Who Says Having Pets is Cheaper and Less Stressful Than Having Kids?
Yet another vet bill and stressful day is coming our way next week.
Sooki is our baby kitty. She’s only four, and is fluffy and slightly chubby and bright eyed, and totally healthy. I hadn’t taken her to get a check-up in almost two years, and she was due for some shots, so yesterday I took her to the Vet to get the ol’ look-over.
I figured all would go as normal… $50 exam and a shot, they’d tell me what a pretty kitty I have, and that’s it. Everyone’s happy and has cooed over Sooki the little blue eyed twinkle toes.
They did coo. But Sooki was a hissy little grump. She is your typical female… full of anxiety. Despite that, the exam was going well. Her heart and lungs are perfect, eyes and ears all good… except when the Vet looked at her teeth, her brow furrowed.
VET: I don’t like what I’m seeing with her teeth. Her gums are very angry.
ME: *sinking stomach feeling* Oh no! What’s wrong?
The vet went on to tell me that her gums were really red and inflamed… much more than is normal for a 4 year old kitty with just normal amounts of plaque. She suspects that Sooki might have a genetic disease called Stomatitis, which basically means her gums get really irritated too easy. It can get very very ugly if not taken care of, and lead to many other horrible problems.
The good news is, it’s highly treatable. There are many different ways it’s treated. If it turns out she does have it, we’ll be fine.
The bad news is, in order to find out if she has it (and clean up her dirty dirty little toofers to calm down her gums) we have to put her under anesthesia for a dental cleaning and to get a biopsy of her gums. It’s a very expensive procedure… but that part I can find a way to handle. The thing is, anesthesia stresses me out.
Most people wouldn’t think it’s a big deal… animals are put under anesthesia thousands of times every year with no problem. It’s common practice, and especially at my awesome Veterinary Hospital – they go above and beyond and take every possible precaution when an animal is knocked out. We’re talking, blood pressure monitoring, vitals monitoring the whole time, all sorts of stuff (basically all the same stuff they do with humans in hospitals)… nobody does a better job than my vet.
But. Anesthesia can be dangerous. It’s extremely rare for there to be problems, but it does happen.
The one and only time in her entire career that my Vet has had an animal die from complications from being under anesthesia, it was my kitty Tap. His kidneys proved too weak to recover from anesthesia, and he passed away. That was five and a half years ago. He had all sorts of urinary tract problems though, and was under anesthesia for quite a long time due to having bladder stones removed (major surgery) and having a tooth extracted. However, his pre-surgury bloodwork had all been clean and his kidneys looked strong… it was just one of those things. It happens very rarely, but it happened to me.
My Vet did every possible thing that could be done, and then some. Nothing was done wrong. Tap just wasn’t strong enough to pull through it. The whole experience was devastating not only for me, but for my Veterinarian, too. She cried with me and went way above and beyond to comfort me. Neither of us have ever forgot it.
But ever since then, I have wanted to avoid anesthesia like the plague. Up until now, I’ve been able to. Bug, being the most calm and accomodating cat in the world, has had his teeth cleaned without anesthesia… but he’s the very rare exception to that rule.
Sooki would never allow it. Not to mention, taking a biopsy of her gums would be much too painful for her to endure while awake.
The risks involved in NOT diagnosing this possible disease are much greater than the risks of a short session of anesthesia, so we’re going to do it. Sooki will be in the best hands in the entire state of Utah, and she’ll be under for much less time that Tap was, but I’ll still be freaking out.
We take her in Wednesday morning. My Vet has pushed her to the very first appointment of the day to cut the amount of time I have to sit waiting to hear how everything went. So please keep Sooki in your thoughts, and send healthy happy kitty-vibes our way on Wednesday!
Good luck Sooki! {good kitty vibes}
She’ll be juuuuust fine. I’m pretty sure nothing could keep that kitty down.
It is stressful but she will be ok. Poor little thing.