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Rant about vets

This is probably the most serious thing I'll ever post on this site. I just feel like I need somewhere to put all this. Is there such thing as a compassionate vet that actually cares about the wellbeing of animals, more than they care about money? As a kid, you meet a lot of other kids with aspirations of becoming a vet so that they may selflessly help animals, but no one I've ever encountered in the veterinary industry seems like they were once this kid. Have their hearts just hardened? Or does the job just attract greedy sociopaths? As of writing this, over the past two weeks my 5 year old dog had become suddenly sick. She lost her appetite almost completely and her energy was quite low. We took her to the vet, and after conducting an ultrasound, they told us that she had lesions on her spleen and stomach and that her lymph nodes were swollen. They told us there was an '85% chance' it was cancer. We cried and accepted that she was probably going to die, and decided to get biopsies done on the lesions and her lymph nodes to confirm whether or not it really was. As of writing this it had only been seven weeks since the sudden death of my mother, and I wasn't prepared to lose yet another member of the family. And yes, pets are family and if you disagree you're a complete sociopath. While they were taking the biopsies, they noted that the lesions in her stomach, which wasn't as severely damaged as they initially thought, looked more like ulcers, and that the appearance of her gallbladder looked more in line with an infection, which gave us hope. Suddenly the odds were, in their words, closer to 50/50 than their initial assessment of 85/15. Then came the medication. They discharged her, which they were suddenly cautious to do because apparently she seemed 'flat', and they wanted to keep her for days until they got the biopsy results back, even though the nurse sent a photo of her looking quite well that morning and told us that she happily went for a little walk outside. This sudden shift in mood was a little strange, and they insisted on giving her a "steroid" shot before she went home with us. I put steroid in quotation marks because I suspect that they actually gave her a sedative, because that's exactly how she behaved as soon as she got home, even though she was very lively when we first picked her up. The only other time our dog has ever laid on the couch and pissed all over it without making an effort to get up and go outside was when she was still sedated after being desexed, and that's exactly what she did again that night. Speaking of steroids, they also wanted to keep her overnight after the biopsy because the vet hadn't decided yet if they should give her steroids in the first place because apparently the steroids can mess with the biopsy results. But hang on, you've already done the biopsy, so what the fuck are you talking about? They gave us a bill for a number of pills that we were supposed to give her. Two different antibiotics, the aforementioned steroid to increase her platelet count (which was abnormally low in her bloodwork), anti-nausea tablets, paracetamol, and an antacid. The markup on these medications was completely insane. They were billing us tens of dollars per tablet for medication that we could find online for a few CENTS per tablet at the same dosages. Everyone knows vet bills are exorbitant, but seriously, how do they justify this? Well when we asked her, she said "It keeps our doors open". Really? This extremely predatory price gouging on people who are going through emotional pain, is what keeps your doors open? Or is it what keeps your boss in a nice waterfront home with a nice car? Either way, there needs to be a change. Anyways, we got a call saying the lymph node results indicated 'probable cancer' due to the high amount of lymphocytes present. This is strange, because A: the point of a biopsy is to get a definitive answer, not 'probable', and B: a high amount of lymphocytes would also be present in the case of an infection, and the amount of lymphocytes alone isn't nearly enough to go off, but she insisted that we start chemotherapy anyways as soon as possible. Hang on, you're saying its LIKELY that my dog has cancer, (which is what they said at the very start) and that we should start chemotherapy without actually making sure? Not to mention the fact that the price range she gave us was $20-30k, while just about everywhere online estimates chemotherapy treatments for canine lymphoma only costing $5-10k. Is this lady trying to get us to jump the gun and pay an inflated amount for chemotherapy that our dog might not even need? What is wrong with this place? Please guys, remember to get second opinions when it comes to vets and even doctors when you're the one who's sick. They really love to nag you about the bill too. As soon as she told us our dog probably had lymphoma, she immediately started going on about an outstanding fee. How about some time to process the news you just gave us? Well it doesn't matter anyways, because I'm not convinced by your probable diagnosis that my dog has cancer. I'll wait on the second opinion, even if it requires another biopsy. It turns out this same vet was featured in a news article a few years ago because some guy took his dog there, the dog died, and they demanded he pay the bill before they would release the dog's body to him. Yes, they held his DEAD DOG ransom over a couple thousand dollars. It's like these people are sadists! Sadly it's all too common for people to have experiences like this at vet clinics, but what other choice do we have?

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