Keep Calm

Update: It turns out that, in addition to the $8 for new medications, we were billed for a $250 addition to an earlier invoice; an invoice that we had thought to be paid in full. Additional, legitimate charges were added days later for services already rendered, and our card was debited automatically. We have since seen an itemized list of charges and are reconciled to this new sum. The vet was very understanding about our surprise, and have agreed to give us fair warning in future! They've also offered to retract the charge and let us pay when we can in the coming days. We are grateful, and I am calm again. 


Thanks for the comments, here and via facebook. All's well! 


.I am very distressed this evening; I received notice, after hours, that the vet's office mistakenly (I hope!) used our debit card for a $246.90 charge when they ought to have used it for a $8.69 charge. This, after weeks of one, two, and three hundred dollar vet visits, will not clear. We'll have bounced check fees, at the least. I very much hope to resolve this with their billing department in the morning, but in the meantime I'm going to bed with a knot in my stomach and an ache in my head. I don't bear conflict well, and for some reason my body treats something as simple as a billing dispute in the same fashion as it might treat a fender bender or a mugging.  Emotionally, and physiologically, I take these things like a punch to the gut even when my logical mind tells me it will all be resolved after breakfast.

Luckily, I have a knack for remaining outwardly calm—I'll be on the phone at 9 am, all courtesy and decorum. No harm will be done, and it will all be behind us.

Breathe. Stretch. Chill.