Although this happened about three years ago, I just now found Ripoffrepot.com so I cannot give an exact date.
My black and white rescue cat, Marley had a large lump on the side of her face. I waited two days to see if it was a bug bite, but it got bigger, so I called around to see if I could find a place that could get her in quickly. (Very healthy INDOOR cat and we had moved a long distance so had not had the oppotunity to scope out a new vet yet.) Maple Hills was the only one who could get her in within a week, since most did not consider it an emergency since she was still eating fine.
At the first visit, the initial vet was fine. She discovered although the cat's FRONT teeth were immaculate, the BACK teeth (how often do you spread a cat's mouth open to look at the back teeth?) were in terrible shape and had caused an abscess to form in her cheek. So we discussed different options, and we decided that the best way to proceed was to do general anesthesia, drain the abscess and pull several teeth that could not be saved and do what she needed to do for the ones that could be saved. There was some comcern as she was aproximately 6 years old, possibly older as she was a rescue cat.
I came to pick her up. She did not weather the surgery as well as we had hoped. She was not a happy camper, was not eating as well as before, and stayed groggy for almost three days. They gave us antibiotics to give her which we did every day, twice a day. That all wa fine it is what happened next that the real horror story beginds.
About 6 days after the surgery, we noticed a small hole, not much bigger than a pin prick on her stomach that she was licking furiously, so much so she had licked all the hair off around it. And then coming from that small hole was the tell tale long red line of a blood infection. I could not take off of work again so my husband took her in. This was his first pet ever, so he does not know much about animals. I have worked with animals almost all my life so he was to call me right away with what they told him.
He called back and said they told him it was a blood infection and they wanted to "debride" the wound. I was confused as I had only ever heard that term used with a burn or similiar injury. Debriding is a term used to describe cleaning a wound and picking off dead skin. I was confused but said sure if they want to clean it out, that's probably a good thing and they could do it more thouroughly than we could at home. I specified they were to clean it only and give her medicine, anything else they needed to talk to me directly.
I went in after work to pick her up. First, they couldn't find her. Took forever to bring her out. I saw immedietly she was much, much worse. Her eyes were glassy, she was extremly stiff and almost appeared to be in shock. I went to pay my bill and was shocked when I was presented with an $850 bill for a wound cleaning, drugs and a NON overnight vet check. Then I looked at the paperwork... They did surgery on her AGAIN. TWICE in a week's time! They literally were flabergasted that my husband was not psycic enough to know "debride" means surgery. They were unbelievably rude and condescending and seemed actually ticked off I dared to question why my cat was given surgery. I explained had I known, I would have kept her there and had them administer IV antibiotics to see if that would take care of the problem FIRST before putting a middle aged cat under general anesthesia twice. And secondly WHY surgery for a BLOOD infection? They claimed that was the way they cleaned the wound.
So I paid the bill and took her home. I looked at the surgery area and was almost in tears. They had cut across her ENTIRE belly. At least a six inch long incsion. Now I know if you have to cut away tissue, or choose to it may make the edges uneven and make the stitches sloppy, but my god, a five year could have done a better job. It looked to me exactly like she had gotten assigned to a vet who wanted to go home and did the fasted job possible just to get out of there. Again that I could have forgiven.
What I cannot forgive is what I found next. I pulled her out of the carrier and discovered the IV tape was still attached to her arm. I was compeltly appalled. So I got my first aid kit out and got out scissors specifically to cut tape off a wound and realized they had not only put the IV int he exact same vein they had 6 days previously (any vet or doctor will tell that's not a good idea at all, how hard would it have been to use the other arm so as not to damage the vein further?) they also had NOT RESHAVED HER!!! So she had six days worth of hair growth on her arm under the tape. Now that may not sound like a lot but it sure looked like a lot and the tape was NOT coming off even with a good tug. So I asked my husband to come over and hold her, thinking I would pull it off very quickly. He was holding her and I went to take a firm grip on the tape to pull it off and discovered... They elft the IV in her arm. You heard me right, they sent her home with the IV still in her arm. It was compeltly unattached which is why I did not notice it before, it was only the part that actually goes in the arm. Well problem is, I have cut the tape, if I try tot ake her across town again, in rush hour traffic with the IV still her but not anchored with firm tape anymore, I could seriously injure or kill her by ripping the vein. So basically my husband held her down while I figured out a way I could rip the tape straight back to pull the needle out at the same time. I did and oh did that poor cat scream and cry. Blood everywhere, but luckily, I knew what to do so I got the blood stopped fairly quickly but I was alarmed at not only how hard she screamed but also the fact she was now compeltly lethargic.
I then called back and threw a fit about all this. I had been polite before. I was not being polite now. I demanded they call the vet at home and find out if she had indeed been given pain medication as they had insisted she had when I left. They hung up on me. When I called back I got a very young girl who was sympathetic. After hearing everything she was almost in tears herself. I am not sure how, but she did convince someone to call or give her the number to the vet (I did not expect them to give the number to me, that would be a privacy issue) and sure enough, the poor thing had been given NO pain medication whatsoever. Who the hell gives an animal surgery and does not give pain medication? So I demanded they call the vet back and get authorization to give me pain medications. Then we had an argument since they were closing in 15 minutes and it would take me half an hour to get there. Finally the manager agreed to wait for me but warned if I was more than 31 minutes they would lock the door. I flew across town, got pain medication and administered it to her.
She never ate again. After several days of trying to entice her with everything to eat and finally her refusing her favorite treats and also leaving these puddles of clear liquid around all over the floor, we took her to Allentown Clinic for Cats. They were absolutly wonderful. They diagnosed her preliminarily with colitinitis which made sense what with her surgery and all. So they gave her medication with strict instructions to watch her for two weeks and to come back quickly if she got worse. About a week later she was no longer walking around so I took her back in and she had dropped THREE pounds! That's an insane amount for a relativly small cat to begin with. The vet didn't even discuss it with me, he basically told me they were keeping her overnight for observation as she was really sick and would call me the next morning. The next morning the vet himself called and told me that she was terminally ill. She had infectious feline colitinitis. Essentially all cats and dogs that have lived in dirty condition pick up this very common virus that causes this. It stays inactive in almost all however unelss they are put under a period of extreme stress then it becomes active. If she had still been eating, we could have done medication to prolong her life, but since she had stopped eating it was the sign that she was terminal and untreatable. He said we were lucky that this was hard to diagnose but that all her bloodwork came back pointed directly to it. We paid to have a private vet come to our house to put her down and buried her in the back yard. We continue to go to Allentown Clinic for Cats with our recently aquired rescue cat, Marley and have nothing but good experiences with them.
Maple Hills seemed overcrowded, rushed, and just all about how many animals they could move through there and to leave an IV in the arm is just unforgivable. I asked for her medical records with the intention of taking them to court to get my money back. The records were completly unreadable. The different dates were all done in the same handwriting, even though I saw techs and vets write in her record and it looked like the same pen was used (since it was a photo copy I can't be sure of that of course) but the handwriting was the exact same on different dates and the whole thing was so bad between the handwriting and copy that it was unreadable. They would not let me ahve the originals. Soon after my husband was laid off and I became very ill so hiring a lawyer was out of the question and by the time I was better and thought about it again (I was EXTREMLY ill for a long time) and had the money to file, the statute of limitations was up.
Beware and do not take your pets there!
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