Tycho goes to the eye doctor #Cats

Well, the specialist was a bust.

We took Tycho in to see the eye specialist this morning. We had already called ahead, and warned them that Tycho was difficult and would need sleepy gas before they could examine him. We had an appointment of sorts — they'd said to bring him in anytime between 7:00 and 9:00, the earlier the better.

We arrived at 7:30, told them our name, filled out the little new-patient information sheet, and waited. Tycho made some noise in the car on the way there, but once we got into the waiting room, he was really quiet. After a while, they let us into a waiting room, which is when he decided that yeah, this really was the vet, and started hissing. We opened both doors on his cat carrier, but he declined to come out, and crouched there, hissing every now and then, tail lashing.

More waiting, and eventually the doctor came in. We did introductions all around, and explained again, as we had when we called in originally, that they'd need to put him under before they examined him. The doctor went to look at Tycho, who hissed. And the doctor flinched back, very visibly. Tycho was still being pretty mild — he wasn't even yowling yet, like he usually does at the vet.

Then the doctor told us that we didn't have a surgical appointment, so he couldn't see Tycho today and we'd have to bring him back. We were a little bewildered by this, and explained that we did have an appointment. At which point the doctor said that he "didn't really appreciate working on cats like this", said we'd have to go somewhere else, and left the room.

This is crazy. Our regular vet would never think of refusing to treat a cat just because of the cat's attitude. In fact, they've assured us they have much worse patients than Tycho. Jennie was so furious she was in tears, and I'm not too happy myself. It's obvious that not all the fault goes with the doctor — his staff obviously didn't pass along the message we left about Tycho being temperamental — but whatever the case, we were treated pretty poorly. And we still don't know what's wrong with Tycho's eye, or how bad it was, or what's going to happen next.

We can't even get hold of our regular vet. She had to leave the office, because she got bitten by a dog this morning. I think there's some kind of message there, but I'm not quite sure what it is.

It's a pretty crappy turn of events, and we're stuck worrying. We'll get Tycho taken care of, one way or another; there are doctors out there who actually love animals and want to help. We may have to go on a road trip, which would be just joyous with a yowling beanlet in the back seat, but one way or another, we'll make sure he's okay.

He is himself again, I'm happy to report. He was pretty sluggish for about a day after his last vet visit, but he's back to normal, struggling when we try to medicate him, and tearing around the house at the speed of beanlet. We've got our bitty back. We just want to know what we need to do to keep him okay. And because this doctor was scared of cats, or something, we still don't know that.