2013 can go straight to hell
Well, and so I may have to have my cat put to sleep because we can't afford to pay for her medical bills.
Our cat pulled a heavy plant pot onto herself and crushed her leg and hip. The vet told us she needed expensive surgery to reset her bones, but because she's otherwise a healthy cat, she'd probably recover enough to go home by Saturday night. The surgery cost thousands. It's a serious strain for us to afford, but we love our cat, so we authorized the surgery.
Saturday night, our cat wasn't better. The surgery was harder on her than they estimated (and also more expensive, of course.) Our cat is still on heavy painkillers and refusing food. We were told she needed 24-hour care, but the vet closes their office on Sundays, so she was transferred to another facility.
The new place contacted me, and their estimate for 36 hours of care for our sedated cat surpasses the amount of the expensive surgery. This place could not guarantee that our cat will be in any shape to be released after that time, and said that Monday morning we can 'discuss' whether they will release her or continue to charge an unbelievable hourly rate to keep her sedated and potentially on a feeding tube.
Oh, also my cat is in California and I am stuck on a visit to my husband's parents in Florida. Our catsitter went way, way beyond her job description to deal with getting our cat treated. When it first happened, we got that happyface prognosis so we didn't seriously consider flying back, but now the situation has become much more serious, only now we can't spend another $500 for plane fare on top of the other expenses.
When we discussed the surgery, we estimated how much we could afford to spend coping with this. The bill from the surgery plus the estimate we have been given for 24-hour care are already double that amount.
The crazy thing is that our catsitter is insured, and it's possible that the insurance fairy might swoop down, wave a magic wand, and make all these bills go away. But the insurance rep won't be in til Monday morning, so we won't know anything until then at the earliest. And probably even then, we won't know for certain until after we run up more bills than we can conceivably pay and submit them as claims which, let's be real, they're going to turn down, because that's what modern insurance companies do.
And so we're in this agonizing situation where we've already gone broke saving our cat, only she's still in danger, and if she doesn't get better soon, we have to seriously consider putting her to sleep because we just do not have the money to keep going with treatment. In which case we will still be broke, and our cat will be gone forever. And yet the insurance might approve the claims and pay those bills, in which case we won't be broke, but we will have to live with the fact that we killed our cat unnecessarily, after extending her suffering for several days after her accident. Or we roll the dice that insurance will pay and keep treating the cat indefinitely, and she either recovers or dies naturally, and if insurance then refuses the claims, we will go bankrupt because our cat climbed a plant pot.
I'm not pouring out this sob story looking for charity, I can't accept it, since there is the slim chance we may not even end up responsible for these bills-- though if anyone can vouch for decent 24-hour pet medical care in Berkeley that isn't exorbitant, recs might help. I just had to talk about it, and somehow despite the enormousness of the world, it feels like no one is ever on the internet in the middle of the night when I'm most awake and alone.
http://cesare.dreamwidth.org/169330.html |
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Our cat pulled a heavy plant pot onto herself and crushed her leg and hip. The vet told us she needed expensive surgery to reset her bones, but because she's otherwise a healthy cat, she'd probably recover enough to go home by Saturday night. The surgery cost thousands. It's a serious strain for us to afford, but we love our cat, so we authorized the surgery.
Saturday night, our cat wasn't better. The surgery was harder on her than they estimated (and also more expensive, of course.) Our cat is still on heavy painkillers and refusing food. We were told she needed 24-hour care, but the vet closes their office on Sundays, so she was transferred to another facility.
The new place contacted me, and their estimate for 36 hours of care for our sedated cat surpasses the amount of the expensive surgery. This place could not guarantee that our cat will be in any shape to be released after that time, and said that Monday morning we can 'discuss' whether they will release her or continue to charge an unbelievable hourly rate to keep her sedated and potentially on a feeding tube.
Oh, also my cat is in California and I am stuck on a visit to my husband's parents in Florida. Our catsitter went way, way beyond her job description to deal with getting our cat treated. When it first happened, we got that happyface prognosis so we didn't seriously consider flying back, but now the situation has become much more serious, only now we can't spend another $500 for plane fare on top of the other expenses.
When we discussed the surgery, we estimated how much we could afford to spend coping with this. The bill from the surgery plus the estimate we have been given for 24-hour care are already double that amount.
The crazy thing is that our catsitter is insured, and it's possible that the insurance fairy might swoop down, wave a magic wand, and make all these bills go away. But the insurance rep won't be in til Monday morning, so we won't know anything until then at the earliest. And probably even then, we won't know for certain until after we run up more bills than we can conceivably pay and submit them as claims which, let's be real, they're going to turn down, because that's what modern insurance companies do.
And so we're in this agonizing situation where we've already gone broke saving our cat, only she's still in danger, and if she doesn't get better soon, we have to seriously consider putting her to sleep because we just do not have the money to keep going with treatment. In which case we will still be broke, and our cat will be gone forever. And yet the insurance might approve the claims and pay those bills, in which case we won't be broke, but we will have to live with the fact that we killed our cat unnecessarily, after extending her suffering for several days after her accident. Or we roll the dice that insurance will pay and keep treating the cat indefinitely, and she either recovers or dies naturally, and if insurance then refuses the claims, we will go bankrupt because our cat climbed a plant pot.
I'm not pouring out this sob story looking for charity, I can't accept it, since there is the slim chance we may not even end up responsible for these bills-- though if anyone can vouch for decent 24-hour pet medical care in Berkeley that isn't exorbitant, recs might help. I just had to talk about it, and somehow despite the enormousness of the world, it feels like no one is ever on the internet in the middle of the night when I'm most awake and alone.
http://cesare.dreamwidth.org/169330.html |
comments | Comment at Dreamwidth