July - I noticed the hair was missing on the tip of his tail, making it look like a worm was coming out of his tail. He also kept hiding under tables and behind toilets, something he doesn't normally do. He actually is affectionate to the point of being annoying. I showed the tail to Brendan, who thought it was weird, and Chase started cuddling on the bed with him. He noticed a little while later that he was chewing on his tail, then I heard him yell out that Chase had spit on him. I came into the bedroom later, and noticed Chase was missing the end of his tail and it was bleeding all over the bed sheet. I told Brendan that he didn't feel spit on his face...it was blood and the tip of his tail. His bone was sticking out the end of the tail! I took him into the bathroom until I could figure out what to do, which of course we had to take him to the animal ER. I went into the bathroom to get him, which by this time he had bled all over the floor and my bathroom looked like a scene from CSI. Luckily there was an animal ER ten minutes away that was open 24 hours a day, because this all happened about 12:30am. We drove over there with his tail wrapped in a hand towel so it didn't bleed all over the leather seats of Brendan's car or my sweatshirt, which it did anyway.When we got him to the ER they said that it needed to be amputated, otherwise he would die. This is a very expensive operation, about $1,000. We had no choice, so they did emergency surgery and had us pick him up the following morning at 7:00am, so neither of us got much sleep after leaving the ER at 1:30am. I stayed home a little bit longer after we got him back, as I had a late start that day because I had a PT appointment. I never made it because, after leaving Chase in the living room for maybe two minutes, he managed to turn his head and rip his bandage off and was working on the sutures when I came back. I was frantic because I didn't have a carrier and couldn't drive and hold him all the way back to the vet, so luckily one of my friends was able to help me, and she had a carrier. While I waited for her I put him in the bathroom again, where he proceeded to spill his water, fling litter everywhere, and leave blood streaks from his tail wherever he walked. Once again felt like I was walking into a crime scene when I got home later that day. My friend watched him for the day, since he can't be trusted.
August - We had been going to VCA in Bloomington for his check ups, which I only mention their name because I firmly believe no one should ever go there, boycott this place! Since then I've talked to others that have had similar horror stories of terrible service. But I digress...every time we took him to the clinic they would bandage him up, always doing everything behind closed doors, never met any of his vets there. Once he ripped the bandage off a day after they put it on, and when we took him back they charged us the full amount of bandaging. This happened twice. Finally they said that it was time for the stitches to come out, but to not be alarmed by any puss or blood as that was a sign that it was healing. So that night he was sitting next to Brendan in his computer room, wagging his tail, just happy to have the bandage off. After hitting his tail a couple times on a nearby storage bin the skin broke loose on the tail of course, with no stitches to hold it together, and he started to bleed all over the carpet. We didn't want to do the going back to ER and get charged an arm and a leg (and tail) for another surgery right away. So I wrapped it in gauze and tape as best I could and left it for a couple days.
Fast forward a couple days, he hasn't pooped or peed in four days, stopped eating very much, and was lethargic in general, more than normally. I had Brendan take him to a different clinic that his dad had recommended. They were appalled at the service we had received at the other clinic and said that they would do whatever they could to help us. I got paged at work that day, as Brendan didn't know what to do. When I talked to him he said that the vet was recommending another surgery or lethal injection. I was in work mode, couldn't even think straight, meanwhile I have a coworker who would not stop entering the room bothering me, even after I closed the door to where I was. So I told Brendan to go ahead and have them do another surgery.
That's all for Part 1, keep tuned for Part 2...
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