So, I took my darling Peanut to the vet today because her skin has developed some pretty bad dander and scales. She doesn’t seem bothered by it and hasn’t been itching and scratching it excessively, but I wanted to get it checked out.
The vet took a look at her and said that he’d never seen anything like this before and would have to go look it up in his medical books. Okay, that is NOT something that I wanted to hear! He came back a few minutes later and said that her condition is called seborrhea (basically a severe dandruff), and it is common in dogs but very rare in cats. He asked if it was okay if he sent in the other vet on staff today to look at Peanut, because it is such a rare condition in cats. I said okay, of course.
The second vet looked a Peanut quietly, asking me if Peanut had been eating and drinking excessively but still losing weight. I told her that I hadn’t noticed that at all. My kitty has always been very petite (barely 6 lbs) and slender, but that I hadn’t noticed any change in her diet or behavior. The vet thanked me and left the room.
So, I am getting really freaked out at this point, wondering if Peanut had a rare disease or something. I mean, here is my baby – meowing,quivering and flaking dander all over the examination table, and I am just as nervous but trying to sooth her.
The original vet comes in again and asks if he can take a blood sample so they can get to the root of the problem. Of course, I say ok, so he carries her out. They come back a few minutes later, after I have been pacing the room back and forth. They come back, and I am so happy to see her again, as if she had been gone for hours! She has lost all her will to fight and just stares up at me as if to say “Just take me home!”. I put her back into the carrier, so she can relax a little.
He explains that the seborrhea is just a symptom of a larger problem, which could be a food allergy or even something like hyperthyroidism. They’ll run the blood tests to see if it is a thyroid problem, but he doesn’t think it is because her glands don’t seem swollen. He gives me a medicated shampoo and instructions to bathe her twice a week, leaving the shampoo on her skin for at least 10 minutes before rising off. I also received a couple of syringes of medicine to give her each week for the next few weeks, along with some oil to add to her food daily. He thinks that they’ll have the results of the blood test back by tomorrow. I’ll also have to make a follow-up appointment for next month.
So, I head back out to the waiting room to wait to check out. There are other people in the room, so I just hang out. The receptionist seems as if I am invisible. She helps everyone else in the waiting room before me, and I start to get a little impatient. I just want to go home. I have been working all day, and I am tired. Plus, Peanut is starting to get anxious in the box and is meowing really loudly. However, I bite my tongue and wait.
After everyone is taken care of, the receptionist calls me up to the counter. As I am checking out and paying a hefty bill for my visit, an elderly woman approaches the counter. Another women comes in from the back of the building and greets the woman. The woman quietly says: “My name is ***, and I have an appointment for ***. However, he has just died in the car outside in the parking lot, and I don’t know what to do.” I couldn’t help but overhear this and I took in a sharp, deep breath and glanced towards her. The woman heard me and I stammered, “Oh, I am so sorry.” She started to loose her composure, and I turned away from her, so she wouldn’t be embarrassed.
I finished paying and left the building. I started getting that emotional lump in the back of my throat, because I know what it is like to loose a pet, but I tried to fight off my empathetic response. I headed to my car, and delicately placed the cat carrier into the passenger side of my car. The woman and the vet tech were on the driver’s side of my car trying to remove the deceased dog from the woman’s car, but the dog was very large and heavy. He was wrapped in a sheet, and they were able to lower him to the ground, but he was just too big for the two of them to life again. I asked them if they needed help, and they said “Yes”. Then, the woman said, “Wait a minute”, and unwrapped the body, so she could pet his head one last time and say goodbye. We carefully re-wrapped the body so that his big brown paws weren’t hanging from underneath the sheet, and we slowly carried him into the clinic through a side door. We gently placed him down on the floor. I remember thinking: “So this is what it is like at the end – a cold tile floor. This dog deserves more dignity than this.” The women thanked me, and I quickly left.
As soon as I got to the car, the weight of the moment really got to me. There I was worrying about my cat’s dandruff when this sweet creature was taking his last breaths. I know that this is just a small moment, and that there is suffering and death happening every second, but there are some moments when this reality hits you hard. I wish I had some deep words of wisdom to end this post with, but I think I will just let the remembrance of this moment stand alone for a while.
