Our vet found me at the front desk on Friday afternoon, between two checkouts, and leaned on the counter. "Got a second about Mabel?"
I've watched a lot of faces change at that sentence. Mine, it turns out, does the same thing.
"Everything looks good," our vet said, which is the right way to start. "One kidney value, the SDMA, came back a little above the reference range. Just over. Everything else is right where it was last year. I'm not worried yet. I'd like to recheck it in December and see where it's sitting."
That was the whole conversation, about a minute long. I've thought about it for most of the weekend anyway, so here's what happened, written down calmly, which is how I'd like to keep it.
The panel itself
Mabel had her yearly senior bloodwork on Thursday, September 10, my day off, the same arrangement as last October. She walked into her carrier for the fleece, growled once during the blood draw and abstained from every treat I offered on the drive home, also the same as last October. The panel covered what it covered last year: blood counts, a chemistry panel with kidney and liver values, thyroid, SDMA and a urinalysis.
She weighed in at 9.8 pounds, a little under the 10.4 she was last fall. Our vet noted it and wants to keep an eye on it along with everything else, and I've been weighing her at home every couple of weeks since April anyway, the bathroom-scale way.
The bill was $279.00 list, $195.30 after my staff discount. It came out of our regular monthly pet budget rather than the pet fund, because a yearly screening is planned, and the fund is for the things nobody plans.
What "a little off" means at our house
I'm not a vet or a tech, and I'm not going to guess at what one number means. What I can tell you is what our vet told me, in plain words: SDMA is one of the kidney markers on her panel, Mabel's came back slightly high while her other kidney values were normal, and the plan is not to do anything about it yet, just to look again in December and compare. That's it. Nobody used a scary word.
This is the exact reason we started last fall. I wrote then that the point of a baseline was to have a page of Mabel's own normal numbers, so that if a later page ever disagreed with it, we'd notice early. This is the second page, and on one line it disagrees a little. That's the system doing what we set it up to do. It feels less tidy than it sounded last October, but it's working.
We're not changing anything at home. She's been on mostly wet food since April, for reasons that had nothing to do with this, and our vet said to keep doing what we're doing. I've added one small thing: a sticky note inside the cupboard door where I write down her weight every two weeks and anything unusual about her appetite or the litter box. So far it mostly says "fine."
If your own cat ever gets a result like this, the vet with her chart open is the one who can tell you what it means for her. A blog post, mine included, can't.
Where insurance fits in
Mabel has been insured since April 14: accident and illness, a $500 annual deductible, 80 percent reimbursement, a $5,000 annual limit and no wellness add-on. Her policy year runs through April 13.
The September panel wasn't something I could claim. It was routine screening, and screening falls under wellness care, which we didn't buy. I read the policy again to be sure, and it says so pretty plainly.
The December recheck is different. That test will be ordered because of an abnormal result, to look into something specific, which makes it diagnostic, and diagnostic testing for an illness should count under her policy. The value showed up months after her coverage started and well past the 14-day waiting period, so I don't expect a pre-existing question. "Should" and "expect" are doing some work in those sentences, which is why I'll submit it and see.
Realistically, a recheck at my own clinic, with my discount, won't come anywhere near $500. It'll sit in the deductible column, and unless something else comes up before April 13, the insurer won't pay a cent of it. That's fine. That's what a deductible is. Anyone with a policy in the picture can call the claims line and ask how a recheck like this would be handled, and it's a lot more pleasant to ask before the bill than after.
The recheck is on the kitchen calendar for the second week of December, circled in pencil. Mabel is in the window hammock as I write this, chattering at a nuthatch, looking like a cat with no interest whatsoever in lab work.
