When Good Doctors Go Bad

Well I haven't posted in awhile. I'm such a slacker! But I've been mad busy! Charlie is growing like a weed... he's now 7 months old and weighs at a whopping 66lbs! My big boy is growing so fast... I've now decided to start selling Avon again. I have to pay for school and a growing lab somehow!

Ok, so now to blog about what the title suggests.

Charlie has been feeling ill lately. He's had little buggies in his poo, a growth on his tongue and a rash on his belly. So I called, made an appointment for the vet. As always, I was going to drop him off in the a.m. and then pick him in the p.m. when I got off work. The office hours used to be 7am to 6pm. So I arrive at the good doctor's office at 7:15 a.m. and there's no one around. Hmmm. So I waited and waited and waited. Finally, I walked up to the door, thinking maybe one of the employees was dropped off. The door was locked and a sign was posted that read "As of June 1st our new business hours are 8am to 5pm and will now be open on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of each month." WHAT!!!!??? I was not informed of this! So, being pissy, I took Charlie back home, broke all the speeding laws and finally made it to work at EXACTLY 8am on the dot! I called the office, they were like, "well Ms Cramer the sign has been up for awhile." I explained, "the last time I was in there was back on April the 18th, there was no sign up then!" She then says, "Oh, yeah, that's my fault, the sign wasn't up then, I'm sorry for not telling you. We can reschedule Charlie's appointment for next week if you want." I said, "that's no good for me, I have to be at work at 8am as well!" She said, "well you can bring him in the evening, we'll keep him overnight and then you can pick him up the following evening." "What and be charged boarding fees?! No." She explains, "no, we won't charge you, we do it as a courtesy for our patients who have to be work early. But I have to inform you that we don't carry the medicine for a dog Charlie's size. You can go to a feed & seed store and purchase the medicine there." WHAT?! NO!

SO, I made an appointment for my dog who has worms and they 1. don't tell me they changed the hours and 2. don't carry the medicine that my dog will need! They want me to bring my dog in KNOWING they don't have the medicine for him!?! WTH!!!

Oh, it gets better! So I break open the yellow pages. I then search for a new vet. I decided to take Charlie to a vet that my parents used to use for our dogs we had when I was in high school. They were so kind, so polite, had manageble hours and was just right down the street from my apartment! I made the appointment. They even called me the day before his appointment to remind me of his appointment! How cool is that!?! My regular vet never did that! They would send a postcard with pets' names on it. They even would put my dead dog's name on the freakin' postcard! So I was definately impressed with them calling me!

So I dropped Charlie off, they were so kind to Charlie. Charlie loved them! They took good care of him and assured me that they would take good care of him and if I wanted, they would call me after the doctor saw him! YES!!! After lunch, sure enough, they called me and told me about Charlie. They said he was doing well. He had tapeworms, a bacterial infection that caused the rash and the place on his tongue was just from him biting it. Here's what set me off though! They informed me that Charlie was due another round of vaccination shots. WHAT! NO! He's caught up on his shots! I told them this and asked if they contacted the previous vet. They said yes, they got his medical records from them and that he had another round of shots due now. I told them that I was totally unaware of this and that the previous vet never told me he needed more shots. I even specifically asked the vet after he got his rabies vaccine if he was done with the shots and she said yes and that she would see us in a year! I was soooooooo pissed!

I talked to a coupld of people who used the same previous vet. They all had complaints on her. They all said that she seemed to be going down hill. And that they too all knew of other people leaving her and going to new vets. They all stated that she just doesn't seem to care as much as she used. Don't get me wrong. She's a great vet and she did a wonderful job with Lil' Max before he died and was very caring a loving towards Osiris and Rosie. But here recently, she just seemed to be either too busy to give everyone the amount of attention as she used to or she's pre-occupied with other things outside of work. Either way, I'm not ever going back. I was going to use her to neuter Charlie, but I'm too scared for her to operate on my baby. So now, I have a new vet that I'm very happy with and Charlie loves him!