Keep Your Pets Well at Walgreens: Medications for Pets

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a
social shopper amplification for Collective Bias and its advertiser. #WalgreensRx #shop #CollectiveBias

Around this time last year, I wrote a post about my cat Sonoma and how she wasn’t quite herself.  After taking her to the vet, it was determined that she had an abscess on her tail and needed to have some dental work done.  The vet told me that these were very ordinary things and assured me that Sonoma would be back on the path to good health in no time.  Needless to say, I was thrilled by this news because having a sick pet is more than a little scary.

But, unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned.  Just before I left for a blogging conference in July, I noticed that the right side of Sonoma’s face seemed swollen.  Perhaps not noticeable to someone who didn’t know her, but as her owner of 11 years, I knew something was wrong.  Two to three weeks later, Sonoma’s face was completely swollen – it were as if she had half of a ping pong ball stuffed between her mouth and her eye, to the point where she had problems opening her eye.  Although it didn’t seem to bother her one bit, it screamed for attention.

And so off we went to the vet, where they handed me a bill for $1600 for a surgery that they thought “might” diagnose what she had.  Needless to say, I quickly sought a second opinion, where she was diagnosed with a highly aggressive type of cancer…after a $37 swab, not a $1600 surgery.  That swollen ball between her eye and her mouth was a tumor.  The vet advised against surgery to remove it due to it’s location (she would have lost a great deal of her face) and said that chemotherapy wasn’t really an option because of the type of cancer and the fact that cats typically don’t respond well to chemo.  Due to her good spirits, he advised that we make her comfortable in her last days and weeks.  He gave us some medicine, wrote a few prescriptions, and sent us on our way.

At the time all of this happened I was late in my third trimester with Everett.  I knew the chance of Sonoma making it to “meet” him was slim, but I hoped – against all odds – that it would happen.  The medications I dutifully fulfilled every week seemed to help immensely and, although she had lost lots of weight, Sonoma was in great spirits.  The night my water broke, I gave Sonoma her medication, hugged her, and told her to hang in there until I could bring her brother home.  But as luck would have it, Sonoma passed away the day that I was due to be discharged  from the hospital.  She never got to meet Everett.  I was – and still am – heartbroken.

I can confidently say that there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss her – the chirpy way that she meowed “good morning”, the way that she’d run down the stairs to greet me when I returned home from work, how she would snuggle with my kids when they were sick, her silent cat-like judging (cat owners, you know what that’s like) – I miss it all.  And while some might say I’m being over dramatic, I feel like there’s a Sonoma-sized hole in my heart.  There will never be another cat like her.  Ever.

I wasn’t sure that I’d ever post about Sonoma’s death, because honestly, after nearly 7 months, I’m not over it.  It’s that big, ugly thing that I’ve avoided posting about.  I miss her.  My kids miss her.  My dog misses her.  Our house isn’t the same.

But today I’m sharing her story in hopes that I can help another pet owner.

You see, about a month ago, someone told me that Walgreens fills pet prescriptions.  That might not sound big, but to anyone who’s had a sick pet, that’s huge.  And it’s something that I didn’t know when Sonoma was sick.  Because those medications that the vet prescribed for her?  Some of them could be pretty hard to find online.  Or I’d have to wait while my vet ordered them and pick them up days later.  Other times I’d have to ask my husband to leave work early and rush to the vet’s office to make sure we picked up a prescription before they closed.  And they weren’t cheap.  The weeks before she passed were a very expensive scramble to keep her comfortable.  Totally worth it, but definitely difficult.

Doctors and veterinarians often prescribe the same medications for people and pets, and because of that Walgreens pharmacists can fill human-analogous pet prescriptions at over 8,000 Walgreens locations nationwide.  We didn’t need to do all that scrambling, my husband didn’t need to leave work early, and I could have rested easier knowing that Sonoma’s medications were just a quick click away and down the street at our local Walgreens.  And because markups can be higher at vet’s offices (along with that pesky “dispensing fee”), we might have been able to save money by sending Sonoma’s prescriptions to Walgreens.

The process is easy.  All you need to do is create an online pharmacy account.  There you can add your medications or your kids’ medications, set up refill reminders, and even add your Balance Rewards account.  Once your done with that, check out the “Pet section:and then add your pet, their prescriptions, and set refill reminders.  You can even purchase over-the-counter medications!

Our dog Madison isn’t currently taking any prescriptions, but I’m never going to make the mistake of paying more at the vet’s office or scrambling around town to find prescriptions again.While having a sick pet is certainly difficult, you can rest easier knowing that Walgreens is there to help.