At the Vet's
May. 30th, 2012 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arrowwhiskersToday, Andres and I took one of our animals to the vet for the first time. Ever since we got him, Melo has exhibited signs of partial facial paralysis, one of the results of which is that he can't close his left eye. This had mostly seemed to be an annoyance for him moreso than a real problem, until the past week when the eye got noticeably more irritated, started oozing discharge, etc. So, to the vet we went.
I wasn't sure what to expect, because I've only visited a vet a handful of times in my life...but it was actually really amazing. The place we went to is called Central Animal Hospital, and I'd first heard about it from a thread on the Tucson LJ community talking about good vets for unusual pets. It really did turn out to be a good rec. I made an appointment yesterday, and they managed to fit us in for this afternoon. We got there super early, so we ended up waiting for awhile and talked to a bunch of other people in the waiting room (including some colorful characters)--there was a couple with a cat, a couple people with dogs, a dude with some ferrets, a girl with a snake, and even an old guy with a couple of pigeons.
They brought us into an examination room, and we ended up waiting a little while for the doctor, but when he showed up he apologized for the wait and said that this week has been a particularly busy one for the hospital. (By contrast, I've waited more than an hour past the scheduled time of an appointment at a human hospital before, without any apology or even acknowledgement of the wait). The vet himself was wonderful, VERY friendly and nice and gentle, and he obviously has a lot of compassion and patience for little animals. He explained very clearly what he thought was wrong and what he thought we should do about it, and just in general had pretty fantastic bedside manner for both pet and owner. Melo was extremely well behaved (well, given the circumstances), and the vet was totally charmed by him, lol. He said that Melo was possibly the cutest guinea pig he'd ever seen and that he'd never before known a guinea pig to come up and try to climb on people before, which Melo does constantly.
He ended up prescribing a treatment of eyedrops to calm down the irritation in the eye, as well as an oral antibiotic to treat a possible underlying infection that may be the cause of the paralysis. The whole visit, including the consultation and both prescriptions, was 60-something dollars, which was mercifully cheap, since we really had no idea what to expect.
In conclusion, I was TOTALLY blown away by the good service at this hospital; it really went better than I could have expected. I'm really impressed by the wide variety of animals they seem to be able to treat and how awesome the vet was. I realize this is basically an entire entry devoted to praising a veterinary hospital, but I suppose I was expecting a mediocre experience, cause I just can't believe how happy I am. Andres was also really impressed and he even mentioned it might be a good idea to bring all our animals there, not even for specific care, but for general checkups. We'll see--this vet is definitely a keeper though. I guess the only downside is that it's not an emergency clinic, so the business hours are fairly limited.
Now all I can think is that I want to find a REAL hospital and a primary care physician who can leave me feeling similarly satisfied with my experience. It's starting to be time for me to start looking in earnest for who, exactly, I'm going to want to see when July arrives and treatment becomes viable. <3
I wasn't sure what to expect, because I've only visited a vet a handful of times in my life...but it was actually really amazing. The place we went to is called Central Animal Hospital, and I'd first heard about it from a thread on the Tucson LJ community talking about good vets for unusual pets. It really did turn out to be a good rec. I made an appointment yesterday, and they managed to fit us in for this afternoon. We got there super early, so we ended up waiting for awhile and talked to a bunch of other people in the waiting room (including some colorful characters)--there was a couple with a cat, a couple people with dogs, a dude with some ferrets, a girl with a snake, and even an old guy with a couple of pigeons.
They brought us into an examination room, and we ended up waiting a little while for the doctor, but when he showed up he apologized for the wait and said that this week has been a particularly busy one for the hospital. (By contrast, I've waited more than an hour past the scheduled time of an appointment at a human hospital before, without any apology or even acknowledgement of the wait). The vet himself was wonderful, VERY friendly and nice and gentle, and he obviously has a lot of compassion and patience for little animals. He explained very clearly what he thought was wrong and what he thought we should do about it, and just in general had pretty fantastic bedside manner for both pet and owner. Melo was extremely well behaved (well, given the circumstances), and the vet was totally charmed by him, lol. He said that Melo was possibly the cutest guinea pig he'd ever seen and that he'd never before known a guinea pig to come up and try to climb on people before, which Melo does constantly.
He ended up prescribing a treatment of eyedrops to calm down the irritation in the eye, as well as an oral antibiotic to treat a possible underlying infection that may be the cause of the paralysis. The whole visit, including the consultation and both prescriptions, was 60-something dollars, which was mercifully cheap, since we really had no idea what to expect.
In conclusion, I was TOTALLY blown away by the good service at this hospital; it really went better than I could have expected. I'm really impressed by the wide variety of animals they seem to be able to treat and how awesome the vet was. I realize this is basically an entire entry devoted to praising a veterinary hospital, but I suppose I was expecting a mediocre experience, cause I just can't believe how happy I am. Andres was also really impressed and he even mentioned it might be a good idea to bring all our animals there, not even for specific care, but for general checkups. We'll see--this vet is definitely a keeper though. I guess the only downside is that it's not an emergency clinic, so the business hours are fairly limited.
Now all I can think is that I want to find a REAL hospital and a primary care physician who can leave me feeling similarly satisfied with my experience. It's starting to be time for me to start looking in earnest for who, exactly, I'm going to want to see when July arrives and treatment becomes viable. <3
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Date: 2012-05-31 07:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-01 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-02 01:14 pm (UTC)elleniki
j-prof
nikullin
vivian212
j-prof is apparently a friend to me .
I have some wonderful Russian friends , including a brilliant cookery writer , but LJ warned about lurkers who never communicate and have thousands of "friends". If the Cyrillic alphabet weren't so strange and the language more complicated than Latin - with addititional locative and instrumental cases - I'd try to learn it.
¿Qué debemos hacer?
:D
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Date: 2012-06-03 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-01 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-01 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-04 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 01:53 am (UTC)I'm glad your facial muscles are working again though :D