How much is enough when it comes to animal medical care?

Last night, I let my 9YO son and his friend take our beloved black cat Kale on a short walk on his leash. Kale was frightened by a couple of dogs and enticed by a squirrel at the same time and jerked himself out of his harness. He’s done this a couple of times before, and he has always come home for his next meal. He hadn't had his dinner yet (and he's on rations), so I figured he'd be home before long.

He wasn't home by the time I went to bed last night. I walked around the neighborhood calling his name, which usually at least elicits a faint meow (he's a talker), but I heard nothing. When I got home, I checked the neighborhood email listserv - nobody had found a cat. I had a restless night's sleep - couldn’t stop thinking about Kale. First thing this AM, my son and I walked around the neighborhood, looking and calling for Kale. I had stopped worrying about whether he'd been hit by a car and started worrying that someone picked him up, took him home, and decided to keep him - he’s so friendly and outgoing.

When my son and I got home, he found Kale laying in his comfy chair behind the house. Kale didn't move from his resting position by the time I'd gotten to his side, which is not typical. He began purring loudly when I rubbed his head, which is typical. I picked him up gently and held him on his back like a baby, like we always do. A circle of hair on his lower belly had been licked clean and among the wet curlicues was an open rip in the skin. There were no other signs of injury, and there was no blood on either Kale or the chair. But the wound was clearly deep. I could see the rippling tissue moving like a clam underneath.

I took Kale inside, and my husband called the vet. Before he hung up, Kaley had already eaten a quarter cup of food and chased me to the basement door, his usual way of accompanying me outside. We determined it was best to put him in the carrier so he didn’t injure himself further.

Our veterinarian was booked all day, so we were referred to a nearby practice, where I signed paperwork acknowledging we would pay $130 for the appointment, not counting surgery, medicines, etc..

"Don't spend more than $300," my husband had directed, as I was getting in the car to take Kale to the vet. I determined to keep that number in my head when discussing our options with the doctor.

Once in the patient room, the assistant asked questions and took notes on the table beside Kale's crate. All the while, Kaley poked his paw in and out of the slots and tried to grab her pen. It was clear his spirits and energy were good. The assistant said it was unlikely he'd damaged any organs.

When the veterinarian came in, she directed us to our first option in the same manner the doctors had directed my husband and me to circumcise our first son. "Here's what we can do..."

She explained that they'd put Kale completely under anesthesia and, after getting a good look inside the wound to ensure nothing was left behind, she'd sew him up with removable stitches, put a plastic cone around his head, administer antibiotics, and remove the stitches between day 10 and 14 post surgery. Then she looked at me as if waiting for a yes or no answer.

I asked her how much it would cost, and she gave me a number between five and six hundred dollars, more if there were complications.

I had once volunteered in a vet's office, so I'd witnessed many surgeries. I pictured Kale unconscious on a cold metal table, a tube protruding from his face.

"I grew up riding horses," I told the doctor, "so I take a practical approach to medicine. Plus, as I was backing out of the driveway, my husband called "No more than $300," I laughed.

"It's not my choice," she offered, "particularly with the athleticism and wiggliness of cats and the fact that the wound is right on his belly, not on his back or somewhere where he can't get to it. But if he's a docile cat, we can do staples instead of stitches. Then we can use conscious sedation. He'd be loopy, but he doesn't have to go under. I won't be able to look around inside the wound, so I can't guarantee everything's okay in there. But it looks pretty clean from the outside." We agreed that it appeared he'd impaled himself on something, perhaps the pointy spear of a wrought-iron fence. It did not appear he'd been attacked. Fortunately, the wound was only as deep as the fat in his belly.

Because it didn't require total anesthesia, the staples option cost around $300.

"And what if we did nothing?" I asked.

"Cats have incredible healing capacities," she said. "But they can also be abscess factories."

I thought about my mother's current cat. She was given to my mother with a big wound on her back that, despite my mother's dermatology expertise (she had a private practice in Virginia), took two years of oozing and bandages to finally close. It was worth $300 to avoid that scenario. Plus the veterinarian said they could do the surgery right now and we could take Kaley home in about 30 minutes.

A couple more-urgent cases came in shortly after us, so it ended up taking more like two hours before we could bring Kaley home. But that gave my son and I enough time to share a few of the lesser-known Dr. Seuss books and a short story I'd written years ago that was still in my email and accessible on my cell phone.

I was dreading signing the credit-card bill for $430 (or more!?); but, when we checked out, I found that the $130 charged for Saturday urgent care was absorbed into the $300 we owed for the appointment and surgery. The planets were aligned after all.

Kale is home now, staples in his fat little belly and plastic ring around his neck. It was funny watching him trying to maneuver himself around the house at first, but his anesthesia has now worn off and he is doing nothing but sleeping and looking at us with gratitude and love.

I can't stop thinking that it shouldn't cost $300 to have someone stitch up the skin on a cat. "Grampa was a medic in the military," we'd often chide our kids when they over-reacted to hurting themselves, "Go get the sewing kit. He can stitch you up right now."

I also can't help thinking that, if he lived at the farm where I spent my childhood, Kale's body would likely have had to heal itself. Chances are it would have done so impressively, though it certainly could have abscessed.

There's no doubt we have lost our perspective and practicality when it comes to medical treatment, whether human or veterinary. But, for now, I'm grateful we don't have to purchase animal health insurance to be able to afford reasonable veterinary care for the nonhuman members of our family. And I'm happy Kale is safely home.

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Author Bio:

A Durham, NC, resident for 20 years, Melissa Rooney is a scientific editor, freelance writer, and author of several science-based children’s picture books. Her stories Eddie the Electron and The Fate of the Frog form the basis of two “hands-on” workshops she conducts for elementary- and middle-school students. When she isn’t writing, editing, reading, teaching, or experiencing theater, Rooney volunteers as an Associate Supervisor for Durham’s Soil and Water Conservation District. 

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