Paperless

Yesterday (Sunday, January 25, 2009) our poor dog got sick.
Diagnosed with “gastroenteritis” — us peons call it an upset stomach.
The dog started throwing up as soon as we got up; and soon the throwup was reddish.
Naturally this occurred on Sunday, as all medical emergencies do; meaning our regular vet was closed.
It meant a trip to far-away Veterinary Associates of Rochester, the only place that does emergency Sunday veterinary care.
I don’t like going there, because I feel like it was the place I lost Killian.
He’d got severely dehydrated from the anti-cancer chemo, and couldn’t get up in our backyard.
It occurred a Sunday morning of course, so we had to take him to Veterinary Associates of Rochester.
They rehydrated him intravenously and were set to return him to us a couple days later.
But he had developed open sores inside his hind legs, as if the chemo had burned through his veins.
The chemo had also made him somewhat incontinent, and they were afraid of him infecting the sores with pee.
Back inside; back into a hospitalization kennel, where he can be monitored.
It doesn’t take long.
A few days in new digs, and he starts befriending what few human contacts he has, and forgets about me.
A week later I was authorized to visit, and he seemed to hardly recognize me.
What an inglorious end to a wacko hunter who had always been thumping his tail at me.
He was fitted with a catheter to keep from wetting himself.
Hospitalization dragged on-and-on; we couldn’t get him out.
They finally released him, but by then it was late.
It was all downhill from there.
He’d still thump his tail at me, but was too weak to do much of anything.
The chemo had vaporized my wife’s cancer, but not Killian.
We re-established contact, but I feel like I lost him at Veterinary Associates of Rochester — like I had abandoned him there.
So I kinda loathe going to Veterinary Associates of Rochester, but we had no choice.
The poor dog may have been vomiting blood.
We managed to escape with our dog; no hospitalization.
Two-hundred smackaroos to check out; we were left with a sheaf of discharge instructions, and told their office was “paperless.”
“Oh, I see,” I said, pointing at the large wall filled with thousands of medical-information folders for every pet they had ever treated.
I was tempted to go get my camera (which I always carry with me in case I drive upon an accident); photograph their so-called “paperless” wall — the 89 bazilyun paper medical-information folders for every pet they ever treated.

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s three-plus, and is our sixth Irish-Setter.

“Killian” was our previous Irish-Setter. He contracted lymphomic cancer, didn’t respond to chemo-therapy for it, and eventually we had to put him to sleep (that was almost a year ago). He was very much an enthisiastic hunter.

My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.” She also had lymphatic cancer, but before the dog. It was treatable with chemo-therapy — she survived.