Taking Care of Puffy
To give you a break from my prattling on about The Babe, let's talk about the other baby in my life, PUFFY. After all, she is in the name of this blog but sometimes gets left out..
Hello world!
One of the great things about Mexico is the inexpensive veterinary care. This week I took her in for a checkup of her heart (and then some). She had two ultrasounds, of her heart and her abdomen, plus x-rays plus she was dewormed. And it cost me less than $100 US. And this was not some oddly well equipped hold in the wall, it was a veterinary hospital with dog cardiologists on staff.
If you know much about Puffy, you know the poor thing has more health problems than your great-aunt Mildred. Among her issues over the years are: epilepsy, (successfully treated) cancer, an enlarged heart and the small matter of her missing eye. Oh, and there was that allergic reaction, too. I often think that if Puffy were a person, she probably would have passed on long ago, just thinking about all that. But animals are so amazing — she doesn't think about how she looks or what all has happened to her, she just thinks about eating and walking and jumping around and living her life.
Anyway, given all this, it's easy to see why affordable veterinary care is important to me. In Portland, the only issue she had was epilepsy. Still, controlling that and dealing with other minor issues along the way was depleting my bank account. At the risk of sounding like a total freak, I am now prepared to disclose that one month, I was flat broke and unwilling to use my credit card, so I actually sold used books to Powells to be able to buy her medicine! I was sort of stubborn about my austerity plan at the time, what can I say?
So I am not sure how much all this week's tests would have cost somewhere else, but I'm pretty sure it would have been more than $100 US. I kind of thought about asking if they could give me MY ultrasounds.
In the end, P had a clean bill of health. That, plus watching the poor thing's face while the vet shaved her armpits prior to the heart ultrasound = priceless.
Hello world!
One of the great things about Mexico is the inexpensive veterinary care. This week I took her in for a checkup of her heart (and then some). She had two ultrasounds, of her heart and her abdomen, plus x-rays plus she was dewormed. And it cost me less than $100 US. And this was not some oddly well equipped hold in the wall, it was a veterinary hospital with dog cardiologists on staff.
If you know much about Puffy, you know the poor thing has more health problems than your great-aunt Mildred. Among her issues over the years are: epilepsy, (successfully treated) cancer, an enlarged heart and the small matter of her missing eye. Oh, and there was that allergic reaction, too. I often think that if Puffy were a person, she probably would have passed on long ago, just thinking about all that. But animals are so amazing — she doesn't think about how she looks or what all has happened to her, she just thinks about eating and walking and jumping around and living her life.
Anyway, given all this, it's easy to see why affordable veterinary care is important to me. In Portland, the only issue she had was epilepsy. Still, controlling that and dealing with other minor issues along the way was depleting my bank account. At the risk of sounding like a total freak, I am now prepared to disclose that one month, I was flat broke and unwilling to use my credit card, so I actually sold used books to Powells to be able to buy her medicine! I was sort of stubborn about my austerity plan at the time, what can I say?
So I am not sure how much all this week's tests would have cost somewhere else, but I'm pretty sure it would have been more than $100 US. I kind of thought about asking if they could give me MY ultrasounds.
In the end, P had a clean bill of health. That, plus watching the poor thing's face while the vet shaved her armpits prior to the heart ultrasound = priceless.
Puffy is so beautiful! What were we doing in journalism without enough money to care for our pets?!
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