Little Bill

The boys will be seventeen years old in a few months, which according to the charts is about 85 years old in human years, Ben has his hyperthyroidism under control, Bill is veering in that direction but also suffers (like I do) from Arthritis.

Times have changed from the days of "All Creatures Great and Small" and Siegfried Farnon's cottage veterinary practice. We took Bill to the vet yesterday, just to see why he was grinding his teeth sometimes while eating like a three toed sloth. The young vet, who was off on vacation next week, was tiptoeing around his grumpiness, even at one point donning what appeared to be oven gloves while trying to look in his mouth.

The vet said "let's start by doing this, that and the other" and retreated to the back room, within two minutes his lovely assistant arrived with a piece of paper, demanding approval and a signature. I did not have my glassses with me, but even my old eyes spotted that the bill was almost five hundred dollars. Sixty of which was for the inspection, the bulk of the rest was for bloodwork.

We settled on the inspection and a trial course of pain medication for the little one, days of bloodwork and numbers on a piece of paper mean very little now that the only thing we want him to be is comfortable.

I'm not knocking the system as times have changed from James Herriot's world and we people are more likely to litigate our vets than bake them a cake. Yet, I do yearn for those "try this" days when a vet would send you home with a bottle of tincture and a smile, and a hopeful "lets see how that works"