My dog Eddie has better health care than you, and I can prove it.


This is Eddie. A few months ago Eddie started limping even though I knew he hadn't been injured, so I called our vet and took him in the next day.

The vet gave him a full exam, asked me several questions about his habits, where I lived, and suggested that Eddie might have Lyme disease, whereupon she promptly took a blood sample and a few minutes later, voilà, test "positive" and I left with a month's worth of Doxycycline and a bill of about $150.00. Within three days Eddie literally bounced back, the tenderness in his paw was gone.


Here's Linda, my next-door-neighbor.

About the same time Eddie started having his problems, Linda came down with what seemed like the flu. She has no health insurance so she tried to tough it out, but after a week she gave in and made an appointment to see her doctor. He ran several tests, gave her a general exam and told her to call back in a few days to see what the tests showed.

After waiting several days she anxiously called her doctor to get the news. They couldn't find anything, the nurse said. "So if you don't get better, call us and come back in." Linda hung up the phone and went back to bed. Days passed, then weeks. So she went back in to see her doctor. This time she showed him a swelling on her ankle which had a raised tiny center that was tender and inflamed. The doctor drew a circle around the swollen area and said they would watch it to see if it either grew larger or started to shrink. Linda went home and went back to bed, this time depressed as well as very ill. (Story continued below chart).

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About this time I returned from an overseas trip and popped into Linda's house to tell her I was home. She looked horrible. Hollow-eyed and very weak she said, "I've been back and forth to the doctor's office now for a month...an entire month...and they can't figure out what is wrong with me. I can't work, I can't sleep....I've been sick as a dog for six weeks. All I can do is lie in bed. I am paying out the nose for drugs that don't work and a doctor who can't figure out what is wrong with me".

Linda's condition continued to deteriorate over the next week. She was in tears when she called her doctor's office yet again but this time she let her anger and frustration rip on the nurse who took her call. While she waited on hold once again, the nurse rifled through her file and then, in complete embarrassment, relayed to Linda that it appeared her Lyme test results were in her file and the test was positive. The results had been in her file just two days after the Lyme test she had taken five weeks before. No one called her, no one noticed, no one did their job. The nurse apologized for the oversight and antibiotics were called in immediately to Linda's pharmacy.

Seven days and fourteen Doxycycline capsules later Linda was bouncing around again, just like my dog Eddie. Except Eddie was sick for about three days and it cost me $150.00 to fix him. Linda was sick for six weeks and spent $2300.00 on office visits, tests and prescriptions that didn't work.

See, I told you. My dog has better health care than you.

Amanda Holloway is the editor of O.K.Y.P.