The lion spent New Years in the animal hospital. Got him home today. Tomorrow marks the 1-yr anniversary of his brother's passing from kidney failure. He had a neck abscess with celluitis. The first operation wasn't enough so he got two more drains.
Cost was
$1200. Most of this was pharma.
He had been super lethargic for the last couple days which coincided with it starting to get below freezing here. I didn't think much of it at the time. My SO said he was off on his normal morning routines and this is a good indicator that something is wrong with a pet.
I spent all last night plus this morning trying to find pain meds: That vet was out, as were all the pharmacies(Meijer/CVS/etc/etc/etc). UM hospital pharmacy is limited only to UM staff and students.Every single other vet wouldn't sell to non-customers.
Apparently there are big new FDA rules about expensive controlled substances/pain meds in cat-sized portions.
The antibiotic is cherry flavored.
Seriously. What animal likes cherries?
Went back to the vet today and bought another pain med.
Only one other medicine was available.
In hard pill form.
He won't eat it, even ground with tasty food.
I'm not very impressed with Big Pharma and FDA.