A Cause for Celebration

Break out the doggy champagne! Jake is alive and WELL. The ultrasound showed no tumors in his liver or any other organ. He’s taking a natural supplement to remedy his liver enzyme problem. We’re also making an appointment to get his teeth cleaned, since that can contribute to this problem... and he’s never in 11 years had them cleaned.

I must say when I took him in today at 8:00 AM, I was a little taken aback by two things that seemed consistent with the national health care crisis. Paperwork -- pages and pages of it to sign, date, initial. At one point asking me to choose a level of care from these three:

FULL CODE: Instructs us to use all means available to us to resuscitate your pet. Including CPR, emergency medications, surgical intervention, and defibrillation. Additional Estimated Cost: $350 - $750

PARTIAL CODE: Instructs us to perform CPR, use emergency medications and defibrillation, but to proceed no further. Additional Estimated Cost: $350 - $450

NO CODE AND HUMANE INTERVENTION: Instructs us that no effort be made and further, that we use our best judgment to determine whether humane euthanasia is in the best interest of the patient.

That’s a load to process as you contemplate an exploratory procedure on your beloved animal. It struck me just how far we’ve come from the days of James Herriott, who performed whatever treatment was in the best interest of the animal.

After I initialed the box for NO CODE AND HUMANE INTERVENTION, I was then presented with the bill up front for today’s procedure. I hadn’t even brought my charge card in, figuring they had my animal -- what better collateral. But they steadfastly refused to treat him unless I PRE-paid the bill. So of course I did.

Poor Jake hadn’t eaten since his breakfast yesterday morning. I’m sure he was wondering why he had come in at 8:00 AM to sit and wait and wait and wait for a procedure that took place closer to noon.

But I didn’t have the nerve to complain about any of the above when the very pretty vet came out to give me the results. She said he was so well behaved he didn’t even have to be sedated. She also said he had the best-looking organs of any dog she had seen today.

So we came home with Marin, a daily supplement that includes Vitamin E, zinc, and milk thistle. This is supposed to cleanse his liver over the next month. That in combination with cleaning his teeth will probably eliminate the problem.

It would be nice if we had pet insurance to cover the nearly $500 bill for today’s visit and the upcoming $500 to clean his teeth. But the truth is, Jake is worth every penny of it.