Hi, my name is Linda. My cat is called Max.

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LCork

LCork

Member Since 2017
Max is a 20 year old diabetic kitty that I inherited from my mother-in-law when she passed away in August. I've been working on his health issues since he arrived. I'm looking forward to learning best practices so that Max can have the best quality of life possible. He lived with me four years ago. I transported and took care of him and his brother Sancho (RIP little Sancho) when my mother-in-law moved from Florida back to Connecticut so that she could get my father-in-law into a better nursing home. (It turns out that despite the number of retirees in Florida, their nursing homes are terrible. Go figure.) So I'm not new to working with Maxie, or to testing his blood sugar, but he's four years older now and very frail. But he's a fighter and has a lot of good days to offset his less good days. So there's that. The other cats in the house, (because who has just one elderly cat, right?), range in age from 7 to 17. And we've got the usual mixed bag of health issues from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy to hyperthyroidism/kidney disease, and various other issues that sometimes confound me.
 
Hi Max, maybe you can stop moving now buddy. Max's Mom, it's a great thing when someone takes in an older cat. We only have six now and five were cats nobody wanted. Do you get a lot of blank looks when you say cardiomyopathy? We had a family of six that all had it to a degree, Noah is the last. If you already know what it is I have very little to offer. I know there are different variations and ours was the most unpleasant. We have also had a big goofy cat that lived past 23 so it's absolutely do-able. See you in the main forum. :)
 
Noah & me said:
Hi Max, maybe you can stop moving now buddy. Max's Mom, it's a great thing when someone takes in an older cat. We only have six now and five were cats nobody wanted. Do you get a lot of blank looks when you say cardiomyopathy? We had a family of six that all had it to a degree, Noah is the last. If you already know what it is I have very little to offer. I know there are different variations and ours was the most unpleasant. We have also had a big goofy cat that lived past 23 so it's absolutely do-able. See you in the main forum. :)
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Hi there! Max is here to stay! No worries there, he's a good boy. He gets plenty of snuggles from me and my husband. He's not too keen on our other cats so he has a "private suite" in our kitchen & dining room where he can't fall down any stairs and he can eat in peace. Although George T. Kitten has been sneaking in to visit him, so maybe the "private" part of the private suite will change eventually. Georgie is the cardiomyopathy guy, and he's doing really well on his cocktail of drugs. He's outlived his projected life expectancy for the disease, so we're keeping fingers crossed for him to keep on keeping on. See you in the main forum!
 
Wait!!! Noah is just on ASA, what is Georgie taking? It's kind of a mute point, take your time. It's bed time for me, you should see my medicine jar!
 
Noah & me said:
Wait!!! Noah is just on ASA, what is Georgie taking? It's kind of a mute point, take your time. It's bed time for me, you should see my medicine jar!
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What is ASA? Georgie takes Vetmedin (Pimobendan) twice a day, and lasix, atenolol, and benazepril once a day. So far, so good.
 
Noah & me said:
Wait!!! Noah is just on ASA, what is Georgie taking? It's kind of a mute point, take your time. It's bed time for me, you should see my medicine jar!
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Also - we use an app called "CareZone" to keep it all straight.
 
I just looked up CareZone. You should start a thread about that, a lot of people might find that interesting. I'll bookmark and tag you later.
Last week someone double dosed their kitty and poof, they never posted again.
 
I'm sorry to let you all know that Max passed away on Tuesday. He was a good boy. It was not due to any diabetic complications, in fact I had recently gotten him a new batch of insulin compounded by BCP Veterinary Pharmacy, and his readings were really getting to be predictably good. On Sunday he was his usual self, but on Monday wasn't as interested in eating as he usually was, and Tuesday he was very much less social in the morning and again, not interested in food. He was a good eater, too. Never had a problem with him cleaning his plate. I was working at my vet clinic that day, so I just wrapped him in a blanket and popped him into his carrier and took him to work with me. When his doctor examined him his body temperature was 92. His breathing wasn't right either, very raspy sounding, something that used to come and go. They put him in a cage for observation with some warming devices, gave him some fluids and also some food, and he ate a little bit. But his respiration continued to deteriorate. X-rays showed that the problem was not with his lungs, so the best we could determine was that there was a mass or some kind of infection blocking his airway. Steroids were off the table due to his being a diabetic, and so was any kind of imaging because that would require his being anesthetized and he was not stable enough for that. Antibiotics were a possibility, but he was already in distress and they would take time to work. Even in an oxygen tank he was starting to really struggle, so after talking with my husband and confirming with all of his vets that there was no course of treatment that would give him back a comfortable quality of life, I made the decision to let him go. That day would have been my mother-in-law's 80th birthday. She adored Max. I like to think that she just wanted her boy back and he was ready to go home to his mama. Here is a photo of him when he was young and healthy to remember him by.
Max at the window.jpg
 
Noah & me (GA) said:
I just looked up CareZone. You should start a thread about that, a lot of people might find that interesting. I'll bookmark and tag you later.
Last week someone double dosed their kitty and poof, they never posted again.
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Oh dear, that is very sad. I am happy to chat with anyone about CareZone. It's a great little app. We suddenly have a lot fewer kitties on meds so we're not really using it now, but it was a great help when we had so much to juggle. Our kitty Eliza Doolittle passed away 10 days before Max, unexpectedly. She had a mass in her chest that only starting giving her symptoms when it metastasized to her brain and started giving her neuro symptoms.
 
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