Max's Vet Bills

Since late May, Max (not even 4 years old) has become progressively more ill.

At first she became distant and her mood was altered. Then she began to go into jaundice.

I begun with a check up at her regular vet clinic, the Animal Care Center of Strathmore, and were urgently referred to an Internal Medicine specialist.

The wait time at the vets in Calgary put us into mid July, so we took the earliest option at VCA Guardian in Edmonton, for May 30th.

She spent about 5 days hospitalized in Edmonton. There they did more testing including an aspirant, an ultra sound, a liver biopsy, and a bacterial culture.

Results came back positive with no signs of cancer, clean cultures (although she was being treated with Clavamox between her visit to Strathmore and Edmonton, which could skew these results).

She has been diagnosed with Hepatic Lipadosis- luckily a very treatable condition, however they're still worried about an underlying disease causing this.

She was sent home from Edmonton on Tuesday June 4th, her jaundice was very improved, and her blood levels had stabilized, so she came back to Calgary with me with a very intensive home care routine.

This routine entailed 6 feedings, 4 hours apart per day (roughly 20 minutes each) alone with 7 medications given periodically throughout the day.

Meaning, I have had very little chances to sleep, and absolutely no time to go and work a shift.

Today (June 7th), Max displayed signs of jaundice again. We went into Emergency at VCA Western in Calgary, and she is being hospitalized again.

Some blood levels have shown improvement, where as others have not.

Currently, before Pet Care my bills would be at roughly $17,500 (~$630 Strathmore, + ~$12,950 Edmonton, + ~$4,000 Calgary)

Luckily my Pet Insurance should cover 70-80% - the only claim that went through so far has been the initial visit to Strathmore, in which I was reimbursed about $297 out of the total bill of $630. I have yet to hear back about the trip to Edmonton and the emergency trip today.

I'm hoping roughly $12,000 of the remaining $17,000-ish should be covered- leaving me with about $5000 in vet bills alone out of pocket (tack on the travel fees and we're even higher) within the course of less than 3 weeks. The process continues, so I'm sure the bills will, too.

Once again, with all the travel, and the intensive care plan, I have been unable to work during this, leaving me a little strapped. As well as, having to pay all of these bills up front and having to wait weeks for reimbursements, has put me in a tough position.

I obviously do not mind having to pay to keep my kitty healthy.

I'm not expecting or relying on the full amount being donated, but given the circumstances, and the rate at which I'm incurring these fees, at this point anything would help.

update: turns out my pet insurance only covers $7,500 per term, so right now my out of pocket expenses are sitting around $11,000