The trouble with waiting

At work lately it seems like we are getting far more "I need to come in today" calls. I think it is a sign of the times with people trying not to spend money on anything they deem as extra. The problem with this is twofold. One is that when you call the day you need to come in, there might not be room to give you an appointment. Oh of course we will squeeze the true emergencies in, even tho that means our day becomes hellish trying to keep everyone happy, but anything on the edge of that may need to wait a day or two if we have no room in the schedule.

The second problem with this is the fact that it may cost you even more money because the problem that would have been a quick easy fix, say like 1 small hotspot, has now become a raging infection needing more costly medication. Not to mention the longer discomfort period for the pet. When in doubt call your vet and get an opinion on when you can monitor a situation at home or need to come in to nip a potential larger issue in the bud before it gets out of hand.

Then we have the appointments that no show on us. Many times with no courtesy call to let us know. Everyone forgets an appointment now and then but we are seeing far to many regular no shows, especially with first time visits. What is that about? Hey you can change your mind and go somewhere else but a heads up would be really helpful. Especially on days we are double booking to get all the "I need to come in today" visits in. That waste of time is infuriating when we have spent alot of our time on the phone trying to juggle schedule time to accommodate everyone. (which we always TRY to do)


Speaking of waiting here is an update on our Missy. After 4 days of nothing she started again. I took her in for a check up and we ran a urinalysis. Everything was WNL= within normal limits. Our game plan is still to try to catch an episode on video. The specialists really like video to see so they aren't flying blind which could help alot. It might even help them narrow down what to look at. The whole family is on alert. I just missed one tonight before I got home but the report I got about it from my husband is now leading me to think it is something structural going on. She apparently stretched when he walked in the door and then yelped in pain and started doing her shaking. (the yelping had never happened before) He tried to get it on video but wasn't familiar with my camera and it was over to quickly to get the video before she was done. I read up on Wobblers and while I don't think it is that per say, some of the stuff does seem to apply which is why I am now thinking it is something similar. Frenchies can have spinal issues. I will give the update to the doctors tomorrow and see what they say. I'm thinking our next step is x-rays.

On an extremely sad note one of our staff members lost both of her dogs over the weekend to a tragic accident. I cannot imagine the pain of dealing with that kind of loss. My thoughts are with her. Godspeed to Hunter and Rocky. From what I had heard about them they were wonderful dogs and companions. Their lives were cut far to short and they will be dearly missed. Sometimes life just isn't fair.