At Cypress Self Storage, Oakley's newest self storage facility (currently under construction), we truly care about our community. As a company that truly cares about animals (check out how our sister facility, Los Angeles Self Storage, ran an impressive holiday gift drive to help animals in need), today's post is all about East Bay Veterinary Emergency (EBVE). Written by one of our team members, we are proud to call EBVE a neighbor and friend within our community.

Our fur kids are an important part of our lives. Whether they get hurt, suddenly get critically ill, or just not acting like themselves, sometimes they need medical help outside our regular veterinarian’s business hours.

We had an incident recently in which on one seemingly-eventless lazy Sunday morning, our cat woke up from his umpteenth morning nap and looked at us with only his left eye because his right eye was shut tight. At first, we thought he was just a sleepy boy, but on further inspection, the right eye was starting to ooze.

We called our regular vet, but of course, they were closed. Their voicemail had the number for the emergency vet, East Bay Veterinary Emergency, so we immediately called them. The receptionist told us to bring him in and gave us the address.

So we scooped him up and put him in his carrier, and off we went. Having been to many human and pet emergency rooms in my lifetime, I was pretty sure we'd have reams of paperwork to fill out and have to sit in uncomfortable chairs for hours, and have to take out a second mortgage to pay the bill. 

That didn't happen. We showed up with our little guy, who was meowing his face off, and the receptionist knew exactly who we were. We had one simple sheet to fill out on a clipboard, and we were seen within 10 minutes.

The doctor took him out back to the lab and we waited for maybe another 15 minutes. Just as we suspected (because we've had indoor/outdoor cats for many years), our cat got a foxtail in his eye the night before. The doctor said it was one of the biggest she had ever seen.

She gave us an antibiotic and painkiller to give to him for the next week, along with a tissue with the offending foxtail. Sure enough, the sucker was almost two inches long! It was bigger than his whole eye!

Once we realized he was going to be OK, we then we braced ourselves for the next most painful part of this process - the bill! While we were waiting for the staff to finish up with our cat, we took bets between ourselves about how pretty of a penny this two-inch weed was going to cost us. It wasn't nearly as bad as we expected. Of course, like any emergency service or any service outside regular weekday business hours, you can expect to pay more than you would for your usual service.

When I called our regular vet the next day during regular business hours to schedule the follow-up appointment, I started to explain what had happened. But my vet already had the report of the foxtail in their system.

East Bay Veterinary Emergency has mostly fantastic reviews on Yelp. There are stories of people who had to work with the EBVE team to ultimately put their pet down. According to the posts, the staff was very compassionate, even going so far as sending sympathy cards.

While fortunately our incident wasn't nearly as life-threatening, and had a happy ending, it's great to know that there's an amazing vet nearby who provides great care!

East Bay Veterinary Emergency is located at 1312 Sunset Drive, Antioch, 925-754-5001, info@ebve.com. Ebve.com