Monday, November 11, 2013

Report from Minnesota

My brother Bill can't understand why I would put all this money into medical care of a dog.  

"It could only happen in California," say his in-laws in northern Minnesota, who are farmers.

"That's not true," says Bill.

He lives in Washington state and has a friend whose nine-year-old dog got cancer.  She paid $15,000 over a period of two years for chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery to fix the dog's broken leg (a pathologic fracture caused by the tumor).  

A femur intramedullary rod was put in the leg, reports Bill, who is a surgeon.  For people, that is.

The friend's dog finally had to be put down, but she felt having the dog for those two years was worth it.

Bill reports another case of caninophilia, this time in a suburb of San Francisco, and among another set of his in-laws--Minnesotans turned into Californians.  

This dog-in-law has a tumor, and its owners are paying for "antibiotics and some chemotherapy (limited)."

"The Minnesotans are aghast!" says Bill. 

In their world, animals are animals, and people are people.  They hunt and trap coyotes, beaver, otter, etc.

Most of the rest of us only see these animals on the National Geographic Channel, where they are so cute we wouldn't dream of harming them.

"We probably need an insurance rider to Obamacare for family pets," comments Bill.

If the whole health care thing is not repealed for humans. 

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