My heart goes out you and your girlfriend 
. We loss one of our cats (litter sisters) in September.
She was 19.5 years old.
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so I had a apt a month ago for her peeing out side the litterbox got a base line for her blood panel and some pain meds incase it was old lady arthritis and trended wait. trended for 3 weeks with a steady 1/10 lb loose per week and 9 days ago started to see decreased function in one rear leg (assumption being from muscle loose because of in proper innervation). my primary vet was OOO until sat over night and she called me back with observations and she got me in for her first day shift today at 9am. she noted the decreased leg function and posture as well as confirmed my weight trends with there scale(I just have a human baby scale). re did blood panel to compare with base line, no changes. full body x-ray’s showed a vertebra that was well out of couture of the others. she said that’s a problem but from this we cant tell if this is xyz. we can go with the wait and see cage rest but we are at 4 weeks now already so advanced imaging should would be a good idea. I asked when she thought that would be that she could arrange a apt, she said probably not today as its already today. I headed out dropped berta off at the g/f’s so I could head to work, got to work at about 12 sat down got two bites of my burger king and phone rings. its her she has talked to the other specialists at facility with a MRI and CAT everything has been consulted I’m good to go for a 2pm time slot on the machine just show up they are expecting you. so now I head out having to drive almost 100 miles to get berta and then to the hospital. I get there very clear that this has been pre arranged and I’m here for imaging they take her time goes buy and they come out and I’m like so what’s the imaging show… and they are like o your here for imaging well we are doing an exam and and are waiting on neruo (these exams being already conducted at 9am at my primary and those findings relayed to this place) so then I wait another 2 hours still nothing. finally they say ok we are ready to talk to you (mind you this is a teaching hospital so I have dealt only with interns) and they start reviewing what they have done. and I cut her off I was like this is EVERYTHING already done today and discussed with your head doctor here, you are being fully redundant and that is not why I am here. what did the imaging show and they say well we didn’t do it we want you to go home and do cage rest. as you know time is muscle and rabbits loose it VERY fast… so here I am with no diagnostics and nothing and they charged me 350 for far less then I got for the 330 in the AM visit.
so ya I’m home now with nothing but a bunny in decline instead of with a diagnosis and course of action.
during all this I didn’t get to see a actual experienced doctor or even find out if they talked to her about the pre arranged plan and the whole reason I was there it was just a wall of interns
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Seems inefficient certainly. Interns in veterinary medicine are already full vets, and are planning on subspecializing. They are more akin to a fellow in human medicine. Only about 1% of vets do an internship. Not sure why they didn’t do the test no matter what, although with already impaired neurological function, unless you are planning to operate, wouldn’t add much to the X-ray in truth. And those are expensive tests.
the cost is not the concern, ya I called my primary’s office afterword’s and the receptionist updated the dr and her quote was that she was shocked that they did not do the imaging as agreed.
imaging is about 1k surgery about 5k
It’s always very sad to lose a pet-friend. Sounds as if her life would have been miserable, so you gave her the gift of peace.
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My house critters have gotten a bit more wild recently. A little gray fox running through a couple of yearling whitetail deer the other morning. A beautiful red fox slinking around the side of the house as I pulled in yesterday.
This young lady finally found the pumpkin I put out a couple of days ago:
Next project will be to scout with game cameras and then attempt to build a camera trap - build a camera case for one of the dSLRs (using the Glowforge!), and wire up the trigger along with external speed lights.
As for more normal pets, this was my girl Rascal, who had a great 15 years.
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I didn’t mean the absolute cost (and believe me I get a lot of MRIs), but more the thinking we always teach our residents, which is how will obtaining this test change your management? If you already know the answer (subluxation) and aren’t currently planning surgery then the MRI is not a useful test (and unlike in people, with animals given anesthesia that carries a non-zero medical risk too) since you aren’t planning anything different at this moment. You don’t even need the MRI to tell you there is spinal cord damage since the rabbit has a weakened leg. Now if you are going for surgery, then the MRI can be invaluable as a planning tool to plan surgical approaches, and what tissue is viable for repair.
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So the current approach given has been wait and see but she has only declined. So I’m looking to confirm that wait and see is the valid path I would tend to not think it is given the consistent decline in both weight and function. so depending on imaging I would be doing surgery if that approach if the indication with new information that yup nope the wait and see approach is indeed the wrong approach given the new information
I’ve had to put down two in as many years. It just sucks. My condolences.