The last two days have been interesting. I got injured and my dog got injured.

On Monday, I failed to properly line up a roundhouse kick to the heavy bag in boxing class (precisely after the instructor said to be careful to do it properly) and kicked the bag dead on with my right toes. Result: broken big toe.

Then yesterday, my dog and my sister’s dog got into a fight (they usually scrap since they are the two youngest dogs and fight for second to last place). This time it was pretty bad and my dog got bit under his chin. He has a cut about one inch long down from his mouth.

How does this count as saving money? I tried not to panic and didn’t rush off to the human doctor or the emergency vet.

I thought at first that I had jammed my toe and I carefully hobbled around on it the rest of the day. The next morning, after the pain kept waking me up, I had a picture text medical consult with my hubbie who is luckily studying sports injuries and knows his stuff. He confirmed that it was broken and that I needed to tape it up and stay off of it. No need to go to the podiatrist and pay the $30 copay plus whatever insurance doesn’t cover for an x-ray and appointment only for him to tell me to stay off of it.

As for my pup? Well, I called the emergency vet and they said that if it doesn’t stop bleeding after an hour and is deep then he may need doggie stictches. Doggie stitches!? Oh, I started to panic but after consulting again with my hubbie and having my parents look at the wound, we decided to wait on rushing off to the emergency vet and a $100+ fee. I trimmed his fur around the cut and cleaned it off with a wet paper towel then applied pressure to it. Eventually it stopped bleeding and I put ointment on it. This morning its clotting and is beginning to heal. Poor little guy but it looks like he’s on the mend.

Would I normally recommend avoiding the doctor or veterinarian? No way. Your health and the health of your animals is important and should be treated as such. But there is immense value in calming down and observing a condition rather than rushing off to the doctor. So many times I have taken off work and rushed to a last minute appointment with a doctor (human or otherwise) only for them to tell me that it’s not a big deal and keep doing what I was doing already to treat the minor injury.

But when it’s necessary, I go to the doctor. I don’t want to mess around with my health or my pet’s health, so I have health insurance as well as pet insurance. Having insurance is super important because there will always be an unexpected fall or illness, or my dog will get sick suddenly. Human health insurance is pretty obviously a necessity in this day and age, but after my husband and I sat at the emergency vet and debated whether we could afford the $90 x-ray to determine whether the carpet strands that Julius had eaten were blocking his intestines, I don’t want to risk not having pet insurance. If you have a pet and don’t have pet insurance, I would look into it. It doesn’t cover everything, but reimburses you a lot and basically pays for itself.

Have you avoided the doctor to save money before?