Banfield Pet Hospital – Riverview

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• Kerri
  Apr 5, 2021
  Money hungry, irresponsible, unprofessional, worst experience of my life

  I had an awful experience at the Brandon, FL location on Causeway Blvd. I took my girl there 3/29/2020 for a bandage change. Just over a week after she had her toe amputated due to a mast cell tumor. She remained totally asymptomatic and had perfect bloodwork. Dr. Brake, the best vet ever, located at Banfield Carrollwood, took an aggressive approach by removing her whole toe, rather than the bottom third, in order to achieve clean margins. My husband, the doctor, and I were all feeling cautiously optimistic. My dog was healing day-by-day, but we ran into a few hiccups along the way. Day one she was in a ton of pain, she escaped from her cone on day three and removed some sutures. Dr. Brake was on vacation, but still took the time to email each day and asked for pictures of the surgical site to monitor her progress. She had some inflammation, to which he recommended hydrotherapy. That seemed to helped tremendously. Then Thursday night, another cone escape. By then, the area was infected and extremely bothersome. My baby licked and licked (or maybe even bit the area), undoing great healing strides and exposing the bone. I took her to Banfield Carrollwood Friday and Dr. Martinez (also an amazing vet), recommended another antibiotic and daily bandage changes. They also gave us a massive cone that she can’t get out of. It literally looks like a satellite dish- it’s the best! Then Sunday morning, I got a call saying the practice shut down for the day due to a covid exposure. My baby still needed her bandage change, so I frantically called several other locations. And this is when my mental anguish truly began.
  This location was able to see her and able to see her quickly. We were happy to take whatever we could, we just wanted to help our girl heal. We had an 11am appointment and they asked for it to be a drop off. There were two doctors, and one just entered surgery. We said this would be fine, because what else can you do? I called to check on her close to her being there for 4 hours, which was absolutely ridiculous! If they didn’t look at her until 3pm, why didn’t we just have a 3pm appointment? Anyway, the doctor called me back and said my girl broke out of the cone and messed with the site some more! She was supposed to be taken care of there, but they didn’t even watch her, and she was in even worse condition than when she arrived. I was livid!! How could this have happened??
  The doctor informed me she would need to be sedated and scrub the area clean. And that the area was looking and smelled necrotic. She told me probably seven different times she would most likely need her entire leg amputated and the cancer had spread. We were told by her and the nurse to get an appointment with an oncologist basically ASAP. So around 4pm, they gave my girl partial anesthesia and cleaned her wound, and they made us pay for it too. Even though it was their fault. She was extremely dysphoric and this whole thing could have been prevented if they cared about the health of the animals, rather than profit maximization.
  So the Friday after, we received our histopathology report stating my girl had a low grade of cancer, no cancer spread into the bone, and we achieved completely clean margins. Absolutely no cancer in her body! If it were up to Brandon location, they would have amputated her leg then and there for absolutely no reason!! My girl is thriving now!
  I decided to call this location to update them on my girl’s progress. I don’t ever want anyone else to spend three hours crying like I did, because these quacks don’t know what they’re talking about. I asked to leave a message for the doctor. The receptionist was extremely confused. She kept asking for my phone number and I said that wasn’t necessary, but gave it to her anyway. She also told me I didn’t go there, that’s because they didn’t put my name in their computer correctly, shocker there. And I told her the good news. I wanted it to be a learning experience for her and to know my girl actually was cancer free when she saw her.
  Later that afternoon, a tech called and wanted to go over her results to make sure I understood everything. Yeah right, they were saving face and they know it. She told me my dog does have cancer, but it was removed. Yes, that is what being cancer free is. She also said that there is always the possibility the cancer can return. Thanks for that optimism! Lastly, she told me that my girl still may need her leg amputated because the bone was exposed, you know that right? Of course I know that, I’m the one bringing her to the vet every single day. The day after, we had a bandage change with our vet. He told us he is extremely happy with her progress. He thinks there is an extremely low chance the cancer will ever return. He said she is healing wonderfully and showed us pictures of how she is doing. He thinks worst case scenario, she is going to have a larger scar and a little bit of a prolonged healing time. She is walking around and playing and acting like herself again. The infection is gone and she is free of pain. She also can come back in three days instead of daily, for her bandage change since she is doing so well.
  These charlatans in Brandon tried to scare me, and admittedly, succeeded. They want me to feel like I was wrong, or better yet, they are right. They made such a detrimental and sweeping conclusion after spending merely minutes with my girl. Meanwhile, our primary vet and the other vets at Carrollwood have been seeing my girl every day. They are all so pleased with how she is doing and how quickly she is healing. If you have money to burn, want to have a nervous breakdown in Petsmart, and feel like profit is valued over your pet, come on down to Brandon Banfield on Causeway!

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