After our dying 1 year old grand champion Abyssinian was sent away by an inexperienced vet at Cat's Exclusive who took a "let's wait and see" approach (thanks a lot, "Doctor" Fliegel of CE) 7 hours later, it was clear to us that he was dying, so we called our vet who makes house calls, Dr. Alexa Allen (please see my very positive review of her) and she accompanied us to ACCES. Luckily for us, it was a slow night for them, and although we were not allowed into the treatment room, Dr. Allen was. She gave us a very animated description of what was going on behind the scenes while we waited and worried. Never less than 5, usually 7 people were all working on Qaalee at once, doing everything they possibly could to save him. After about an hour, Dr. Julie March brought us into a room and went over Qaalee's condition after they had stabilized him. Dr, March was so smart, so compassionate and so caring, we were just blown away. She told us to go home (after a brief visit with Qaalee) and try to sleep and that she would call us with an update at 6am, when her shift ended. At 6am on the nose, she called to give us an update and to say that she had been spending the last hour updating Dr. Miles on Qaalee's condition, and that our cat was in the best hands he could possibly be in. At about 2 pm, Dr. Miles called to give us the very sad news: Qaalee was "clinically dead"...that he has already lost one kidney the other was shutting down and the brain was gone. They has him alive on a respirator and he was in a coma, but said that we should get down there right away to say goodbye. It was really sad that when Qaalee heard our voices, he awoke from his coma and started crying to be taken home. When we called for help, Dr. Miles was in the room immediately and put Qaalee out of his suffering.
Yes, it was a horrific thing to go through. Yes, we wish the idiot at Cat's Exclusive hadn't sent Qaalee away without doing any diagnostic testing. But the entire staff at ACCES was just amazing. We got a beautiful sympathy card from them and they kept us updated as to how the necropsy was coming along (it took nearly a month to get all the testing done) and then, finally we got his ashes.
Do we hope that we will never need to go to ACCES again? Yes. Are we glad that such a fine animal hospital is near our house that has excellent vets with fantastic bedside manners? Yes.
I would also like to say that the head of the clinic spent nearly an hour going over the autopsy notes with me on the phone because I couldn't understand much of it. That was very kind of her. Thank you Dr. Davidoff.
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