6/9 BabyBoo AMPS 259 +4 90 +5 101 +8 178

[babyBoo]

Looking for some helpful opinions.

This was Boo's first test in green and only one blue previous to that since diagnosis a month ago. My plan is to just do a PMPS and then maybe sleep shortly after or more likely stay up and do a +2. The shots are at 11am/11pm. I wouldn't be waking up until approx 8:30 the next morning.

I've posted two other threads that kind of outline the situation. I'd like to get sleep from 1am -8am however the drop today in 4 hours after AMPS has me a bit concerned of how low Boo might go if I am not awake to make him eat. Should leaving out an extra meal be enough if +2 doesn't drop much from whatever the PMPS might be.

my intro thread

my only other thread

In brief, wife has had terminal lung cancer diagnosed at start of year and gets bad at times, hospitalized twice. Just got home from second trip there a week ago. I was shift working midnight-8am, 4pm-midnight, and 8am-4pm so the shot target times were 10/10, 2/2, and 6/6 with 1/2 hour adjustments made over three days to get to next target time. However work and caregiver duties became too much and took compassionate care leave for up to the next 26 weeks. 11am/11pm I think will work great for shot times while I am still on leave.

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

One tidbit of information to consider that echoes your thinking. Many cats experience lower numbers during the PM cycle. It may be worth considering if an 11:00 what time will give you the ability to get some PM cycle tests in. Alternatively, can you get a "sleep test" -- set an alarm, get up and test, and go back to sleep?

Have you thought about getting a timed feeder? that will help to insure that food is available vs Baby Boo eating everything all at once.

 

[babyBoo]

I should probably do a sleep test around 3:30 tonight. All the time wouldn't work so I might have to rethink the 11/11 times. Mornings get kind of hectic usually when the wife wakes up, her mobility is limited at best. Breakfast,washroom, pills, nurse visits and 11 am comes up fast. I might try to move towards 9, it might not be as difficult as I think it would be.

 

[julie & punkin (ga)]

It sounds like you are carrying a lot on your shoulders.

I think I'd work on how I could get food available every night for Boo so that you can sleep. Since you have 1 other cat (is that right), you may want 2 autofeeders set to go off at the same time with the same food in each one. Hopefully Boo would get at least 1 of the feeders! Many people like the PetSafe 5 compartment feeder. It has 4 covered compartments so you can have it open 4 times, and these feeders allow you to set the times that you want. Some feeders have preset times so you don't have flexibility in deciding what time they will open.

One way that we used this: if Punkin's preshot was lower than usual and we thought he might be going into low numbers, we'd put some food in each of the 4 covered compartments and set them to open every 30 minutes. That covered 2 hours. If we were really worried, one of us would go home from work, retest punkin, put more food in the feeder and reset the timers to go off every 30 minutes for another 2 hours.

Most of the time we didn't have to do that second step, but it was a little bit of insurance for us that we could.

Since your shot time has to change, which I think is a very do-able situation in the way you've described, then I would just try to grab a test when you can. The pm cycle is pretty important because so many cats have their lowest numbers at night. In one scenario, if you are shooting at 11am/11pm and sleeping 1-8:30am, I'd make a practice of testing him right before you go to bed and loading up the timed feeder if you think he might head into low numbers.

In your case, putting more food in the feeder, or even putting some medium or high carb in the feeder, depending on what you think might be needed during the night, would be ok. Better to give him too much food in the night than not enough.

Then I'd grab a test at 8:30 as soon as I woke up. Of course, if your wife needs you, Boo will wait.

One last thought - as you are changing shot times when your shift changes, I'd make sure I always had at least 12 hours in between the shots. Better to have the shot cycle be 14 hours instead of 10 hours. If you have to move the shot time early in the other direction, I'd allow a longer cycle then as well.

In other words, if your shot time is 11/11 and you need it to go to 9/9, rather than shooting 2 hours early on one cycle, I'd shoot at 11pm, skip the next morning's shot and shoot at 9pm the next night - meaning a 22 hour cycle instead of a 10 hour cycle. If you shot at 11pm and again at 9am, that's only 10 hours. Most of the time that's too short of a cycle -there are times it might be ok, but you'd want someone with experience to help you determine if it was safe to shoot early or not.

Sending warm thoughts your way. Please ask if we can help you with anything.