A Tale of Two Kitties

This year has been a rough one in terms of the health of our cats. We have two. They are members of the family, as we have had them for 13 years now, or more specifically, my husband has had them for 13 years, and I have been a part of their family for roughly twelve and a half.

This summer, we noticed one of our cats had become very skinny. We had not noticed her slow decline, as she had been hiding out under beds a lot, I'm guessing because she was feeling so poorly. She also began to vomit yellow bile. So we rushed her off to the vet and shelled out a lot of money, and had the news given to us that she had pancreatitis, which had two possibilities...well, three...one was to send her off to some specialty vet place that would cost us thousands for some groundbreaking treatment (uh, no...mostly because we don't have that kind of handy cash), we could give her pills and she would get better, or we could give her pills, she would NOT get better, and we'd have to put her down.

So we got the pills and went through the exciting adventure of trying to force feed a cat food and pills. For anyone who has never done this, believe me, this is a challenge worthy of the olympics because
1) The cat does not want you to catch her
2) The cat does not want to be held once you catch her
3) The cat does not wish to eat because she feels bad
4) The cat definitely does not want to swallow pills and
5) The cat has 5 pointy ends (4 paws and a mouth full of teeth), knows how to use them, and has the wiggly snake move down pat.

But we managed. She took pills for probably about two months, and then got a clean bill of health...and since then has become somewhat chubby. Not enough to worry about, but at 13 years of age, I'd say she's allowed to roly-poly her way through the rest of her days if she so chooses, as long as she doesn't go to extremes.

Now this past week, the next adventure began. Our OTHER cat began to look skinnier than usual. His was not such a large drop in weight before we noticed, as he is a much more social animal, sleeping on the bed with us at night, instead of under.

So we took HIM to the vet and shelled out large amounts of money to have him tested, expecting the same result...but it was not to be. Our fluffy baby has diabetes.
What does this mean, I asked the vet? Let me just say that life over the next few years will be drastically different.

First of all, we had been giving the cats their daily allotment of food in the morning and letting them nibble on it throughout the day....now they get fed twice a day, at 12 hour intervals, they eat different food, what they don't eat is put away, instead of left out, after about 20 minutes. And the amount he gets is carefully measured, as is the amount he leaves behind. They are both having a rough time adjusting to this one, as they haven't quite come to grips with the fact that if they walk away from the food, it doesn't reappear until much, much later, instead of being there for their easy convenience.

Secondly, once we determine how much he ate, we have to carefully measure out his medicine. Twice a day. Every 12 hours. He has insulin shots. I must say that giving a cat an insulin shot is a lot easier than it sounded when the vet first told me about it. Because it just goes under the skin, and not into a vein or anything, you just grab a handful of scruff, stick the needle in, pull back the plunger a bit to make sure you didn't hit any vessels (make sure no blood in the needle), then push it in, pull the needle out, and the cat is good to go. Doesn't hurt him, so he just kind of sits there while I do it with an "Are we done yet?" bored look on his face.

Thirdly...the hard one...he needs blood glucose tests every few days to make sure his dose is right. How to get blood from a cat. Yeah. Poor guy gets to have pierced ears. There is apparently a teeny vein by the edge of a cat's ear, so you have to stick a lancet right through the ear at this spot, hope you hit the vein, and get the blood onto the test stick. First of all, this vein is tiny, so if you miss, you have to keep poking your cat in the ear. Secondly, this DOES bother the cat to have something sharp poked through his ear. Thirdly, the cat doe not want anyone touching his ears to begin with, so THIS is a two person job...one to hold the cat, one to poke the cat and get the blood. Then one of the two has to be able to swoop up the tester and get the blood on the strip before the cat decides to sprint off to parts unknown.

Saturday is going to be very interesting...we only had to do it once today, but Saturday will be the one-week marker of the start of his insulin, which means he needs to have a blood glucose curve plotted....meaning we have to test his blood glucose every three hours from the time we get up until the time we go to bed...about 7 times. Something tells me he is not going to be volunteering to come after the first two or three.

Fourthly...snacks and treats. We used to give them a small dribble of milk or the water from a can of tinned fish, kitty treats....that sort of thing, once in awhile. We are no longer allowed to do any of that because it will mess up his blood sugar.
Fifthly, all trips will have to be planned out in detail...daytrips will require us to leave home after 7AM, and back before 7PM. Longer trips will require a stay at a kennel that is able to give him his shots and such. So basically no big trips for a few years, probably, as that gets very pricey, as they charge by the shot, and he likely has a few years left in him.

The vet says that 1 in every 5 cats seems to miraculously get rid of the diabetes, but to not hold our breath on his being one of them. I still hope he will be that 1.