It was after 8pm, so our normal vet was already closed for the day. I called Brooke at work, and explained that I thought his leg was broken or dislocated. Brooke called the emergency animal hospital where we found out it would cost us a few hundred dollars just for a visit and x-rays. Since we are in the middle of fund-raising for our mission trip, we didn’t feel this was a wise expense, even though we wanted to take care of our little kitty. We decided to wait until our regular vet was open Saturday morning, so we prayed over Asher, and did our best to keep Asher comfortable through the night.
Saturday morning we could tell that Asher wasn’t doing any better. He was still crying out in pain, and his right, rear leg appeared to be just hanging. We called my dad and asked him what he’d do. Knowing how frugal my dad is, when he said he would take Asher to the vet, we knew we had to go.
We got in a last-minute appointment where the vet took x-rays, and we discovered that Asher’s leg had broken where the ball meets the hip socket. How painful! We learned that it could not heal on it’s own. The vet sent us home with a $315 dollar bill, some pain meds, and a decision to make: we can amputate the limb, have a surgeon repair it for $3,000, do nothing and let the leg be useless, have a practitioner perform an operation where he would put pins in the bone to let it heal for around $700, or just put Asher to sleep.Back home, we watched as Asher tried to walk, collapse, drag himself across the floor, and collapse again. We knew what we had to do. When we adopted Asher from the animal shelter, he became a part of our family, and we agreed to take care of him as best as we could. Even though we don’t have the money, we are opting to have the practitioner perform the operation; it’s the only option we can come up with that will give us a clear conscious at the end of the day. It’s called personal ethics responsibility, and that’s what we have to do. Financially, it also makes sense: put Asher to sleep for another $100, which would have brought a total of over $400, only to have nothing to show for it. The total costs, after the vet visit, will be just over $1,000, but at least we will have our cat back. $400 for nothing, or $1,000 for our cat.
Brooke is going to pick up some extra shifts at the hospital, and any extra work I can get will help too. You do what you have to do.
Now where did I put that VISA card?
"Doing the right thing often costs us something....that's why it's called the right thing, and not the easy thing, or the cheap thing"
