A $5,500 Cat?

My wife & I love pets, both dogs and cats, and yet they can be very expensive at times. We once had a German Shepard who ate about 1/2 a cup of raw flour which became dough in his gut and blocked all passage of food/water. An emergency vet massaged the gut to release the dough ball. Another dog, very old, was taken to an animal hospital when ill. Because we did not say, "do not resuscitate", they charged us $1000 to revive her when she died (and then she died again while still at the hospital).

At the Consumerist there's a story of How My Stupid Cat Has Cost Me $5,500 Over Three Years.

Hooligan (the cat) medical-related expenses: August 2009 - Current

• First-year vet checkup and vaccination rounds: $200
• Ear mites: $50 for meds
• Intestinal worms: $50 for meds
• Vet visit to figure out why his hair was falling out in nasty clumps: $200
• Ringworm: $50 for meds
• Anti-fungal medication for my boyfriend, who got ringworm from the cat: $10
• Neutered: $250
• Emergency vet visit because my roommate thought he had eaten a couple of her Adderall pills (yes, true story, and no, he had not): $200
• Urinary blockage 1: $500 for catheterizing
• Urinary blockage 2: $500 for catheterizing
• Urinary blockage 3: $1500 for overnight stay and catheterizing
• Fancy dancy C/D or S/O prescription-only cat food to prevent future urinary blockages: $40/month x 16 months (and counting!) = $640 (and counting!)
• Vet visit because he was pooping blood: $200 for x-rays and TWO enemas
• Vet visit because he was pooping blood again:$150 to diagnose the problem as "stress"
• Pills for "stress": $50