Being Adopted, and Used

BY BIG SISTER, who is approaching sixty nine, is retired, happily married, financially sucure, and loves cats, like I. In her prime she had six indoor cats, a figure which used to impress me, until recent years. I now have seven, two indoor and five outdoor, and until a couple of years ago had nine, so, I just laugh at her sparse population. Recently she had no cats, an unthinkable situation. Her long lived three all died within the past year at the ripe old age of nineteen; cat stweardship well done. She and hubby soon got a kitten, a precious little thing, who started out energetic, but soon lapsed into a patttern of being energetic for a day, the sluggish, alternately. The vet, an accomplished professional with training in every aspect of veterinary medicine, was perplexed, after administering blood and urine tests, and much else. Since the best vet in town could not discover the cause of death, since nobody could, having a thorough autopsy by a vet school at a major university and finally finding out what happened would be a great benefit to all mankind, and all cat kind. That's what the vet suggested, informing my sister that the cost would be two hundred gollars - to her. New knowledge, medical advancement. My sister had the strange idea that she shouldn't be charged hundreds of dollars for contributing to medical prpgress, an arguable point. They had the sweet litle thing creamated. Now, we'll never know. Veterinarians make good money, as do doctors of human medicine. There seems to be in American society a pervasive, unshakable understanding that people who practice medicine, human or otherwise, are owed a handsome living, no questions asked. Doctors, athletes, entertainers, lawyers. Everytime I visit my primary care physiciain, who is a good friend of mine and a guy I like very much, I am amazed at two things; at how long I wait in the examination room, and at how many patients he seems to see while I am waiting. I tried to do the math, and determined that he must be seeing double figures of patients every day, at least. When he finally enters the room where I patiently await atop a metal table, we exahcnge greetings, have our usual argument over whether the Red sox or Yankees are going to win the American League East, ( he is a Red Sox fan, but I forgive him), and we get down to business. Business consists of his looking at his computer screen, listening to my heart, sometimes, and telling me that I'm good to go, doing great, and he'll see me next time. Its always good to hear that, but I veguely wonder whether the insurance company is getting its several hundred dollars worth. By now, he owes me a brain transplant, if nothing else. But back to my sister's vet. Before going home to his nice house, wouldn't it have been good of him to either perform or arrange for the performance of an autopsy on sisses little cat without extracting two hundred dollars from her? Evidently not.