Vet Merry-go Round - Clara's ride!

So, I wrote about the lovely merry-go-round of vet visits that happens in my house. They get jealous when one of them has to go to the vet, and I end up making 2-3 more unexpected vet visits. Clara was the last unexpected vet visit. It went mostly well. She behaved, which is always nice. Her annual visit and shots are now up to date. Her ears were the reason we went to the vet to begin with. Double ear infection. I could have made some serious money if I bet on that being the diagnosis.

I would have lost if I had to say there's a reason she keeps getting the double ear infection. The upside to finding a reason - there's a cure! Which is great, because these double ear infections cost me about $250 each time she gets them. My budget cannot afford that routinely. While checking out her ears, we noticed she has a polyp in her left ear. It's completely blocking her ear canal. So it has created the perfect environment to be a breeding ground for infections as well as being impossible to clean at home or at the vet's office, landing us with ear infections!

So, like anything medical, we are presented with a few options:

A. Let the polyp be, treat the ear infection, do our best to keep her ears clean, and hope for the best.

B. Let our vet attempt to remove the polyp, clean her ear, and hope that it doesn't come back, as they sometimes can. Especially since the way the vet takes it off, there's no guarantee it won't come back. They will remove it by doing a Polyp Traction, which is done with General Anesthesia, and basically, they just pull the polyp out of her ear.

C. Go to a specialist, have them remove it at double or triple the cost of our vet removing it. The major difference? The specialist has a higher success rate of it not coming back. They would do a Ventral Bulla Osteotomy. The big difference is that she is put under completely and they go in surgically through her chin/neck area to remove the polyp.

Decisions, decisions, decisions. Making these decisions for our pets is always hard. They can't tell us their feelings; we have to judge what would be best all around for them and us (more so financially), but what will have the best results, recovery, recurrence, etc. Ultimately, in the long run, it would be cheaper to have the polyp removed. Polyps in the ear canal mean chronic ear infections. We are halfway to the cost of surgery with only two ear infections to date. I decided to let our vet remove the polyp. The ballpark figure is $800 - $1200 for them to do it. Weighing the risk of it coming back - she's an older cat (17+), so if it does come back, hopefully, it won't be for a while, and we won't need to do this again. The upside to our vet doing this surgery is that Clara is comfortable with them, knows them, and they are close.

Had we decided to take the specialist route, it would mean a visit to check her out, then going back for the surgery, plus a follow-up. Additionally, the cost would be $2,000+.

So, fingers crossed, I made the right decision. She goes for bloodwork and then back the next day for the surgery. They will keep her most of the day after it's done to observe her, and then she comes home. Say a prayer, and cross your fingers it goes smoothly.

Till our Tail cross,

Mel

#purrfectdozen #vetvisits #cats #feline #medicalprocedure