Chelsea
Member Since 2017
Hi everyone, its been a very long time since I've used a forum!
I've got maybe a unique situation. My cat and I lived with one of my best friends for a few years. He had a herd of cats as result of his last girlfriend leaving them all at his place (she was a real winner).
Anyway, when I moved in we had SIX cats under one roof. It was insane. We managed to adopt out two of them. Which left us with my cat (her name is Mac), my roommate's cat (Squirt), and two from his ex (Sugar and Kitty).
As you can imagine all the cats in the house had their own distinct personality. Kitty, (who is a male and weighed in at a whopping 26lbs.) stole my heart. He carried shoes around the house in his mouth while serenading us with the song of his people. He slept on my feet in the winter. He loved belly rubs and we joked petting his belly fur was like frolicking on the back hair of an angle. He kept the peace when the other cats had their fights. He could take down a full sized rabbit. And happily ate it too.
He was a wonderful cat.
I lived there for two and a half years. I moved out in June of 2016 into an apartment with just Mac. I live just a few miles down the road and I'm over very often. So I still got lots of Kitty belly rub time in.
This spring I noticed that Kitty had dropped a good bit of weight. Which wasn't too uncommon for him. He gets more outside time during the warmer months so its not unusual to see him loose a pound or two. Now you might be thinking 26lbs holly crap that cat is overweight! He certainly had some excess weight, but he wasn't one of those fat cats that looks like a little barrel on legs. He's much larger than the average house cat and stands head and shoulders over all three of the other cats in the house. And is nearly a tail length longer than the rest of them too.
June rolled around and Kitty had continued to really drop weight, and he was obsessively grooming to the point that his tummy and haunches were missing fur. At that point I insisted that he go to the vet. My old roommate took him in, the vet gave Kitty a round antibiotics and a steroid shot. And basically said old cat, what to do you expect? Kitty was 14lbs in June.
It's been a record breaking busy summer for me, so I've not had much of a chance to get over there. I went to lunch with my old roommate's girlfriend last week. She mentioned that Kitty was peeing everywhere still and was still losing weight. I knew that cash was a real factor for my friends, so I offered to foot the vet bill if they took him in again.
He was diagnosed with diabetes on Friday and is now just over 11lbs, his muscles have atrophied and there is zero fat on his body. We start insulin today. I'm taking Kitty so that he can live in a little more of a controlled environment, and I'll be taking care of his medical expenses. Which admittedly are very steep.
I'm mad. I'm sad. I know the vet is going to push me to accept the diabetic food that they push, a good chunk of the reading I've done says the stuff is really a waste of money. I've done a ton of reading on Dr. Pierson's website http://catinfo.org/ which was immensely helpful. I'm super worried about my big guy.
-chels
I've got maybe a unique situation. My cat and I lived with one of my best friends for a few years. He had a herd of cats as result of his last girlfriend leaving them all at his place (she was a real winner).
Anyway, when I moved in we had SIX cats under one roof. It was insane. We managed to adopt out two of them. Which left us with my cat (her name is Mac), my roommate's cat (Squirt), and two from his ex (Sugar and Kitty).
As you can imagine all the cats in the house had their own distinct personality. Kitty, (who is a male and weighed in at a whopping 26lbs.) stole my heart. He carried shoes around the house in his mouth while serenading us with the song of his people. He slept on my feet in the winter. He loved belly rubs and we joked petting his belly fur was like frolicking on the back hair of an angle. He kept the peace when the other cats had their fights. He could take down a full sized rabbit. And happily ate it too.
He was a wonderful cat.
I lived there for two and a half years. I moved out in June of 2016 into an apartment with just Mac. I live just a few miles down the road and I'm over very often. So I still got lots of Kitty belly rub time in.
This spring I noticed that Kitty had dropped a good bit of weight. Which wasn't too uncommon for him. He gets more outside time during the warmer months so its not unusual to see him loose a pound or two. Now you might be thinking 26lbs holly crap that cat is overweight! He certainly had some excess weight, but he wasn't one of those fat cats that looks like a little barrel on legs. He's much larger than the average house cat and stands head and shoulders over all three of the other cats in the house. And is nearly a tail length longer than the rest of them too.
June rolled around and Kitty had continued to really drop weight, and he was obsessively grooming to the point that his tummy and haunches were missing fur. At that point I insisted that he go to the vet. My old roommate took him in, the vet gave Kitty a round antibiotics and a steroid shot. And basically said old cat, what to do you expect? Kitty was 14lbs in June.
It's been a record breaking busy summer for me, so I've not had much of a chance to get over there. I went to lunch with my old roommate's girlfriend last week. She mentioned that Kitty was peeing everywhere still and was still losing weight. I knew that cash was a real factor for my friends, so I offered to foot the vet bill if they took him in again.
He was diagnosed with diabetes on Friday and is now just over 11lbs, his muscles have atrophied and there is zero fat on his body. We start insulin today. I'm taking Kitty so that he can live in a little more of a controlled environment, and I'll be taking care of his medical expenses. Which admittedly are very steep.
I'm mad. I'm sad. I know the vet is going to push me to accept the diabetic food that they push, a good chunk of the reading I've done says the stuff is really a waste of money. I've done a ton of reading on Dr. Pierson's website http://catinfo.org/ which was immensely helpful. I'm super worried about my big guy.
-chels
I wish you The Best Of Luck with your Kitty. 
