AndyP & Lenore
10th November 2010, 01:21 AM
Our Birman cat Jinxie has been really unwell over the weekend. Started with vomiting on Thursday night, and she was very withdrawn, sleepy and lethargic on Friday. So, no better by Saturday morning so called the Vet. Straight in to be seen - excellent service as we've always had for 19 years from the same practice and luckily the same actual vet. Jinxie is very difficult to diagnose when she's unwell because she just doesn't respond to poking and prodding to see where there might be any pain. So, initial diagnosis is possible constipation, given an enema (rather her than me), and told to take home. Got home from work Sat night and she was even worse, I could hardly wake her up. Very worried so called vet again - straight in to be seen at 11pm at night - again great service. She'd poo'd by then so not constipation. So likely cause was a UTI/Kidney infection - she's prone to these so was most likely cause even though prodding her kidneys showed no adverse reaction. Given first dose of antibiotic and painkiller and sent home. Arranged to go back on Sunday at 4.30pm for her to be seen again and get second dose of antibiotic. No change on Sunday; still lethargic, withdrawn, almost drunk like. Blood sample taken on Sunday at 4.30pm. Took her home and told to wait for results of blood test on Monday.
Monday morning: Much better; eating, drinking, talkative, jumping up on worktop to get to food and drink bowls, walking around etc... almost back to normal. "Thank goodness for that" we think. It must have been a UTI after all.
Monday afternoon, get a call from a different vet at the same practice. This guy has actually been Jinxie's main vet for the past 3 years so knows her well. Blood test shows Jinxie is in "End stage chronic renal failure, with all measures of healthy kidneys off the scale in the wrong direction. Get her into the vet ASAP for IV fluids to see if we can flush out all the cr@p in her kidneys and give her another few weeks or month." I pointed out she had really picked up and was lively and eating and drinking. He couldn't believe this and said... "I'm very surprised at this, because with these blood results, she shouldn't even be alive. Perhaps the antibiotics has given her a short respite from an underlying UTI and that is why she has picked up."
Lenore and I NEVER push our pets beyond them having a reasonable quality of life, so we immediately considered if putting her to sleep would be the kindest thing to do. But as Jinxie is only 8, we felt we owed her the right to stay around as long as possible, providing that quality of life was preserved.
So, off to the vets with her, to be admitted over night for IV fluids to flush out her kidneys. We saw another vet this time and she was fairly surprised at how active Jinxie was considering her blood test results. However, she was admitted and plans were put in place for a kidney scan in the morning and another blood test later on Tuesday.
I called this morning to see how she was and to see if the kidney scan had been done. Spoke to the female vet that admitted her on Monday night. She questioned whether it was worth doing the scan as it wouldn't change the long term prognosis for Jinxie as the blood test was 100% conclusive that she was in end stage chronic renal failure. However she had had a good night and was eating and drinking. They were going to continue to keep her on the drip and repeat the blood test later today.
4pm ish I get a call from the vet who called yesterday with the bad news... "Got some really good news for you. Jinxie is fine, and I really mean FINE. There is now NO sign of any renal failure, all the levels in her blood were perfectly NORMAL and she does NOT have renal failure. Come and pick her up and take her home."
Got to the Vets and all three vets were there to meet me. It turns out a catalogue of errors appear to have happened. The original vet didn't put the blood samples in the refrigerator overnight. Whoever tested those samples didn't pick up on the fact they were not in the fridge. When the vet saw the results and called me to give me them he didn't take into account that I was telling him Jinxie was active and appeared fine - NOT POSSIBLE with the potassium, creatonin, urea etc that was apparently present in her blood. So he didn't think to have Jinxie looked at and a repeat blood test carried out immediately. When I took Jinxie into the vet to be admitted for IV fluids, the admitting vet didn't make the correlation between an apparently healthy cat sat on the consulting table in front of her and a set of results that show she should be on death's door.
It was only when the vet who called me with the original results on Monday saw Jinxie in the morning after she was admitted, did alarm bells go off. A repeat blood test showed perfectly normal blood levels.
They have apparently checked their internal procedures and there's no way blood samples got mixed up. So the only explanation is that the blood being left out the fridge overnight had effectively begun decomposing or whatever the hell happens to blood when it's not chilled waiting on testing.
All three vets have offered their apology for the situation, and there's no charge for the admission etc. I would still expect to pay for the weekend call-outs because at the end of the day Jinxie was unwell and needed and received medical attention which ultimately made her better.
But to say we are apoplecticaly mad that she had to be in the Vet hooked up to an IV, quite unnecessarily, would be an understatement. We are also immensely releived that we didn't have her put to sleep.
She's now at home, and while I was typing this out she was chasing her brother around the house, knocking seven bells out of him, playing away quite merrily.
We're now in the very difficult position where we don't know what to do with regards continued care. On the one hand we feel very let down by this catalogue of errors which should never have happened. We're not sure if we could trust anything they say to us again. And we're very disappointed in our main vet who's looked after us/all our pets for 19 years.
At the same time, after 19 years of impeccable care, do we ditch them after one (albeit possibly catastrophic) mistake - no pun intended there.
The trouble is, as most of you know, Lenore and I have no kids, so our pets ARE our kids. Perhaps we get too attached to them, but who cam blame us, they're cute wee balls of fluff.
Rant over.
A.
Monday morning: Much better; eating, drinking, talkative, jumping up on worktop to get to food and drink bowls, walking around etc... almost back to normal. "Thank goodness for that" we think. It must have been a UTI after all.
Monday afternoon, get a call from a different vet at the same practice. This guy has actually been Jinxie's main vet for the past 3 years so knows her well. Blood test shows Jinxie is in "End stage chronic renal failure, with all measures of healthy kidneys off the scale in the wrong direction. Get her into the vet ASAP for IV fluids to see if we can flush out all the cr@p in her kidneys and give her another few weeks or month." I pointed out she had really picked up and was lively and eating and drinking. He couldn't believe this and said... "I'm very surprised at this, because with these blood results, she shouldn't even be alive. Perhaps the antibiotics has given her a short respite from an underlying UTI and that is why she has picked up."
Lenore and I NEVER push our pets beyond them having a reasonable quality of life, so we immediately considered if putting her to sleep would be the kindest thing to do. But as Jinxie is only 8, we felt we owed her the right to stay around as long as possible, providing that quality of life was preserved.
So, off to the vets with her, to be admitted over night for IV fluids to flush out her kidneys. We saw another vet this time and she was fairly surprised at how active Jinxie was considering her blood test results. However, she was admitted and plans were put in place for a kidney scan in the morning and another blood test later on Tuesday.
I called this morning to see how she was and to see if the kidney scan had been done. Spoke to the female vet that admitted her on Monday night. She questioned whether it was worth doing the scan as it wouldn't change the long term prognosis for Jinxie as the blood test was 100% conclusive that she was in end stage chronic renal failure. However she had had a good night and was eating and drinking. They were going to continue to keep her on the drip and repeat the blood test later today.
4pm ish I get a call from the vet who called yesterday with the bad news... "Got some really good news for you. Jinxie is fine, and I really mean FINE. There is now NO sign of any renal failure, all the levels in her blood were perfectly NORMAL and she does NOT have renal failure. Come and pick her up and take her home."
Got to the Vets and all three vets were there to meet me. It turns out a catalogue of errors appear to have happened. The original vet didn't put the blood samples in the refrigerator overnight. Whoever tested those samples didn't pick up on the fact they were not in the fridge. When the vet saw the results and called me to give me them he didn't take into account that I was telling him Jinxie was active and appeared fine - NOT POSSIBLE with the potassium, creatonin, urea etc that was apparently present in her blood. So he didn't think to have Jinxie looked at and a repeat blood test carried out immediately. When I took Jinxie into the vet to be admitted for IV fluids, the admitting vet didn't make the correlation between an apparently healthy cat sat on the consulting table in front of her and a set of results that show she should be on death's door.
It was only when the vet who called me with the original results on Monday saw Jinxie in the morning after she was admitted, did alarm bells go off. A repeat blood test showed perfectly normal blood levels.
They have apparently checked their internal procedures and there's no way blood samples got mixed up. So the only explanation is that the blood being left out the fridge overnight had effectively begun decomposing or whatever the hell happens to blood when it's not chilled waiting on testing.
All three vets have offered their apology for the situation, and there's no charge for the admission etc. I would still expect to pay for the weekend call-outs because at the end of the day Jinxie was unwell and needed and received medical attention which ultimately made her better.
But to say we are apoplecticaly mad that she had to be in the Vet hooked up to an IV, quite unnecessarily, would be an understatement. We are also immensely releived that we didn't have her put to sleep.
She's now at home, and while I was typing this out she was chasing her brother around the house, knocking seven bells out of him, playing away quite merrily.
We're now in the very difficult position where we don't know what to do with regards continued care. On the one hand we feel very let down by this catalogue of errors which should never have happened. We're not sure if we could trust anything they say to us again. And we're very disappointed in our main vet who's looked after us/all our pets for 19 years.
At the same time, after 19 years of impeccable care, do we ditch them after one (albeit possibly catastrophic) mistake - no pun intended there.
The trouble is, as most of you know, Lenore and I have no kids, so our pets ARE our kids. Perhaps we get too attached to them, but who cam blame us, they're cute wee balls of fluff.
Rant over.
A.