Radiation therapy was projected to cost between $12,000 and $15,000, which, for perspective’s sake, is a quarter of the average American household’s annual earnings. But you can’t treat without a diagnosis, which meant brain scans, which meant $2,500 down before the technicians would warm up the machine. Leigh, who is also an acquaintance of mine, knew Rutherford needed help when the large-breed coonhound mix struggled to walk a straight line and keep his head up. Leigh Kunkel, who is finishing her master’s in journalism at Northwestern, found herself facing a five-figure bill when her dog, Rutherford, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2017. They thumbed through credit card applications on their phones like it was a matter of life and death, which I now understand that it was. They wheeled dogs in on stretchers, or carried them hanging limp in their arms, and every single one watching their pet disappear into the back was asked what they knew about low-interest financing. The memory of it swirled 10 years later, as I took pictures of Oscar’s bills to send the insurance company and thought about the people crying in that emergency room. He shivered, gazed deep into my eyes, and peed on my hardwood floor. The rescue people brought him to my house to see how we got along. His breed and birthday were impossible to know for sure as both he and his sister had been thrown from a moving car. The waiting room solutionĪbout Oscar: I adopted him as a puppy in 2009 in Kansas City, Missouri. The financial decisions made in these harrowing moments could haunt pet owners for years, regardless of whether their pet lives. As treatment costs rise and in-house payment options quietly disappear, people are left vulnerable to catastrophic debts as the life of their pet hangs in the balance. In truth, it’s not so much a gift as an impossible choice. This was presented as a gift, an immediate way to untie the vet’s hands and let them get to work while Oscar’s chances worsened with every passing second. So I charged all $5,316 of it to vet credit services, whose applications the veterinary techs conveniently had on hand or were trained to help me navigate on my phone. But the plan I’d chosen only covered a portion of the costs and paid only in reimbursements after the fact. If I didn’t have insurance, it’s safe to assume my bill easily would have been $3,000 more than what I wound up owing. I say that if what you’re actually buying is a way to avoid calculating the value of your dog’s life, it’s a bargain. Financial writers argue over whether this is a good investment. Last December, I bought a year of pet insurance for about $350. The only thing I knew was that I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t give Oscar a fighting chance.Īnd I didn’t even have it that bad. The urgent demand for split-second, life-or-death decisions had consumed me. It was only later that I could catch my breath and tally it all up. $1,455, general vet fee for hospitalization and transfusion.$137, general vet fee including histopathology.$815, ER stay including overnight monitoring, IV drip, plasma, and blood filter.$1,378 for initial ER visit including radiology, 12-hour exam stay, fluids and scans.For two days, I shuttled him between general vets and ERs for nightly monitoring, and at each step I was asked to pay in advance for services that had a coin-toss chance of keeping him alive even for a night. I was told Oscar had spleen cancer and hours to live, and, alternatively, that it could be a benign growth pressing on his intestines. I carried him down to the car and then to the nearest 24-hour veterinary ER. So when I finally heard his steel dish clatter across the floor as he licked it clean of boiled chicken and plain rice, I was optimistic that he was on the mend. He’d give my palm a disinterested sniff and turn away. There was a vague list of symptoms that pet owners fumble to describe before settling on “just not acting right.” I was waiting on a blood test, slipping him anti-nausea meds buried in peanut butter, and hand-feeding him kibble in the hope he’d eat something. I know it was Memorial Day, because the first thought I had was that the banks were closed. I was such a wreck that I can’t tell you what time I left my dog, Oscar, in the emergency room that first night.
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