The vet who saw my cat was helpful and empathetic, knowledgeable, even emotionally tied to the outcome. This was someone I totally trusted, awesome with follow-up, etc. The vet who ultimately operated on my cat falls on the other end of the spectrum. Having dropped my cat off in the morning for surgery, I called 10 minutes before closing when I got home from work to see what was going on and he advised me that 1. He'd just finished, 2. They didn't have anyone there at night to monitor the animals, and 3. I needed to come get him right away before closing if I was interested in my cat having post-surgical watch. He even suggested I might take him home and watch him myself. Slightly shocked, I opted to pick him up right then and drive him to a 24 hour facility 15 minutes away for monitoring, where they immediately recognized his systems were failing and his body was attacking itself. After reading his charts, and speaking on the phone with the VCA surgical vet, the 2nd vet alluded that going forward with the surgery might have been poor judgment given his pre-surgical condition. He also seemed surprised by the medicine they had me giving my cat and then gave me a VERY poor prognosis and told me that what was happening to my cat was a painful process and loaded him up so he could sleep and be comfortable. We agreed to do a status check in the morning. Needless to say, at 5am I got the call everyone dreads. So, maybe he would not have made it without surgery, but if I didn't need to put him through that I trusted the vets to be honest with me. I hate that his last day was spent waiting at the vet in a cage. I am just thankful that I took him to the 24 hour vet where they could mute his pain that last night - if I had taken him home, it might have been one of the cruelest things I could have done. The West Seattle Vet gave me that option. Maybe this situation was unforseeable to West Seattle VCA, but it didn't take the 2nd vet long AT ALL to assess the situation. I will always wonder if the revenue from the surgery had any influence over the judgment to go forward with it despite the risks 2nd vet identified so quickly. I don't know. Overall, not a place I would ever go to again.
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