Thanks to all your input, I talked to the office manager of the vet's office today. She agreed that the ear infection should have been caught the first time, so I got all but the first bill wiped out - saved me about $1,000. That means I paid for a dental, an ear flush, skin scraping & biopsy for the scabs and the antibiotics Jackie ended up needing. However, before this is all over, I'm going to end up paying about $1,000 in total, so it's not that I got anything cheap, but thank goodness I didn't have to pay $2,000 in total!

We also discussed who actually did the dental and the ear flushing and were told it was the vet himself, not a tech, and all we can do is believe them because we have no proof it wasn't the vet. Overall I'm happy with the second vet and the progress Jackie is making - oh, by the way, he's doing fantastic! He still wobbles every now and then, but he is soooo much more steady on his feet, and I finally got him to start eating hard food this past Monday. He's lost about 1 1/4 pounds, which is a lot for a cat that doesn't even weight 10 pounds to begin with!

So, as of right now, all is well again in Jackie=ville.....except he has to go back in about 2 weeks or so to have his ear checked to make sure the infection is really clearing up. But other than that, he has had plenty of outies already today and is snoozing peacefully on the bed right now. He's such a precious little boy.