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We adopted a kitten back in March (Romie, pictured to the left) because I was wanting one.  We already have an older cat (Toby, 5 years old) but he took more to my husband and didn’t want much to do with me.  I was wanting a pet of my own, so we adopted.

Toby has always been rather healthy and we’ve never had any reason to take him to the vet or anything.  Romie, on the other hand, had to be spayed and de-clawed a month after we got her.  That was our first look at vet costs (at the tune of $207, even after discounts).

We’ve been having some problems with Romie the past few months as far as her “potty habits” go.  We though that it was because we were giving her wet food, so we discontinued that.  After things didn’t get better, we took her to the vet with a fecal sample to ensure she didn’t have any bacteria or worms.  Everything came back clean, but the doc thinks she may have irritable bowel syndrome (yes, just like humans get).

So after all the blood work, tests, 2 prescriptions we need to start her on, and a year of Revolution flea treatment our total due today was $267.64 (and that includes a price match to 1-800-PetMeds for the Revolution and 5% for being a resident of a certain apartment complex in the area).

I was not planning on spending that much, so we had to put it on a credit card.  We have the cash, but if we would have used it, it would’ve thrown the bills off for the next month and we would’ve ended up in the red.  The good news is that I think I will be able to make a payment to the credit card before the interest kicks in.  I hate using the credit card, but we took a commitment when we adopted our pets and we want them to be healthy and happy.

We also had to buy new food (Purina One Sensitive Systems) which cost $23 for the big bag.  We’ll start integrating that in with the old food over the next few weeks and slowly phase the old food out of the equation all together so as to not cause upset in their diet.

We were worried that since we’re going on vacation in a week (FOR a week) that we’d have to have our friend who’s coming over administer the meds and do all the food phasing out and stuff, but the doc said that we can just wait until we get back from vacation (2 weeks won’t hurt) so that we know it’s done properly.  Not that I don’t trust my friend, but one of the meds has to be given twice a day, and he’s only coming once every other day.  It really wouldn’t have worked.  Plus, we will need to start feeding the cats in the morning and evening, but not leaving the food out all day.  This will take some adjustment for our older cat since he’s used to eating when he pleases, but the kitten does tend to overeat (and with IBS we need to really get her on a better/stricter diet).  I figure after a few days of having the food set out for only an hour or two at a time, our older cat will realize he needs to eat when it’s there because he won’t be able to eat when he pleases anymore.

It’s going to be an adjustment for all of us.  I’m just glad we were able to (kind of) afford to take the kitten in and figure out what was wrong with her!  That’s a nice little chunk of cash, but we love her.