2016 was a very hard year for me. I had to say goodbye to two pets- a kitten named Axl and a puppy named Jager. Jager was a German Shepherd who was 12 weeks of baby love. The silly GSD stage where the... Read More
2016 was a very hard year for me. I had to say goodbye to two pets- a kitten named Axl and a puppy named Jager. Jager was a German Shepherd who was 12 weeks of baby love. The silly GSD stage where they bound around the room with their big puppy paws and do the head tilt constantly. The level of misery I still feel for this puppy who I loved and that I told over and over that I would never let anything happen to, is absolutely heartbreaking.He had a seizure that lasted a long time. Once he came-to and we were able to get him into the car, we hauled ass to Hillside. I'd never been to Hillside before but a good friend of my sister's works there and I knew we would be taken care of. Jager was brought back and we sat there forever before someone came and got us. The doctor, Dr. Hall, was the doctor on duty and that's who we got. They did x-rays and ran tests and even sent the tests out immediately for further evaluation. Dr. Hall told us his lab values and issues looked to be something cardiac and surely congenital. She suggested we do hundreds of dollars for diagnostic heart echos and other tests. I told her that I was all for spending thousands of dollars on my fella for 10 more years with him, not 10 more hours, and I needed clear answers so I could be practical. As soon as I started to waver due to potential cost, she got really almost hostile. "Well, if you don't really want to spend the money we can just put him to sleep" was her comment. Her attitude with me was straight up shitty. I wouldn't trust any pet with her. ...We devised a plan to give him meds and monitor him until the morning to see if he would get better. In order for them to keep him overnight, you are expected to pre-pay their planned cost (high side). I simply did not have a credit card that had that much money available on it. I have never had to do that before. And remember, I by this point of 2016 I had already put a kitten to sleep and had him in emergency vets getting kitty blood transfusions. I am no stranger to vet bills. By this point, midnight, I had to beg and plead for them to max out my one credit card and give him care over night, to bring back more money (beg a parent for some cash?) in the morning to pay the difference. This was not a dog I found lying in the street, this was my puppy, my first puppy, my first dog ever, who I feel deeply in love with. We went back the next morning at 7am and Dr. DeBender was on duty. Thank God for her. We had to make the decision to put Jager to sleep and she truly helped make the horrible situation better. I was not okay with this, this was not what was meant to happen. He was not supposed to die. I'm still not sure i made the right decision, despite the reassurance from Dr. DeBender. I will never in my life forget telling him he was a good boy and kissing and smelling him as he died and then his stinky puppy smell was just... gone. I will never get over this (I'm still crying and it's now been over 6 months).We needed a form filled out by Dr. Hall for our pet insurance to try and recoup some of the vet bills we paid. It took weeks, which led to many days of tears. I had to cry, beg, plead, go up to Hillside for literally weeks to try to see Dr. Hall when she was working. Call and learn her schedule so I could plan to go to Hillside and leave the form. Plan to go back the next day to pick up the form (that she didn't fill out). She called me once to tell me she wasn't going to do the form but after I cried and begged she said she would think about it and call me the next day (and then never called). In the end Dr. DeBender finally agreed to do the form for us. Dr. Hall refused, stating she wasn't sure why Jager got sick and died, despite her reassurance that night (and what led to my agreeing to have him put down) that it was a congenital heart problem. When I told Dr. DeBender what Dr. Hall said (that his small heart was due to a congenital problem), she told me oh, no, it was surely because he was dehydrated. To this day, I don't feel I have a good answer for what happened to him. I truly believe Dr. Hall misdiagnosed our dog. I believe she has no clue what she is doing and Jager is not with us today because of her ineptitude. I think Hillside is truly in the business of making money. I think there are fabulous vets who work there (Dr. DeBender in particular) but I think they have entirely too may vets on staff and they need to be more choosy. I think if you are there in the middle of the night, when you need a great vet the most, you aren't necessarily going to get the A-Team. I thank God for the compassion of Dr. DeBender, but I do believe Dr. Hall misdiagnosed my puppy, and he would probably be alive today if I had taken him to another Emergency Vet. Read Less