I want to take a minute to go off topic and talk about Trupanion pet insurance that you can buy literally right now at Trupanion.com

This is not an Advertisement, this is me, Dr. Will Powers trying to tell you that had I not gotten this policy, Phoenix would be dead. Trupanion is not paying me to post this, I'm doing this of my own accord because they've been incredible to me.

Rarely, in my life, have I had such a good experience with a company that I felt like I needed to make a public post on it. I'm sharing this on pretty much all my social media. People need to know how incredibly well I was treated by Trupanion and how reputable they really are. The best part is that they didn't do this because he was some famous cat (he's not). Trupanion has no idea who Fenrir and Altair are, and they did all this oblivious to the fact that this is the Guinness World Records cat family.

After my house fire, when I adopted each kitten, they were put on a policy with Trupanion pet insurance for about $20 a month per cat. My monthly bill is about $120. I have paid this faithfully for over 5 years for phoenix, and really, for all the cats. In total, over 5 years, I've spent approximately $7500 on cat medical insurance. Trupanion - Michigan took that money, and did what insurance does, and made a bet that my healthy kittens would remain so for a long time. My policy is $1000 lifetime deductible for each new condition with 10% coinsurance. This means for phoenix's illness, I first have to pay $1000 on my own, then after that, they will pay for 90% of all expenses related to that condition (except for examination fees). There is no cap to the amount that they will pay.

In the past two months, Phoenix has been quite ill. If you've been wondering why I look like I haven't slept in a few months, this is why. I've been terrified for two months I was going to lose him. It all started with a flare of his autoimmune disease (which is normally quite mild but this one was horrific) after a routine dental procedure. Phoenix went in and out of CHF until the autoimmune disease was under control. Just when I thought everything was going the right way at the new hospital, he ended up having a GI bleed from the treatment and nearly dying. After that was fixed, he was sent home, only to find out that he is hyper sensitive to lasix and cyclosporine due to a cytochrome p450 liver mutation that makes him unable to properly metabolize many drugs. His electrolytes were horrifically deranged, and he required another 5 days inpatient to get everything set right, and his meds adjusted properly. Finally, after 5 hospitalizations and nearly 3 weeks inpatient, Phoenix is home, recovering, and almost back to his old self. All his labs are normalized, and at this point, he's just weak from being in the hospital and getting so malnourished. Recently, he got an E-tube which is an esophageal feeding tube in his neck so I can rehab him easier. This lets me pump him full of calories, as his jaw hurts when he eats as his muscles of mastication underwent such profound atrophy during the time when the autoimmune disease went untreated at the first hospital. We're hopeful this will reverse in time.

From 5 inpatient hospitalization stays, countless tests, x-rays, and ICU care, Phoenix racked up about $60,000 in vet medical charges.

Yes you read that correctly.

If at any of the five times in the past two months that he went inpatient, I had not proceeded with "do everything for him that medicine has to offer", he would have died. BluePearl Pet Hospital Southfield saved his life, and Dr. Caitlin Barry-Heffernan, the internist there and Dr. Davis, the criticalist are going to be my heroes forever. Dr Andrea-Putt, my personal vet at Commerce Village Vet also made multiple calls during his outpatient visits that saved his life. Without saying much, I can tell you, she's like me. She "gets it" and thinks about the science and biochemistry of it all rather than just blindly following guidelines. She saved the other sick cats when Phoenix brought his hospital acquired infection home to everyone. Without her, I'd have been lost. I cannot recommend these two places enough.

At this point, he is home, stronger every day, gaining weight every day, and on a regimen for his autoimmune myopathy that has resulted in a CPK in the thousands dropping all the way down to a normal 40. He's going to make it. He will eventually get the tube out, and go back to being the Phoenix you all know and love. He will be on this medicine for life, but I'm hopeful that he will live a long, healthy life after rehab. (Anyone who has met phoenix has likely gotten a standing headbutt from him, he's my most friendly and outgoing cat, he is fearless and loves people). He was so friendly that BluePearl Pet Hospital let him hang out at times in the common area instead of his cage because he wanted to socialize so much with the people. Yep, this hospital was so great they actually cared not just about his physical state but his literal mental health.

I could not allow myself to put him down these past few months, as he's such a wonderful animal, he deserved my best effort, and I knew with the right care, he could make it. It wasn't an insurmountable problem, but it couldn't have been done without the most advanced veterinary care that currently exists. Like the one PFM patient that ended up on ECMO from Covid (who didn't get the early treatment and had a horrific case with months spent in the hospital), he was savable, but everything under the sun had to be done to make it happen.

You would think, that as I continued to take him back to the hospital over and over, that Trupanion would have said, "sorry, we wont cover more treatments". Or that they would have said "We're raising your rates".

Nope. They delivered as promised, and reimbursed 90% of all his expenses. Not only that, during this whole episode, they actually re-evaluated his policy risk ratio for a Generic F2 Savannah Cat in Farmington Hills MI, and his monthly rate went DOWN. His insurance is actually cheaper now after all this went down than it was before as its based on the rate they gave when he was 12 weeks old.

Without Trupanion, Phoenix would be dead. Phoenix is pretty damn important to me. His name is Phoenix Arcturus Powers for a reason. The guest wifi pass at the office is Phoenix123! The literal logo for my practice is a Phoenix. He is best boi. He means the world to me.

This company actually delivered on their promise. They were there for me and Phoenix like they said they would be when I got this policy for a mere $20 a month. In total, I've paid Trupanion about $1200 for his policy over 5 years, and they just reimbursed me over $50000 without question or hiccup. I could not have afforded this without them. He would have died.

Please, if you love your pets like I love mine, if they are your family, please, get a Trupanion insurance policy on your animal, especially if you're adopting a new puppy or kitten as that's when its the absolute cheapest to get the policy and the cost does not go up throughout their life nor do they have limits on care no matter how hard your beloved Savannah Cat tries to die from an illness only published in cats one other time in veterinary medicine so everyone is flying by the seat of their pants.

My life has been an alternating sequence of horrific and incredible luck. I've had triumph and tragedy alike, but this time I got cut some slack. Someday, something is going to happen to one of your furry family members, and you're going to have to be able to make a choice between their life, and what you can afford. I'm lucky that I'm a doctor and had the savings to eat the 10% coinsurance, but if I had to foot this whole bill he'd be gone. You don't want to be in this position. While having a "cat bill" of $120 for pet insurance every month kinda sucks, it was worth it almost 10 times over just in the first 5 years of his life.

Spend the money, and get Trupanion insurance for your pet. I hope you never need it, but if you someday do, they will deliver on what they promised.

- Dr. William Powers - HIV Specialist - Powers Family Medicine

PS: Obligatory pic of this doofus. He still looks pretty ragged, and he will for a long time, but I look forward to his first day back at work as a therapy cat in the coming months.

PPS: Pic of him out at Bluepearl, enjoying some social time in the office area, because they cared so much for him that they even cared how his mental health was as well. I don't know anywhere else that would have done this.

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