| rev:text
| - I'd been here a few times before and thought the care and service was more than adequate. But those weren't emergencies.
Last week, I woke at 3am to find my perfectly healthy 4-year old cat, Peanut, having trouble breathing. I rushed her to VCA and was horrified to discover she had congestive heart failure. I didn't even know this was possible. I was understandably confused and scared.
The 2 doctors I dealt with at VCA were knowledgeable and competent, but lacking in empathy and patience at times. So was a guard dog receptionist who thought yelling at me was the best way to get me to stop asking to see my cat. It wasn't. And I didn't.
I don't know if they were understaffed that night, but they left me alone for a couple hours in the waiting room, unable to communicate with anyone as to Peanut's status. She was my baby, and I was worried sick. When I finally got to see her she was clearly still in distress, terrified (there were dogs barking right across from her cage), and had been suffering for hours. I'm still having nightmares thinking about that.
It's an extremely difficult decision to end your pet's life when you have days or weeks to decide, let alone minutes or hours. When I wasn't able to make that decision fast enough, I felt like they moved on to other patients. And they didn't have certain equipment (like to do an EKG) or medications necessary to evaluate and treat her. I was told I needed to wait 2 days to see a cardiologist. In Akron.
"I'm starting to fear I'm at the wrong place," I told the doctor at one point. His explanation was that they couldn't have every medication on hand. Why not?
I'm not saying that it's their fault that Peanut died that day, but in my opinion they added to her stress instead of reducing it. And for a cat, with heart issues, that can be deadly. Sadly, it was.
By the time my regular vet finally convinced the VCA doctor to try a mild sedative to help manage my terrified cat's stress levels, it was too late. When Peanut went into cardiac arrest she unintentionally bit the doctor, who started screaming at her. It was awful. The last thing my baby heard as she died was someone yelling at her.
Breaks my heart...
|