  I wrote the vet from Germany (I was too angry to talk) saying that I felt this was a poor value in the sense that after all this treatment there is still no idea what the problem is.  I told my parents to pick him up as I would be home the following day.  At that point, if things were still not improving, I would take him to his normal vet.

I felt three things.  I felt helpless.  I was too far away to really participate and keep an eye on what was really going on.  I felt used.  I felt as though this vet was just taking a shotgun approach to this hoping that the scatter of treatment hit the target, but hit or miss, they were getting paid for it, so why not.  And finally, I felt like I was letting Vander down.  Had I planned the trip better, he would have been with me and not in the care of others.  He would not be sitting in that strange hospital overnight.  The vet called me later on (after reading my email) explaining in detail the rational behind all the treatment.  I did not completely understand everything that was said.  Again, I am not an expert in animal medicine.  But in the end it came down to the fact that there was nothing obvious in his x-rays other than some “gas opacity” that looked like maybe something was causing a blockage, but maybe not, and that his heart rate was a little low and his white blood cell count was up.  The phone call really didn’t make me feel any better.  She sounded sad that I felt the way I did and she told me that she treats animals like they were her own.  But I don’t know her.  I don’t know how she treats her animals.  I know she has a business to run and I know she knows, she is really your only choice if your pet decides to get sick on a weekend.  She also said the price was fair and that if I had gone to a “specialist” the price could have been double that.  Really??

So… Anyone out there want to cheer me up and say that it was really money well spent and that I should do it again if I was ever in that position?  Because I have to say that after this, it is going to have to be a REAL emergency to ever go back there.  And if one were to scale these prices up to a real emergency, I guess I should be prepared to mortgage the farm to pay for it.