Our Baby Recuperates from Surgery

Baby hasn't visited the vet in a while but this month he met the quota. Nick took him to the Dr. last week because Baby's right eye was so red and full of gunk, we knew it was probably an infection. He did have conjunctivitis (pink eye) and has been on antibiotics since. When Nick came back from the vet last week he bathed Baby and found a growth on Baby's lip. It was gross- like a big pink mole with red dots on it. Today was Baby's follow up appointment for the conjunctivitis.

Once we told the Dr. about the growth, he suggested we remove it. Baby has his own health insurance plan and the plan covers one dental cleaning a year. Since they have to put him under full anesthesia for his dental cleaning, we usually take advantage of that and take care of any other things that need to be done w/full anesthesia. Since he hasn't had his dental cleaning this year, the Dr. suggested we do it today and take care of the growth on his lip plus a growth on his belly (he's had one of these before and it was just a mass of fat). We didn't expect to have it done so soon but since Nick and I were both off from work today we decided to do it.

When we picked Baby up from the vet, they explained what he can do and what he should refrain from doing. He has stitches on his lip so they're afraid he'll scratch his face and pull them out. The nurse said "you can bring him back in 2 weeks for us to remove them but given his demeanor he probably won't let us, so they'll eventually dissolve". I kept thinking what does she mean by "his demeanor"??? Now, everyone that has met Baby knows that it takes a while for him to warm up to strangers. However, he has never acted up against a nurse/Dr or groomer. He only misbehaves in his own territory so I was actually surprised when she said that. So, we'll have to wait until the stitches dissolve. What Baby doesn't realize is that "his demeanor" has cost him about 3 weeks of "cone punishment". He must wear a cone around his neck to keep him from ripping the stitches off his lip and cost me even more money to put him under anesthesia again.

This is like a Mastercard commercial:

Vet visit: $50

Doggie dental cleaning: $100

Doggie Blood work and urine analysis: $89

Surgery to remove two growths: $100

Antibiotics for 3 weeks: $85

Seeing your doggie wear a cone: Priceless

The doggie health plan covers a lot but we still ended up paying $200 to cover medication and other stuff. It turns out Baby has an urine infection as well.