Quote Originally Posted by whoopdeedo View Post
First of all I want to thank all of you for your help. There was no fever--but there was a slight swelling around the joint of her right hind leg, and the swelling was warm to the touch. The first vet did take an x-ray and said there were no broken bones. The second vet did do bloodwork, or so he said, but he claimed he got the results back in less than 30 minutes. I always thought it took longer than that to run tests--but I might be wrong.
It depends on the test. At my vet, they can run a general blood test in-house. It will show blood counts basically - if the cat is anemic, if they have a high white cell count which could indicate infection, etc. And, of course, FIV/FeLV. Anyway, that test can show results in about half-an-hour. In that one small way, the second vet might have shown some sense.

I didn't think of Lyme Disease, it wouldn't occur to me because I live in an area where we don't have to worry about it.

While posting this, I just remembered my Seshat who fell from a high cat climber and landed badly. She jarred her back. I took her to the emergency vet where they didn't realize she had a problem with her back but bound up her foot because they thought she'd fractured a toe. It took a couple weeks of seeing her spasming in pain and yowling when she moved in a certain way for a third vet to tell me what was wrong with her. I remember that the condition did get worse for a while before it eased up, but it took months for her to be back to nearly normal and more than a year before she had no symptoms at all. This was a long time ago so no vet suggested pain medications, as they would today.