Re: 9/8 Leo AMPS 112 +1 80 +2 42 +4 110 +5 147 +6 192 PMPS
Wow, thanks for that information Marje!
And Lisa, hopefully you can read this tomorrow when you're rested and enjoying that first hot cup of coffee. :smile:
Let me preface this by saying that I have never, ever, had to deal with one of these "oh no, kitty is low!" situations myself. While Bob was on PZI, I wasn't really an active member of the board. I lurked and read for hours each day, but rarely posted, and never asked for any dose advice. I more or less learned here and winged it. Bob wasn't tested nearly enough beyond preshot numbers. However, I did see 40s twice (I have no clue at all how many 40s or 30s I might have missed). I saw a 42, and a 44. Each time, it was around nadir time, and I gave him half a can of FF classics, patted his little head, told him he was a good boy. One time I went back to bed, the other time I went back to work. SO I'm hardly a voice of experience or responsible FD management.
But, when I try to fathom how much I've learned SINCE then by staying here? I have a hard time grasping that that amount of information can fit inside my head.
Sitting where I am sitting, most of you probably won't understand how easy this is for me compared to what it's like for you. I'm not the one looking like this
:shock:
at the meter that says 41 or 36 or some number you can't quite wrap your head around. I understand that for people who have managed lows many times with your kitties, that for instance, when Marje saw the 36 out of nowhere today, it wasn't really a crisis. I even asked her in her condo tonight "how did you deal with it Marje? What does it take for Gracie to come back up?" Because I figured, shoot, she's done this plenty of times, and while it's not like "oh yawn, Gracie is down to 36 again - I'm sure no matter how many times you see it, you're still a little nailbite_smile . And in Marje's condo, she answered my question by saying that Gracie got a total of .75oz of MC 11% fudz. Wow. I use FF with my boys. You know how tiny the cans are, right? That's 1/4 of a can. Does that even fill a teaspoon? If I gave Bob 1/4 can of FF, he'd inhale it and ask "Gee dad, what was the point? Why not just let me lick the lid?"
I guess the entire key, which I have seen lots of people here say is "know thy cat"? It's incredible to me that an amount of food that small is all it took.
I also thought Carl had a really great and very valid point yesterday.....you have to give the food time to work.
When I said that yesterday, I'd gotten in halfway through the day's adventure. When I looked at the recap, my concern was "wow, that's a lot of food going in, and not much BG boost yet". My primary concern at that moment wasn't necessarily the carb content (I paid more attention to that later) but that Leo's tummy was reaching capacity, and if he needed more food, he might not be able to fit much more.
Now I don't know exactly how long it takes for karo, gravy, HC, MC or LC food to get from the bowl to the meter, but my thinking was "I don't think the last two servings of HC have gotten there yet". I imagine this is one of those irritating ECID things, right? No telling how long it takes, because there's too many variables and every cat digests food at a different pace?
This is one thing that has me perplexed, and I've discussed it with Jane and a couple other people by PM - I've read the "how to deal with low numbers" sticky lots of times. Where I get lost is "at what point do you stop the HC/karo/gravy strategy, and cut back to MC or better yet, to LC in order to get the numbers up and then keep kitty surfing?" My instinct says "use the lowest carbs as possible to get the results you need or want". So when I am trying to help people, especially on the rare occasion when I happen to be online and few if any other people are around, I think I tend to advise backing off the carbs maybe too soon? I think what I'm after is trying to see what the last snack did before advising on the next snack?
The lower carb food boost is going to stick around longer than a karo or gravy boost, isn't it? So if you can get the numbers up to safer levels using LC or MC, then is it logical to think that the rise is going to last longer, and maybe the surf will last longer? Does what you feed to boost the numbers have an effect on how much of a bounce is going to follow the lows? Dose a short surf mean a higher bounce? These are questions I don't know the answer to, but I think knowing the answers would influence my advice, kwim?
I remember the very first time I "helped" during a diving exhibition. It was Mikey and Jenn, sometime around the 12 days of Christmas, I think. For a while, it was me, and Jenn, and Marje. I was off the next day, so staying up all night wasn't a problem. But there came a point where Marje had to sign off, and before doing so, she did an awesome job of "prepping" me and Jenn by laying out the guidelines and I had the "sticky" open in a 2nd window. I was READY! A couple hours later, don't remember exactly what the question was that Jenn asked, but I didn't have an answer. So, my response was along the lines of "well, Jenn, I just looked around the board, and you and me are the only people around (I think Karre must have been OTJ or something, because Jane wasn't here :lol: ) So, let's try "this" and if it's wrong, the worst that can happen is somebody will tell us we screwed up tomorrow morning when we're still asleep!
And sure enough, the next day when I checked in, Marje had very graciously pointed out what we should have done (love ya Marje!). The point is, we both learned from it.
I saw Alexa post above, and I know she was only joking, about being a "Failure Bean". Thing is, there is no "fail" with this. Every day/night is a learning experience, and as long as you remember what didn't work, or could have worked better the next time, then progress is being accomplished.
This place is the greatest, and the people here are all "rock stars" in my book. I love doing this "stuff", and helping people out when I can? Love it. No better feeling than signing off for the night and feeling like I somehow helped somebody out. Two or three weeks out of the month, I don't have to worry about setting the alarm to be on time for work, so late nights are what I do anyway. And, I've "met" some really incredibly wonderful crazy cat people in the process. :smile: Every day I learn something new, and I think that's a pretty universal feeling here.
So, is the whole key that you have to be able to figure out what works best, in terms of getting low numbers into safe surfer-dude numbers "you have to know YOUR cat?" And the only way to really do that is to "do that"? Experiment, see what works, and then see if you can find something that works even better the next time?
Sorry for the long post. It's apparently impossible for me to write short stories :lol:
Carl
I'll be using tsps of mc/lc depending on where he is in the cycle. He ate his full breakfast.
