The $2200.00 Cat - Part Four: Daisy and Mickey's Very Bad Day

I wasted no time getting into the family room. The Engineer was still standing over both dogs and yelling at them to get away. I was immediately hit with the smell of urine and the metallic smell of blood. The recliner on the end of the sofa was up and both dogs had their full attention under the sofa. Malka was the first to back out and ran to her crate. She is wet and sticky with blood, I can not believe this nightmare. Mickey quickly followed, his face and front legs are covered with blood. Without even looking at her I knew that Daisy was in trouble. I prepared myself for the worst. I looked under the sofa and she is trapped in an area about 18 inches by 18 inches. She was obviously hurt and in shock but awake and aware. She didn't flinch when I got her out. She was wet from blood and urine. A quick check showed she had a 3 inch skin tear in her inguinal area. There was no active bleeding but I couldn't tell if she had any internal injuries. I didn't see any other obviously serious injuries but I knew she needed to get to the vet right away. And I couldn't understand where all the blood on the dogs came from. There is no way this cat lost that much blood and was still alive. Of course our vet's office hours were just coming to an end and she is a half hour away. So I wrapped her in a towel and took her to a local animal emergency room. They immediately take her back. Further exam by the vet shows she has an abrasion on her elbow and an injured toe nail. It's obvious she will need surgery. After letting the doctor know that I am a vet tech she is comfortable with me coming back to the surgery area. They place an IV in and give her medication and fluids to treat shock. They need to stabilize her before surgery. It's going to be a long night so I head home to check on everyone and give a group of worried kids an update. I get home and The Engineer tells me the dogs are still in their crates and it looks like they are hurt too. Mickey has what appears to be deep scratches on the side of his face. Both dogs are obviously alert so I take Malka out first since she has the most blood on her. I get her into the bathtub and start to rinse her down. The water running off her is bright red. I am upset and confused because other than a fur removing scratch next to her eye she has no injuries. After she cleaned up she's back in her crate and I start cleaning up Mickey's face. I don't want to bathe him without further checking his face. After cleaning off some of the blood it's obvious that Mickey has several deep lacerations on his cheeks near his eyes. One laceration is down to the bone. Now I know where all the blood came from. There is no way cat claws did this much damage and they are too clean to be tears from bites. While I'm taking care of the dogs The Engineer has flipped over the sofa and is trying to clean up the carpet. He sees where a metal bracket under the seat has been broken off. There is blood along the edge of the bracket. Mickey must have broken the bracket trying to get to Daisy. The edges were sharp and they sliced up his face. He is going to need stitches. Did you know that when you take a pit bull to a vet clinic that is unfamiliar with you and it has injuries they treat you like a criminal and sometimes don't want to treat your dog? It's like when you bring your kid to the ER with a broken arm and everyone gets interrogated because they always think the worst. That's what it was like. When I came back with him it had been shift change for the vet techs at the clinic. The same ER doc was on but you have to get past the vet techs before you see the doctor. Immediately I felt the suspicion. Great, just what I need, this crap after everything I've been through tonight. They wouldn't even look at him until I explained that this was the other half of the dog vs. cat fight I brought in earlier. Then I used the fact that he's a pit bull to my advantage. Two can play this game. I wanted to go back with him for treatment. They wanted me to wait in the waiting room. The clinic has a rule that the owner has to wait while they do their exam. I have a problem with that. I work for a vet. I understand that the owners attitudes play a key part in how calm the animal is going to be for an exam. If the owner is stressed the dog/cat will be stressed. So I understand that for emergency treatment an anxious owner can make it harder. We'll tough, that's your job to control the animals and work with the owners to calm them. At our clinic an owner is encouraged to come in and only asked to leave if they are obviously making things worse. But I wasn't in the mood to argue. So I played the pit bull card, telling them that it will be easier for me to handle him while they do the exam. After their initial trepidation when I walked in with an injured pit bull they were easy to convince. Mickey is such an easy going guy that within five minutes of taking him back all the techs were gathering around and doting on him. Mickey was loving every minute of it despite the mark of Zorro on each cheek. The ER doc came in to take a look and said he was going to need quite a few stitches. Daisy was resting comfortably but hadn't been operated on yet. The doctor wanted to sew him up before operating on Daisy so I said I would wait until he woke up so he wouldn't have to stay overnight. He is a rescue dog and I didn't know how he would react if he woke up in a cage alone. The ER doc let me stay with him until he was knocked out. So I went to the waiting room and fell asleep in a chair while waiting. Before I knew it I had him back. It had been five hours since this whole nightmare began. The ER doc said that Daisy was next and that she was holding her own and was stable enough for the operation. I paid the bill for Mickey, that will be $500.00 please, and took him home. He had sixteen stitches in his face and was a hurtin' pup. This was only the beginning. When all was said and done Daisy spent a week in the hospital and we racked up a $2200.00 bill. Fortunately her abdominal wall was intact and she had no internal injuries. Ten stitches closed up the skin tear cleanly and the abrasions and toe injury were minor and needed no treatment. Five hours after I walked into the ER with Daisy I walked out for the last time that night with Mickey. It was a week until Daisy came home and then we had to start the introduction process all over again. First order of business was to have a way to confine the escape artist so she could heal safely. That turned out to be the easy part.....