Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Punky's Turn to Shine

So first off, I realized that it's only been two months since Roxie was put to sleep, not three. I guess grief affects your ability to count. Anyway, Punky is in hospital, as they say in the UK. We took her yesterday and they ran a lot of tests and decided the most likely culprit for her sickness was pancreatis. So they had her spend the night and apparently she's eating again which is good. Fortunately, pancreatis is a one-time thing and she should be cured and well on her way this afternoon. Unfortunately, pancreatis apparently costs just shy of $800 to cure. Hopefully the treatment they've given her so far will work because really, that is several times what I can afford to pay for my kitty to get well and so the well's pretty dry after this in that department. Either cats are more expensive than dogs or hospitalization has gone up, because I think both Lucy and Roxie "only" cost about $400 each when they were hospitalized.* So now that I have hospitalized all of my animals, I guess Punky can be sure that we don't love our dogs more than her.

*I just double-checked and yes, Lucy's visit was actually $400 for one night (although she stayed a second night and therefore cost another $125.) Roxie's visit was actually much closer to Punky's and was $700. Add that to her $500 teeth cleaning and her $300 teeth cleaning and that was a practically a million-dollar dog. (I'm not even including when we had to put her to sleep because that's just tacky). Holy crap, I just discovered that that Roxie hospitalization was actually over $900! So I guess Punky could still stay another night and not reach that limit. The moral of the story? Animals are expensive!

It's so hard though when they bring you that estimate. It's like you're being asked to put a price tag on your pet's life. And I hate it when they don't really give you other options. Anyway, hopefully Punky will be well and will stay that way for a long time to come. It'd also be nice if she went back to her usual healthy self and didn't cost us anymore money for a long time.

3 comments:

Tara said...

Yeah, we just got through spending $300 to get 2 cats all shot up, and get some flea and heartworm preventative for them. (And I still have 2 more to go.)

Glad to hear that Punky should be alright. I was worried about her.

Kate said...

I'm glad that things are looking better for Punky! And the $ sucks. I am terrified of Tilly getting sick and then deciding what we do based on $, although we did decide what (general) procedures are more than we want to put her through. We also have doggie insurance. I kid you not. It does help a little.

Sarah said...

I have pet insurance for all 4 of ours - seriously, they are all covered under the most comprehensive plans VPI Pet Insurance offers. It doesn't hurt that I get a discount through work and a multi-pet discount, but it is well worth the money. I highly recommend it.