Speaking of Doctors...

There comes a time in every cat's life when the unthinkable happens.  No, not just catching a glimpse of the ominous shiny bottom of the food bowl.  I'm talking about a trip to the vet.  Where else can you get poked, prodded, anesthetized, weighed, scrutinized, and generally harassed, and end up coming home with a couple fewer teeth in the process?  

Nobody really likes going to the doctor.  Let's face it--it's uncomfortable, sometimes painful, and it's frankly just a big interruption in your normal routine that can drag on for what seems like days sometimes.  But what if the doctor could come to you?  Make a little less dent in your daily routine?  Allow you to get poked and prodded in the privacy of your own home?  Now we're talkin'!  

But seriously.  Our vet, who, by the way, might just be the best vet ever in the history of vets, and I'm seriously not exaggerating, has agreed to do just that.  He's going to drive the 30+ minutes out of his way to come take care of our crazy eclectic brood.  Even Wanda, who turns into a tiny vicious banshee every time we hit the door to his office.  Even Reggie, who always arrives with poop and vomit all over his carrier, because Reggie always poops and vomits during any  car ride, even when we lived less than 5 minutes from our vet.  Even Mango, who's going to go ahead and scaredy-scat when we have to catch her anyway (oh, joy!).

Why is our vet so awesome, you might ask?  Not just because he's willing to do this--drive all the way out to Asheville just so our cats can be more comfortable.  And not just because they always fit us in to their schedule, no matter how busy they may be.  And not just because he does his own emergency calls, and he gets down on the floor to play with the dogs who come in for his care.  Our vet is awesome because one of the first times we took Elroy to see him, after all the intake and after he knew Elroy was FIV positive, he had to take him in the back room to run some tests.  When he came back, instead of putting Elroy back on the table right away, or into his carrier, he just stood there with Elroy in his arms for the longest time, talking to us about various things.  He held Elroy close and stroked him lovingly--and he's the only other person on earth besides Sean and me who's ever done that, at least as far as we know.  I was moved nearly to tears that day, and Elroy seemed pretty darn happy, too.


Our vet is awesome for other reasons, also.  He's always very straight with us about anything that may be going on with our cats.  He won't sugar-coat things, and he never tries to sell us some expensive procedure that probably won't even work.  He goes out of his way to try to help us save money, all while not skimping at all on the care of our buddies.  He'll always choose the least invasive option, the least stressful option, over the alternative.  And when he occasionally makes a misstep (which is rare), he not only owns up to it (which is also rare in the professional world), but he does everything in his power to make it right--and then some.  Let's face it, animals are not the easiest patients--they not only won't tell you what hurts, but they also go out of their way to keep you from knowing it.  Clearly, veterinary medicine is a very precarious alchemy of science and art.

So we will see how this works.  Reggie will get to see what it's like to be at the vet without a queasy stomach.  And we'll finally get to see how Wanda reacts to our vet without all the sterile, foreign accoutrements of the vet's office--maybe she just doesn't like the smell of isopropyl alcohol?  (She does swat at Otto and hiss every time he comes back from the vet without her.)

We are extremely grateful to our vet for doing this for us.  As a one-man office, this is no small commitment.  We're curious to see how it pans out.


We'll keep  you posted...