IcyWolf
New member
- Jul 5, 2011
- 1,542
- 3
- Parrots
- ~Alexandrine Parakeet~2 Red Lored Amazons~Blue Fronted Amazon~Black capped conure~4 Green Cheeks~4 Parrotlets~2 lineolated parakeets~9 American budgies~9 English budgies~ And lots of babies :)
Oy, where do I even begin....
Yesterday I had made a big crock pot of veggie chili and invited a few friends over for dinner and a bonfire. Everything went so well until we went out to the fire, we were all sitting around the fire playing some hand drums when our neighbors(not super close to us but apparently close enough) lit off some fireworks, it scared our dog and he took off running and tried to get back into the house to hide. Unfortunately his method of entering the house was through a plate glass window
The one side of our house has a wall of all windows facing the woods, it's a bedroom but it kind of has a greenhouse look to it. It is plate glass on the outside, about a 4 inch gap, and then plexiglass on the inside. So of course, he broke through the plate glass and hit the plexiglass and had to back up through the broken window.
We quickly rushed him into the house and realized he was limping, and then we saw the blood. It was everywhere! And of course he wouldn't stand still so he's hobbling all around the house with blood seemingly coming out of both of his front legs. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it looked like there was a massacre in our house lastnight. At first it just looked like a couple superficial cuts but I put him in the tub so I could see where he was actually cut and what was just smeared blood. I got him in the tub and started hosing off his legs and then we saw it. On the back of his ankle was a cut about and inch wide by about and inch deep, just laid open :11: I immediately looked at my fiance and just said, "we need to go to the vet, now!". I called up the emergency vet and we were on our way, it took about 25 minutes to get there.
We arrived at about 10:30pm and they immediately took him back for triage. They didn't really ask me any questions, I had told them over the phone that he tried to jump through a window but that was it. They then proceeded to let us sit in the waiting room for 3 hours without so much as telling us if he was okay or not
After about 3 hours they FINALLY took us back to the exam room where we sat, alone, for another hour and a half, two hours before the receptionist finally came back to give us an estimate for treatment, yep, that's right, they let him sit back there in a crate for at least four and half hours before they even started to treat him! Here we got the wonderful news that his leg needed to be sutured and stapled and the bill was going to be about $700, all due before we could take him home. :52:
I'm not going to lie, I just broke down and started bawling. I was just so upset that he was hurt, upset that they had just left him back there untreated and upset that we now face a $700 vet bill on the same day our rent and bills are due. When she realized how upset I was she said, "let me go talk to the doctor and see if we can't get some things taken off". That upset me too, I didn't want him to not get things he needs because of a lack of money, I was so afraid they were going to cut out things like pain meds or something and I knew he was in a lot of pain. It just made me so angry, coming up with the money wasn't impossible, it just made me mad that it was 3am on a saturday night and they expected me to have $700 in my pocket. They wouldn't let me make any kind of payment arrangements or anything, it was pretty much, give us a deposit and then give us the rest or you can't take your dog home. But anyway, she went back and talked to the vet and they decided to remove one bandage and try to do his stitches with on suture pack, which made the price go down to about $570. I was greatful that they lowered it but this kind of irritated me more. Why in the world are they charging me $130 for one bandage and a suture pack?! I can buy both for about $10. Just goes to show the crazy prices these Emergency vets charge.
We ended up putting down a deposit and having to go home so we could get more money and they called us to pick him up around 5:30am. When we picked him up he was so groggy from the sedation that he couldn't walk straight, his eyes were all glazed over and out of focus and his tongue was swollen and hanging out of his mouth as it dripped drool. I was glad to be taking him home but I kind of questioned the fact that they didn't seem to keep him for any amount of time to make sure he recovered okay from the anesthesia. I ended up putting him in bed and I stayed up and watched his breathing for about 2 hours before I finally fell asleep. I was so afraid he was going to choke on his tongue or aspirate or something, ugh, it was all just so upsetting.
Around 11am he woke up and and wouldn't stop crying, I could tell his leg was really hurting him so I went and got him all of his medications, 100mg of tramadol 2x a day for pain, rhimadyl twice a day for swelling and 2 cephalexin twice a day to prevent an infection. Poor dog had to take 5 pills in one shot! I was also surprised at the dosages. I take tramadol for back pain and one 50mg pill takes my pain away in about 15 minutes, the dog weighs 30 pounds less than me and they have him on 100mg twice a day. It just seems like a lot.
They ended up having to put sutures in internally and then staples to close up the outside so we have to go back in 10-14 days to have the staples removed. I'm a bit nervous, they have it bandaged and told me to take it off tonight but he won't let me touch it. He growls if you even look at his leg so I'm not sure how we are going to get this thing off of him. He weighs 102 pounds so restraining him isn't the easiest thing in the world either.
*Sigh, I'm sorry for the long post, I just needed to vent, all of this has just been so ridiculous. I'm upset that he is hurt and completely freaking out about the sudden and unexpected costs, I've had about 5 hours of sleep in the last 3 days and the last time I ate was a tofurky sandwhich on friday. Oy... all I want is to be able to go a solid 6 months without ending up at the vet or hospital, is that asking so much? Or for them to atleast need to go during normal business hours. If we could have gone to my regular vet he wouldn't have been separated from us like that, he would have been treated right away and it probably would have been under $300. I'm sure they aren't all bad but this is the second ER vet I've been too and I've been completely unimpressed by both of them
If anyone has made it down this far(can't blame you if you didn't), here's some pics, the one was on the way home this morning...
And I just took this one, Dahm is passed out and so is Nick, I'm not sure who's more exhausted at this point, him or us. The only reason I'm still awake is because of the baby birds, they eat every 4 hours and I'm not so sure I'd get up if I went to sleep now.
Yesterday I had made a big crock pot of veggie chili and invited a few friends over for dinner and a bonfire. Everything went so well until we went out to the fire, we were all sitting around the fire playing some hand drums when our neighbors(not super close to us but apparently close enough) lit off some fireworks, it scared our dog and he took off running and tried to get back into the house to hide. Unfortunately his method of entering the house was through a plate glass window
The one side of our house has a wall of all windows facing the woods, it's a bedroom but it kind of has a greenhouse look to it. It is plate glass on the outside, about a 4 inch gap, and then plexiglass on the inside. So of course, he broke through the plate glass and hit the plexiglass and had to back up through the broken window. We quickly rushed him into the house and realized he was limping, and then we saw the blood. It was everywhere! And of course he wouldn't stand still so he's hobbling all around the house with blood seemingly coming out of both of his front legs. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it looked like there was a massacre in our house lastnight. At first it just looked like a couple superficial cuts but I put him in the tub so I could see where he was actually cut and what was just smeared blood. I got him in the tub and started hosing off his legs and then we saw it. On the back of his ankle was a cut about and inch wide by about and inch deep, just laid open :11:
I immediately looked at my fiance and just said, "we need to go to the vet, now!". I called up the emergency vet and we were on our way, it took about 25 minutes to get there.We arrived at about 10:30pm and they immediately took him back for triage. They didn't really ask me any questions, I had told them over the phone that he tried to jump through a window but that was it. They then proceeded to let us sit in the waiting room for 3 hours without so much as telling us if he was okay or not
After about 3 hours they FINALLY took us back to the exam room where we sat, alone, for another hour and a half, two hours before the receptionist finally came back to give us an estimate for treatment, yep, that's right, they let him sit back there in a crate for at least four and half hours before they even started to treat him! Here we got the wonderful news that his leg needed to be sutured and stapled and the bill was going to be about $700, all due before we could take him home. :52:
I'm not going to lie, I just broke down and started bawling. I was just so upset that he was hurt, upset that they had just left him back there untreated and upset that we now face a $700 vet bill on the same day our rent and bills are due. When she realized how upset I was she said, "let me go talk to the doctor and see if we can't get some things taken off". That upset me too, I didn't want him to not get things he needs because of a lack of money, I was so afraid they were going to cut out things like pain meds or something and I knew he was in a lot of pain. It just made me so angry, coming up with the money wasn't impossible, it just made me mad that it was 3am on a saturday night and they expected me to have $700 in my pocket. They wouldn't let me make any kind of payment arrangements or anything, it was pretty much, give us a deposit and then give us the rest or you can't take your dog home. But anyway, she went back and talked to the vet and they decided to remove one bandage and try to do his stitches with on suture pack, which made the price go down to about $570. I was greatful that they lowered it but this kind of irritated me more. Why in the world are they charging me $130 for one bandage and a suture pack?! I can buy both for about $10. Just goes to show the crazy prices these Emergency vets charge.
We ended up putting down a deposit and having to go home so we could get more money and they called us to pick him up around 5:30am. When we picked him up he was so groggy from the sedation that he couldn't walk straight, his eyes were all glazed over and out of focus and his tongue was swollen and hanging out of his mouth as it dripped drool. I was glad to be taking him home but I kind of questioned the fact that they didn't seem to keep him for any amount of time to make sure he recovered okay from the anesthesia. I ended up putting him in bed and I stayed up and watched his breathing for about 2 hours before I finally fell asleep. I was so afraid he was going to choke on his tongue or aspirate or something, ugh, it was all just so upsetting.
Around 11am he woke up and and wouldn't stop crying, I could tell his leg was really hurting him so I went and got him all of his medications, 100mg of tramadol 2x a day for pain, rhimadyl twice a day for swelling and 2 cephalexin twice a day to prevent an infection. Poor dog had to take 5 pills in one shot! I was also surprised at the dosages. I take tramadol for back pain and one 50mg pill takes my pain away in about 15 minutes, the dog weighs 30 pounds less than me and they have him on 100mg twice a day. It just seems like a lot.
They ended up having to put sutures in internally and then staples to close up the outside so we have to go back in 10-14 days to have the staples removed. I'm a bit nervous, they have it bandaged and told me to take it off tonight but he won't let me touch it. He growls if you even look at his leg so I'm not sure how we are going to get this thing off of him. He weighs 102 pounds so restraining him isn't the easiest thing in the world either.
*Sigh, I'm sorry for the long post, I just needed to vent, all of this has just been so ridiculous. I'm upset that he is hurt and completely freaking out about the sudden and unexpected costs, I've had about 5 hours of sleep in the last 3 days and the last time I ate was a tofurky sandwhich on friday. Oy... all I want is to be able to go a solid 6 months without ending up at the vet or hospital, is that asking so much? Or for them to atleast need to go during normal business hours. If we could have gone to my regular vet he wouldn't have been separated from us like that, he would have been treated right away and it probably would have been under $300. I'm sure they aren't all bad but this is the second ER vet I've been too and I've been completely unimpressed by both of them
If anyone has made it down this far(can't blame you if you didn't), here's some pics, the one was on the way home this morning...
And I just took this one, Dahm is passed out and so is Nick, I'm not sure who's more exhausted at this point, him or us. The only reason I'm still awake is because of the baby birds, they eat every 4 hours and I'm not so sure I'd get up if I went to sleep now.
