I'm a sucker for an expensive vet.

I am not a vet.

I know this.

The next several paragraphs are going to make it sound like I think I am a vet.

But I know I'm not.
However, if anyone IS a vet
part-time, on the side, or in a former life
and you want to explain to me why my dog had to take a hundred dollar test
to find out if her sugar level
which they already identified as in the normal range
was normal or not,
please let me know
so I can feel better about it.

Today, I took a half day.
Earth opens up
sky rains down fire and brimstone
and my grandma is terrifically busy because hell must have frozen over


I took the half-day so I could take my dog, Penny, to the vet.

It's hard for me to take a good picture of Penny because she's kind of a weirdo. She licks the camera and spends more time dodging the picture than posing nicely. This is the best I could find. She was in her kennel ready for bed, and because the cat wouldn't leave, they shared. (See? Weirdo.)
She's a dachsund that I got FOR FREE from a student several years ago.
Since then, she has increased her value by about 800.00.

Around Thanksgiving, she got very very very skinny. And very very very thirsty. And not very hungry.
And I knew what it was because that's what happened with another dog, Ginger.
She had diabetes.
I took her to the vet. 600 dollars later, this was the diagnosis:
Diabetes AND pancreatitis. Poor baby. And poor checkbook.

So I have to give her insulin shots twice a day with a very specific amount of food. And every so often, I have to take her to the vet six hours after her shot to get her sugar checked. Today was that day.

The vet's assistant took us to the little room and drew some blood. She then said, "I'll call you with the results, so you don't have to wait!"

"Great!" I said. "Thanks!"
I went back to the front desk and said, "We're all done. I just need to pay."
"Okay," said the less-than-pleasant desk girl. She glanced back at the place where they keep the files. My file wasn't there.
She didn't say anything.
She walked away.
I sat down.

No one did anything.

I waited a couple of minutes and walked back to the desk again, carrying my dog.

"I'm just waiting to pay," I said.
The guy behind the desk looked at the only file in the tray. "Ramirez?" he said.
"No," I said. "Beltran."
"Oh." he said.
He didn't do anything.
He walked away.
I sat down.

I sat there for fifteen minutes. Everyone came back. Everyone ignored me. I heard conversations about these topics:
*how the girls' curls fell out of her very straight hair thirty minutes into her wedding after they had spent three hours curling it so it looked like she had dreds because her hair was all chunky.
*how everybody eats everybody else's candy there and if someone gets mad, they'll just replace it.
*how the girl shouldn't have been eating the candy because her stomach was upset and it was hot candy but she wanted to anyway.
*how she couldn't eat soup.
*how someone's girlfriend got in a fight.
*who had already taken their lunchbreak and who hadn't
*whether gray is spelled gray or grey or if it's only grey in greyhound or England.

I looked imploringly at the magical tray where my file was not.
Finally my phone rang.
It was the vet's assistant. "Hello!" she said cheerfully. "This is __I forget her name but she was the only nice one there__ from the animal clinic and we have your results!"
"I'm still here," I said. "No one will let me pay them."

.......

"OH! I'll come right out."

She came right out and said, "So we're ok."
I love how they say 'we' because everybody feels bad talking about an animal like they're not even there. So I said 'we' too, except my 'we' meant me and the vet. 
"Except that our sugar is a little low."
"Oh, is it?" I said.
"Yes. Well, it's an 89. And the range is from 75 to 140. So it's not lower than the low end of the range, but it's on the low end of the range."
"Oh, ok. Do I need to decrease the amount of insulin she gets?" I asked, logically.
"Well... have you noticed if she lays very still and can't move?"
"Ummm...you mean like a coma? No. I haven't noticed her being in a coma," I responded.
"Ok..."
"Should I decrease her insulin?" I repeated.

"No. Well, we don't know. So the doctor wants to run another test to see if that low - but not too low- blood sugar level is normal for Penny," she said, confusingly.

"Soooo.........you want to run another test............but her sugar's in the range.............and it's.........to find out if.........wait.........her sugar's not lower than the low level? And you want to...........what information will that give us?" I asked, absurdly.
"If her sugar is ok." Hmm.
"And we don't know that from the test we already ran? Because it was in the normal range?"
"No. Because it might be low for her."

Ok, bloggy people.
Help me understand this.
Why don't I just decrease the amount of insulin
a little little little little bit
and then she'll probably be right in the middle of the range
which I don't understand why there's a range 
if you can be inside the range 
and they're still not happy about it?

Anyway, what ended up happening
not surprisingly
because I am not a medical professional
and therefore have a giant SUCKER written across my forehead
is that we ran the test.

And in three days, I'll know
what I probably already know.
That I should decrease her dosage
just a teeny tiny bit.

But then,
I'm not a vet.