Last update - 00:00 16/10/2007
As sick as a dog
By Dana Gillerman
It cost me almost NIS 10,000 to save my 11-year-old dog from a negligent operation by a private veterinarian. The sum, which I had to borrow, was paid to the Hebrew University's veterinary hospital in Beit Dagan. It covered a two-week stay in an emergency room and another complicated operation to repair everything that was dealt with during the first operation and a few other things that weren't (removing a torn and bleeding spleen and cleaning up the infection that had developed in the stomach).
This sad-happy story is incomprehensible to those who never raised pets or grew attached to a dog or cat, or even to a parakeet. They don't understand what the big deal is, how one can spend such an amount of money on an animal ("I would have put her to sleep," was a common reaction). They don't understand why someone would take time off to visit her twice a day at the hospital, sit beside her in her cage and whisper into her ear and make her feel that it's worth her while to recover.
But this experience is certainly understandable to anyone who ever had a pet he grew attached to over the years. Just like one would grow attached to one's children. Well, not exactly; almost (you can never compare, it alienates people). This story is also understandable to those who took their dogs to Beit Dagan, heard about the astronomical prices(which are not subsidized) and had to return home with an animal in distress because they could not pay the fee. I would like to suggest another possibility to these people: take out health insurance for your pets. Sometimes its pays off (such as the Shay Le'yedid [gift for a friend] policy, issued by Phoenix for pets up to eight years old. Yearly premium: NIS 910 for a dog, NIS 720 for a cat).
My dog, an Irish setter, is called Natasha. She arrived in my home at the same time as my oldest son. The two of them are the same age, even though she is 77 in human years. Both of them were treated with warmth and love during their childhood and received space in the photo album.
Over the years and after the birth of a daughter, a master's degree, work, life, a divorce and a new relationship, Natasha had to make do with less. Hour-long outings turned into 10-minute walks, concern for her well-being and quality of life was often replaced by moans over the fact that she had to be taken out three times a day (down three flights of stairs). Her endless scratching and the hairs all over the house were a source of anger and, in general, she became a bit of a nuisance, sort of like what happens with parents who age.
Natasha expressed her distress in the most irritating way possible: over a period of three weeks, she woke us up every night. The veterinarian decided that she was suffering from a behavioral problem. At first, he suggested Valium. Then he said that perhaps spaying her would straighten out her hormones. Of course, he, like Freud, attributed the problem to womb-related hysteria. Due to lack of sleep, I, who had pushed off this simple operation for years, agreed.
But there were complications during the operation. The veterinarian, so he said, was surprised to find that the dog was bleeding in her stomach. Or as he put it: "I saw a strange thing." And what did he do? He drained the blood and simply closed her back up. Perhaps he thought it would all work out (solid cause for a medical malpractice suit?). When we came to pick her up at the end of the day, she still hadn't woken up from the operation. The veterinary surgeon had long gone home and had left Natasha with the duty veterinarian, a nice guy who seemed just as worried as we were. When she started having spasms, I immediately called a friend who is a senior doctor at the veterinary hospital. She gave the on-duty veterinarian instructions over the phone. The spasms stopped. We put Natasha into the car and headed to the hospital, a 15-minute drive during which she stopped breathing several times.
We waited all night in the waiting room, we and a few other families whose loved ones were there. A whole family - parents, their two children and a grandmother and grandfather (who come to visit occasionally) - were waiting for a bulldog on a respirator. A young woman waited for the blood test results of a dog she had adopted; the doctors told her that the animal was apparently suffering from a rare and chronic blood disease. A young couple arrived with a kitten they had found on the street. The doctors warned them that the treatment would cost NIS 1,500. They approved the outlay. The Danish setter, who couldn't move his hind legs, received two diagnoses: Park Worm that had lodged in his spinal column or an abscess. The cubicle next to Natasha housed a dog hospitalized with cancer.
During those two weeks we got to know the whole medical staff, who work in 24-hour shifts. Every one of them was taken to the bench outside and asked: "But what do you really think? Does she have a chance?" The waiting together with the other dog owners led to a closeness, intimacy, long talks, the exchange of telephone numbers, shared concern, sadness and joy. The bulldog was put to sleep forever, the German shepherd did not survive the operation, the Danish setter's condition improved and he was sent home (probably an abscess), while Natasha was discharged last, to begin a long and slow recovery period at home.
It's almost superfluous to say that during this time I had to acknowledge my deep attachment to her: how difficult it would be to lose her and how joyous it was to see her walking. Sure, she did so slowly, and with difficulty, but she was walking and wagging her tail, with a ball in her mouth, the silly smile and that oh-so-dependent expression on her face that evokes perpetual feelings of guilt.