In sickness and in health: three cheers for insurance!

This past week has been spent lying on a sofa. Sounds great, until you factor in the fever, lethargy, dizziness and other symptoms that have kept me away from my desk and this blog. Enforced rest is never as much fun as the real thing, and I still haven't made it into the office but I feel I must blog or I will burst. It's a serious condition, known as socialmediaitis.

Medicine is very much on my mind, as you might expect. As well as my own illness, which has seen me through several doctor visits, two rounds of blood tests and an ultrasound and is still a bit of a mystery, I've been worried about our cats. One of them started coughing when he over-exerted himself (read: went mental over a piece of string). So over the weekend we also had a vet visit to contend with.

It turns out little Casper has feline asthma, which is not serious in his case and can be easily managed and monitored. The visit to confirm this was so short that our vet didn't even charge us for it! But if he had, then Casper is fully insured. For that matter, so am I, so as well as a tendency to sleep all day at the moment, we have that in common...

I can't tell you how much peace of mind Casper's insurance gave me when his symptoms first appeared. Of course, it can't stop you being very worried over the health of your pet; he's a member of the family and my husband and I were both very tense and concerned - what if it was his heart? What if he had a terrible infection? The insurance can't make that go away. But it did console me that whatever he needed we wouldn't feel our hands were tied by the cost of treating it. Yes, you find a way to pay it anyway, but especially in these unstable times it really helps not to have to think about where it's going to come from.

I know I sound like an advertisement, but this really is coming from the heart. Dogs Trust has an arrangement with PetPlan, a huge insurer here in the UK, which means all dogs rehomed from us come with six weeks of free insurance from them. You need to decide which company is best for you and there are frequent debates about the different options out there on DoggySnaps, among other places.

With little Casper and I both on the mend, I should be back to blogging regularly (and more cheerfully) soon. In the meantime, I hope you've all been well!