So for those of you who don’t know me, this is Darcy. Darcy is a 10-year-old Bichon Frise that we rehomed when she was 1. She loves to run, play in the mud, but also is very much a lap dog. Luckily she has been insured since we had her, had we, not the vet bills would have been well in excess of £10k. This is why it’s important to have pet insurance.
A broken leg in 4 places
A few months ago at around 1 am, we heard a loud dog scream. Darcy was screaming really loudly, when I picked her up you could see her back leg was facing the wrong way. It seemed she had tried to jump onto the bed, and slide off, landed badly, and twisted her leg.
We called the vet and she was in with a vet in less than an hour. Following on from an x-ray it had turned out she had broken her leg in four different places. The leg was put into a cast for review by a specialist Orthopedic Specialist vet. She remained on pain relief and medication in the surgery for two days until the specialist vet was available to complete surgery on her leg. The surgery took just over 8 hours to complete.
The good thing is her leg has now fully healed so she is able to run again. However, it turns out she has an issue with her calcium levels, which might explain why it was such a bad break.
So far Darcy has been hospitalized for around 10 days. Had 1 round of major surgery. Been anesthetized 5 times, for tests and X-rays. Not to mention numerous checks with the vet. The bill for this whole incident so far is in the several thousand, and still waiting on more test results to get to the bottom of the calcium issue. All of this from one very trivial incident.
Previous Surgeries
For Darcy, however, this wasn’t her first rodeo. A few years ago she had issues with her mouth where she had a cyst above the roof of her mouth. This was likely caused by a stick or something else she had bitten on, penetrating the roof of her mouth, causing an infection. This treatment included two CT scans and was in the £5k region.
A year after that she tore her cruciate ligament, which needed surgical intervention and rounds of x rays and checkups. Once again this was several thousand.
Get good Pet Insurance coverage
All of the above is well in success of £10k, and this does not include routine checkups, vaccinations, dental treatment, and so on. Routine treatments are not covered by insurance. But luckily, nearly all of her illness/accident-related treatment has been covered by her insurance. So if you have a dog, or any pet really, make sure you have good insurance or you can afford this kind of vet bill should accidents or illnesses occur.
Wow, your poor doggie! Pet insurance is definitely worth considering and likely, saves ton in the event your pet needs major care.
Thank you, and thank you for reading 🙂