5/5 Smokey Caturday Hello

[Melanie and Smokey]

So our hopes to start posting more fell by the wayside to crazy-crazy life.

Short summary of Smokey's latest - her stitches from the second part of the double-radical-mastecomy combined with pancreas biospy came out on Thursday. Every looked good except we have a large lump on the inside of her leg where the incision ends. I wasn't too concerned because it was there when they gave her back to us (so they couldn't have been concerned right?), but it has gotten bigger. Vet said it is a fluid pocket, and will just need time to go away.

After surgery and while she was on bupe, we cut her insulin in half. Hubby was freaked by her low blues and afraid she was going to drop on him so he was poking he all night long. I didn't want to be bouncing her low then high, so we've been trying to bring her back up to where she was quickly, but not abruptly. Numbers suck.

We are not going to get her into remission again. She has a 2cm green mass on her pancreas and some other smaller nodes over it. Its doubtful that her pancreas will function again. So we need to find a way to get her numbers down. We have a week or two of Lantus left and we will be giving Lev a try.

The poor girl is missing half her hair, but she's also missing her cancer and she's a happy kitty so we're good with a bad hair cut

 

[mybuddybinks]

Hi, guys!!!

glad to hear Smokey is doing well...
and LOVE your outlook on her prognosis!

With beans like you- Smokey is livin' the good life!

best of luck with the lev, Smokey...and don't feel bad about the mastectomy, girl.
Binks was displeased with his infamous "accidental nipple-shaving incident"...and he doesn't even notice it's gone anymore!

sending you mega-healing vines, and lotsa love and hugs!!

celi & binks

 

[julie & punkin (ga)]

hi melanie! great to hear from you and see a smokey condo!

sounds like the surgery went as well as it could - and getting insulin for the rest of her life isn't so terrible. lots of our kitties never go OTJ and still have a great quality of life.

i wish that for miss smokey too! :YMHUG: glad you're keeping in touch!

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

Looks to me like Smokey needs a dosecrease if nothing changes after your 6th cycle.

Remember, that when you switch to Lev, you want to reduce the dose by approx. 30%.

 

[Melanie and Smokey]

I had planned on increasing her in the morning, I believe tonite was her 6th.

One problem we may be having right now is her skin is so tight from the surgeries, it is hard to get ahold of anything to shoot so we may be having some shots that are not the most effective. She is finally getting a little loser along the hips, but boy does she get mad at me when I go there.

Remember, that when you switch to Lev, you want to reduce the dose by approx. 30%.

My vet is pretty cautious with starting new insulins and it sounds like she would like to start over at 1U with Lev.

sounds like the surgery went as well as it could - and getting insulin for the rest of her life isn't so terrible. lots of our kitties never go OTJ and still have a great quality of life.

Yes, the surgery went good and the biopsy was more of a meandering around inside of her :shock: So the surgeon got a very good look at her pancreas and liver which gives us a lot of valuable information for going ahead in treating her, even if its not the most wish for. Now we need to find something that might keep her out of the 300s. I'd prefer under 200, but I'll take out of the 300s for now.

Here's a pic of her now, you can see that tight little tummy tuck. I've been telling people I'm renaming her Mohawk with this crazy hair cut they gave her.