Kindness, at last

On Tuesday, I met a prospective new vet. I've always known that this place existed, but their name is a little cheesy. I just never bought into it and thought we would be better off at a place that was more "professional." Well, I was wrong. I loved this place.
The veterinary clinic we have been going to is a pretty big practice. Three veterinarians and they are quite busy. In fact, the front desk staff are always too busy to ever greet you when you enter their waiting room and the vet is always too busy to greet you when they enter the exam room. Incident after incident of less than pleasant experiences with them has made me look for a new vet. Not only do they lack the ability to speak the words, "hello" or even a single syllable, "hi," they are very business-like, trying to sell all sorts of stuff to me whenever I'm there. One time, a young man whom I assume was a vet tech who hadn't gotten enough sleep, grumbled that he was going to take Riley into the back to have him weighed and before even finishing his garbled sentence, grabbed Riley's leash right out of my hand! I was very upset about that incident and that may have been the only time I have ever said anything about their service.
We have brought all five of our pets to this place at one time or another, you think they'd know who I am, right? The lady who feeds raw food, doesn't want any flea or tick prevention, and resists medications. Nope. Each time I go there it's like reintroducing myself again. You'd think they'd learn to stop lecturing to me about the stupid Lyme vaccination or how dangerous heartworms are. I've done my research, thank you very much. I'd much rather have an educated conversation about healthcare options than have to sit around and wait for you to stop yapping at me. I'm so sick of their bad patient management.

But enough about them. We're leaving them.

This new place, on the other hand, like our holistc vet in RI, greets us happily and knows exactly who is here for their appointment.
"Is this Little Li?!" they exclaim as they coo and aah over my sweet little girl in her crate. Who doesn't like people to ooh and aah over their child?
The vet actually walked over to me and introduced herself (amazing concept huh? ....take notes old vet clinic). She took her time getting to know who Little Li is, whom our other family members are, and what kind of care I am looking for. You see, Little Li's rabies vaccination is expired by law. And I say, by law, because the state has arbitrarily decided when my cat is no longer immune to rabies. I have full confidence that my cat still has immunity to rabies from the vaccination she received 4 years ago and was hoping not to have to have her vaccinated this time around since she has been vomiting blood. As I understand it, only healthy animals should be vaccinated. I was hoping Little Li would be exempt due to her recent problems. The vet understood this entirely and never pushed the issue. She was so respectful of my decision as a "parent" and really presented herself as someone whom is available to help me if I wanted it. She realized quite quickly that I was no ignorant, follow the crowd, type of person, but rather someone who has done her homework and didn't want to be lectured. I thoroughly enjoyed our visit. I don't think Little Li would say the same though. They had to draw some blood to do some tests in order to figure out what's wrong with her. She did NOT like that. My little sweet girl got all fiesty and they ended up having to put her in this bag contraption-thingy in order to get some blood. Poor thing.

So diagnosis? We don't really know. But at least we're pretty sure she doesn't have a tumor or ulcers down in her stomach. She could have hyperthyriodism, which is causing her to each a lot, poop a lot, but lose weight. She's only 6 pounds! The hyperthyriodism could also be causing the excessive vomiting which is causing her esophagus to bleed, thus the pinky-colored vomit we've been seeing. Hopefully we'll hear back from the vet in a few days and she'll have found something. Oh, another thing I liked about this vet, she was willing to do some investigating about this problem and didn't just label Little Li with that stupid wastebasket term: Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and prescribe some suppressive drug. Yay! I think I like her! Good, cuz Sabrina is going in to see her on Tuesday and will hopefull get spayed there too.