I will start by apologising to all honourable Vets that work long hard hours to earn a living. I have 2 vets as friends, definitely falling into this category.
22:00 Monday evening, I saw my poor little Archie scratching his ear, for death. This is not something unusual, but when he turned to me, with his head now sideways I could see in those black eyes that he’s in trouble. You could see the questions in his eyes and when he tried to reposition him for an even better scratch, his head dropped to the left and he came off his feet.
“A Bloody grass seed” I shouted in silence!!! With my heart racing I ran for the tweezers in the bathroom, hopefully I will be able to get it out before it screws deeper. It was not a pretty sight as a sat with my little dog on my chest, positioned under the light I tried my best to keep him calm and see if I can see the damn seed. After a call to Madél for a better, flathead tweezer I realised that we are in serious trouble and that it’s time to phone the Vets.
Our Vets were closed as expected, but from Archie’s previous near death experience, I recall Madél mentioning an out of hours number for emergencies. So I made the call and after being interrogated about the dogs’ eating habits, which I follow as advised by our own Vets, the type of seed it might be and how sure I am that there’s something in the dog’s ear, I lost my patience and slowly mentioned that I do have a dog with an emergency here, hence the reason for the call and that I would like to make my way there.
Then the first warning sign, “Sir as you are aware, this is an out of hours emergency practice and it’s our custom to inform you of our Standard Surgery fee, before any treatment”. Now, that certainly did not help my earlier conversation with the young lady and as much as I hated being pushed into a direction, there was no choice to what I should do. She then further annoyed me by giving me directions to Junction 10 on the M4, when it should be junction 7. I know it’s not Junction 10, because I drive there every day of my life to work, it certainly is not the way to Maidenhead and after intervention from the Vet, junction 10 became 7…
With Archie in my one hand, I searched for the keys and we were on our way. I followed the roughly pencil scribbled notes to the surgery and long and behold, we made it. I was greeted by “the friendly voice” over the phone and a middle aged couple at reception. It would appear that they were trying to get their pet insurance documents printed from the Vet’s computer, the women being very upset but still behind the keyboard. I mean at 10:30 at night having to prove that you have insurance!!! Alarm bells again!!!
My heart was pounding in my chest and I almost asked for a tranquiliser for myself. This after being told that I should realise that it might only be earwax. Well, I managed to persuade her to go for the seed instead, which I knew was in there and that I won’t leave until I have had proof of its removal. I even offered my help and after the first unsuccessful attempt, I could see that sedation was the only way forward, she was going to pierce his inner ear and if I saw any bleeding, the probing tool might end up where it’s not suppose to be.
Obviously I was then warned that this procedure would be much more. I was left alone with Archie and after a couple of minutes of discussion (I suppose) a quote was brought to light. Well that gave a new meaning to the Game show, “The money or the Box” with the box in my case, not an option. I was asked to wait in reception until they were done, not that I would intervene at this stage. The half an hour became an hour. During this time the couple mentioned earlier, reappeared and further discussions were held, revealing the reason to their excursion at this time of night. Their cat must have hurt its foot, so badly that the vet cannot touch it, so it was “hospitalised” and on pain killers, the bill received was over £1300 so there was a reason to be upset and without a clear answer to what’s wrong with the foot, I would also worry about the bill escalating to more than their policy’s worth. I did not have this worry as I would hold them to their quote and without the seed from Archie’s ear in my hand, nothing would be paid. I was not in the mood for any surprises…
After another fifteen minutes the receptionist appeared with a big smile on her face and THE SEED in her palm, “everything went well” she said with relief on both our faces. They brought my little boy out after another couple of minutes and I held him to my chest. He was still recovering from the sedation and my heart sank when I felt his small body, tweaking with the return of life. The last time he tweaked like that was when he had pancreatitis and it lasted for weeks afterwards. This was apparently a good sign and as soon as he was able to walk, I paid the bill and left the Surgery and the grass seed behind.
….and as I hummed off another couple drove in with a dog in the back of their Passat, sure to bring veiled smiles to the occupants inside.
After note:
I am not complaining about the service received, nor the 50 miles drive to get there or the 2 hours spent nervously waiting. It’s the way they operate and that you don’t really have a choice when presented with the options.
As humans, we will always choose life, with cost forcefully pushed to the back.
