workingwifey

This past Saturday (two days ago) we took Cootie to the vet so that he could get a blood glucose curve to see if the 2 units 2x a day was enough insulin. He had to stay at the vet all day and they drew his blood once an hour, through his ear. We picked him up around 5pm and they said that we need to up his dose to 4 units 2x a day. I have to take him back in on Sept. 8th for the day so that they can do another curve. The vet said I can feed him either wet or dry food, as long as it’s the kind for diabetic cats (Low car, high protein), but today I asked my husband to go out and get some wet food because we’re almost out of dry. My main reason for this is that cootie has a “cavity” which hurts him, and he has a hard time chewing his food. The vet won’t fix his tooth though until the diabetes gets under control, which makes me a bit angry because I don’t want Cootie to be in pain! But whatever. Cootie also gained 6 ounces last week which is great, the vet said that’s a very good sign. He’s acting normal and seems to be happier now that we (I say “we”, but there is no “we” involved. It is just ME) have been giving him the insulin, so that makes me happy. He is still really good when I give the shots. The only thing he is starting to do now is when I am trying to find the skin and tent it, he tries to roll on his back LoL! It’s funny, but makes me kind of hard to tent. I just hope he can go into remission eventually, the insulin and glucose curves are expensive! Have already spent about $550 in a week and a half!

Recently my cat, Cootie, lost 5 pounds rather quickly. He’s 8 years old and has always been around 20 pounds, so when he went from 21lbs to 16lbs, I got anxious. I have taken him to the vet before to get checked for Diabetes but since he didn’t have it last time, I didn’t think much of how he was acting this time (lots of water drinking & peeing). So I took him in last Wednesday and they called me Friday to tell me yes, he does have diabetes We took him to the vet on Saturday and they taught us how to “tent” the skin and prepare the syringe and administer the insulin. Right now I have to give him 2 units of Insulin, twice a day (I do it at 6am and 6pm). The first couple times I did it, it was really hard for me to “tent” the skin correctly. I still have trouble with it but think I am getting the hang of it. At the vet, the assitant grabbed a ton of skin when she showed us where to tent the skin, but here at home the two time I’ve tented only a little bit of skin, I can feel the needle actually going into his skin and he doesn’t flinch at all. The other times, he flinches but doesn’t run away. The very first time I shot him, he flinched and yelled at me and turned to look at me with the madest/most painful/sadest look ever…it made me SO sad. He seems to be doing well today though, today is day 5. We take him back to the Vet on Saturday so that they can take another blood test and see if we are giving him too much insulin or not enough. I never thought I would have to be giving my baby Insulin shots! I would think about it every once in a while because I know that male cats over 7 years of age are more likely to get diabetes and 1 in 400 cats gets it, but could never picture myself poking him with a needle!! I’m glad we took him in and he’s getting help. The insulin is really expensive though, as well as the blood curve test thing (glucose curve?). More to come….