Before taking off I called the office and surmised that Miss Brown’s newfound family had still not returned our calls. I did learn, however, that one of our long-standing clients had called on their behalf.
Sitting on the tarmac, still cell-enabled, I lobbed a call in to this client-intermediary, someone I know to be easygoing and reliable. She explained that Miss Brown’s "owner" was tearfully soliciting advice and assistance from anyone who would listen, reporting that—and I paraphrase--the vet needed more than $2000 to fix her and that she could not afford it and could anyone believe how outrageous that was!
The well-intentioned intermediary felt embarrassed to find that her veterinarian was the one charging this exorbitant fee, holding this dog’s health hostage, as it were. She was not happy and neither was I when I grasped this implication.
Meanwhile, I’m the nice vet that went above and beyond by not requiring full payment up front (of what would have amounted to $200 for my own [discounted!] services) and personally taking the X-rays over to a specialist for a consultation.
Ironically, it’s often when you try your hardest that everything seems to fall apart—especially when it involves the vagaries of biological material, the complexity of communication, and the mathematics of money that doesn’t exist. We can’t always be heroes, much as we’d like to try.
