delyverence | Missing the Vet

I just took Pavi to the vet for his first for-real checkup in almost two years. The Mass vet had never seen Pavi, but they do know that he has two catheters in the last year: one in December, one in January. As you may (or may not) recall, when Pavi got his first catheter in December, the emergency vet was like "yeah, it's stress....you may also want to consider switching his food." They made it seem like no big rush, so I was like "I'll finish the mega-expensive food I have and then switch," in my head. No one at the emergency offered to hook me up with special food or urged me to track some down. Voila, Pavi needs a second cath less than a month later, and the emergency vet is STILL telling me it's about his "stress," even though I had bought a fountain, bought Feliway, make an extra effort to keep the house quiet, etc. So they were still just hammering on me about something that I was already doing everything I knew to fix. Not knowing what to do, and feeling like the emergency vet was calling me a shitty cat mom, I called my old vet in Nashville. Not only does he offer to look at Pavi's test results for free, he also asks how Sterling is doing, possibly knowing about Sterling by memory.

"It's the food. Just switch the food."

I switch the food, Pavi loses 3 pounds and has no more issues peeing.

So I take him to the regular vet today. They don't seem particularly interested in those two catheters, listen to his heart, brush him to check for fleas, and look at his teeth. They don't make any comments or tell me anything. No "well, heart sounds normal" or "got a little gingivitis there" or anything. I had to ask specifically about his teeth, since those are my main concern because he's Siamese and doesn't seem to have any other problems, now that he's on prescription food. They don't want a urine sample or blood work or anything. Not that I'm chomping at the bit to pay for extra tests, but you'd think they'd at least be curious after all that urethra drama and never getting a full set of tests? Or maybe the emergency vet did tons of blood work 4 months ago, so it's totally unnecessary. But maybe they could say that?Is it really my job to ask specifically about everything that could possibly come up?

I don't know. Maybe I've just gotten so used to the people at Murphy Road wanting to test for everything all the time that I get needlessly suspicious anytime I have a vet visit that is less than $200?