(no subject)

[urocyon]

We did head out bright and early to pick up the littlest girl, complete with IV drip still. Roger kindly ferried us to the specialist's office, which is in an industrial estate right outside Laindon, not quite into Basildon proper. The premises are apparently huge, and they have lots of staff. The place mainly specializes in veterinary oncology, but does have a couple of more general small animal surgical specialists.

Punkin was acting remarkably alert, and wanted lots of attention (not surprisingly). vatine and I alternated putting our hands on her through the carrier while we were waiting. The vet's here in Romford had told us that the appointment was between 10:00 and 10:30, but we were actually down for 10:30, so it was a bit of a wait. The little girl kept trying to rub the injured side of her face up against us, so it must not be as painful as we'd have expected at this point.

I liked Punkin's new doctor fairly well--I didn't actually catch his name. She must have liked him too, since she almost fell off the examining table trying so hard to lean up against him and flop over to get him to pet her. :) He gave her a pretty thorough exam while trying hard not to cause any pain. He will have to knock her out to get a better look at the jaw, and it is going to need some more X-rays. At this point, though, he is thinking that they can probably just wire it shut and let it heal in proper alignment that way, rather than having to do more surgery. She still has too much swelling to be able to breathe properly with it closed now, so they are giving it several days and some steroids.

vatine and I both went in with some concern that they were just going to say that they couldn't fix the problem. Thank goodness, that was not the case at all, so I'm feeling much better about things now. Hoofing it to Laindon station afterward helped work out a lot of tension, too. Now that the thigh muscles have calmed down again, I should ramp the exercise level up some.

Not too surprisingly, we could kick ourselves for putting off taking out a pet insurance policy on the girl, but this has certainly been a good prompt to do it, after the horses got out or no. *sigh*

It was rather hard to sleep last night, so I am ready for a quick nap now.

Comments

[vatine]

Based on only circumstancial evidence, I think it's the vet named "Henry" with a French-looking surname. Kind of cool, out of 13 vets, 9 seem to be female (based on names), two male and two I couldn't determine from the name (they had all vets and nurses listed with name and degree(s) on the wall). That'd be Real Neat, since he seems to have some sort of "one of the better small animal surgeons in Europe" flagged to his name on the "brag board".

[megabitch.livejournal.com]

Pet insurance. We are seriously considering it for the birds now that one of them has cost the equivalent of £800 per 100g for treatment (she weighs 50g, the vet bill was for just under £400) :/ I have 4 pamphlets here - two for generic via supermarket type stuff and two for specialist avian/exotic pet insurers - need to sit down and try and take a closer look at the small print.

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

Ouch. At least the cost per weight has been lower for the cats. This specialist is going to run at least £1000, though, on top of the approx. £250(?) that already went to the regular vet's. We may have a few lean months around here, but I'm just glad it's been doable.

With a good bit of comparison, whatever policy was rebranded as Sainsbury's was the best deal for the cats a couple of years ago. It bears looking into again, though. Wish I could offer some experience with bird/other exotic animal coverage. Good luck!