BETTER A DAY TOO EARLY THAN A DAY TOO LATE!

We quickly settled into Ellie’s new routine because we had to! We’d come to the difficult decision of following our instincts rather than the Vet’s advice, preferring to avoid acknowledging the far tougher choice lying ahead. I said in an earlier post that shortly before Ellie came to live with us in 2007, we lost Sally.

At around fourteen and a half, she began to suffer from seizures. The Vet thought she probably had a brain tumour, but given her age, we chose not to subject her to tests and treatment. Early in her illness, she coped pretty well, and we weren’t too worried about the quality of her life. When she started to fit, one of us knelt by her, holding her gently. Once the fitting stopped, we ensured she was comfortable, and she laid still for ages, gradually coming to. Over time, the severity of the fits intensified, occurring more frequently and lasting longer.

One day, I made an appointment to go to the Vet, without Sally, for a chat and to get some advice. It was clear that she was approaching the end of her life, but when? Vets use an old adage about that situation; ‘better a day too early than a day too late.’ On one level, it makes perfect sense but practically, won’t you only know it’s too late when it is? I guess the advice I got that day didn’t help much; ‘You’ll know when it’s time’, he said. And I did, of course, but it was a distressing moment; a journey to the emergency Vet in the early hours and a painful goodbye in cold, clinical surroundings. I knew then that I wouldn’t go through that ordeal again!

Although, to an extent, those memories haunted our final time with Ellie, our day-to-day experience wasn’t all bad. She attended her three-weekly chemotherapy sessions, and in-between, life carried on much as usual. We began to plan for our summer trip to the South of France, and although it was a long journey, it was our eighth time, so we had established a routine which worked well for the three of us. Using the shuttle, two overnight stops on the way with the best Autoroute services marked prominently on our French atlas.

Well before we left, during one of Ellie’s sessions, I spoke to the Vet about our trip. I was conscious that with an absence of just over four weeks from home, Ellie’s chemotherapy timetable might be disrupted. He told me not to worry as he could let me have a tablet we could give her to maintain the sequence until we returned home.
Our departure date was mid-June, and she had her latest infusion about a week before. I asked the Vet when I could get the tablet as I knew that because it was such a powerful drug, he wanted to wait until the last moment before giving it to me. He asked me to phone about a couple of days before we left, but when I did, he dropped the bombshell; ‘Oh no, I can’t give it to you, so you’ll have to arrange a session in France to maintain the three-weekly sequence.’ I was almost too taken aback to be angry. My French is pretty good, but arranging a chemotherapy session with a French Vet at short notice was going to be a challenge.

Actually, doing it wasn’t too bad at all. We would be staying in St Cyr sur Mer and found a practice just a few miles along the coast at Ollioules. They needed our Vet to email through some documents, and we were able to make an appointment which maintained Ellie’s timetable. In the meantime, she made herself back at home; as you can see from the picture, she quickly reserved her place on the sunbed!

The day for her treatment arrived, and as usual, the worst bit for her was the fasting beforehand, but it all went smoothly. Afterwards, my wife took Ellie outside to feed her, and I went to pay the bill and was shocked, to say the least!

In England, we paid almost £300 for each chemotherapy session, including around £150 for the drug. The French receptionist printed off an invoice for 120 euros, about £100. I thought this was to cover the initial consultation with the Vet, and the treatment would be charged separately. When the receptionist asked how I wanted to pay, I studied the invoice more carefully and saw the charge for the same drug was £30! Subsequently, I had a conversation with our Vet at home, but he waffled on about European drug prices. Given that this was all taking place while we were still in the EU, I couldn’t see the logic. He looked suitably embarrassed when I pointed out to him that Ellie’s treatment would be cheaper if I travelled to Calais every three weeks! The one thing I took from that was you’re probably better off with a small, independent Vet to look after your dog. Some of those practices that are part of larger conglomerates can tend to view clients, who will do anything to look after their dog’s health, simply as cash machines.

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