introducing myself and my child Blue...who passed

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blueblue

blueblue

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Hi my name is Teri and my child Blue was 9 years old, He was a handsome boy,tuxedo a bit feral didnt trust anyone but me...he came down with diabetes in August of this year and died Nov 18th....from ketoacidosis...he was jaundice towards the end, i have soooo many questions...and believe i am in the right place....i need to get to the bottom of why he died im hoping some people on this site is probably my best bet....I have read this site before and asked the vet about checking his glucouse at home and he replied the internet is a no no....well now blue is gone...I believe the vet was wrong and partially to blame..
ive been beating myself up i have alot more to say but this is just the introduction...thank you....please any comments im so torn!!!!
 

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Oh, Teri, I am so sorry you lost your beautiful boy.

Unfortunately vets are like gps. They have to know a little about a whole lot of species and all their various illnesses. They may get a workshop in feline diabetes. I think, too, that some owners are so overwhelmed by the diagnosis and the thought that their cat will need daily shots, that vets don't push for much more. My vet had never had a patient that was home tested. I don't think many vets do. Vets have probably had owners who were ready to put the cat to sleep when they heard the diagnosis so they may get used to starting out with the easiest route - shots and the occasional test at the vet.

Please don't blame yourself. It sounds like you gave Blue a life filled with love. What more could a kitty ask for? He didn't know he had diabetes. He just knew he was cared for, had good food to eat and a human who loved him.
 
Your vet was wrong about the internet (this site is a great resource!) and home testing. But even cats who are tested and cared for following FDMB's recommendations have died from ketoacidosis. I agree with Sue that most vets are not only GPs, they are expected to know how to treat a bunch of different species.

We know you did the best that you could. Please be kind to yourself and stop beating yourself up.
 
Teri

Welcome and I am so sorry to hear about your Blue. The vet was wrong about checking blood sugar at home. Mine told me the same thing NOT to check my cats BG at home, I did it anyway. She also had my cat on to much insulin.
The others will come along shortly and can tell you about ketoacidosis as I do not know about that. I am so sorry you lost Blue this way. You are in the right place to get answers for sure.
Blue was a beautiful cat am I am truly sorry.

Terri
 
I'm so sorry for your loss of Blue :sad: (((hugs to you))).
I have more to say, but am trying hard to hold my tongue. see the steam

Blue knows how much you love him. Right now I believe he is very content, and he is feeling good, while waiting for you, for the day when you can join him.
 
Wow!!!! thanks so much, it helps when people reply....its so hard when you cant talk to your child and they look at you and trust you!!!! I love my Blue, when i put him to sleep, they were so kind at the emergency i laid on a couch and Blue laid on me, i held him and he died on me...I am grateful i got to at least do that...What hurts the most is
Blue was not a cat that trusted anyone, when he had his first curve, i came back to the vets and spent hours with him...so he wasnt in the back stuck in a cage w/people and animals he didnt know....when i had to leave him for two days so they could give him the help the iv etc....i made a consious decision to let them do there job and not come in and bother them...and now i keep thinking that was wrong....he im sure was so scared and where is my mommy? i read one of the causes for dka can be stress...."leaving him there" for two days i keep going over this and thinking i could have saved him if i visited....im heartbroken...and ive read so much that about dka on here i believe he could have been saved...i agree this was very overwhelming.....and i dont get why the emergency told me he had no mucous membrane left....when i told my vet he seemed confused? im sorry im rambling but i need to get this out and feedback to try to understand why he couldnt have been saved....Thank you so much for any input
 
BIG LOOOONG HUG Teri....I can't reply right now as I just lost one of my babies today (not FD) but wanted to share a hug....you're never alone here. Ever......
 
Hi Teri
I'm so so so so sorry to hear about Blue and the fact that you lost him and th tragic way he died. There is just no getting around how sad and painful that is. I'm sad for you, my soul kitty, Fred, died a year ago and I'm still sad.

Yes, your vet was wrong, and if it were done, I'd consider suing for malpractice. A human doctor could NEVER tell a human not to check their glucose--it could kill them. It might even be illegal, or a bit of advice that could get them barred from practicing medicine. Unfortunately, animals don't have the same respect or rights as human do, yet. And even though your vet was uneducated and wrong, your vet is not an anomoly and we'd have to sue the majority of them for giving the wrong, uninformed advice.

I just had a similar bad-vet-advice experience with a rescue that I saved 2 weeks ago. He was a straggly awful looking kitty named Shane (Sebastian now) who was on the kill list to be killed the next morning at the New York City animal shelter. He was in ketoacidosis and had been there at the shelter for 3 days, they were treating him sort of but not really, and now he was about to die. He clearly had some owners who had let him starve to death by not treating his diabetes (he is bone thin and the ketoacidosis was from untreated diabetes resulting in high high blood glucose numbers.) I saw his terrible picture and all I could think was that this poor little boy had experience no love--awful humans who treated him like crap--and then his final 3 days of life in the fear-filled shelter with crying cats and docs who are lonely and terrified. After Fred died and I had treated his diabetes for 5 years, I felt like it was perhaps my calling to treat the older sick animals since I could do so. But I also wanted a break because the care can be consuming. BUT, I saw this little guy and just couldn't let him get such a bad rap by humans. So I pulled him with the help of a cat-rescue group I volunteer with and picked him and immediately delivered him to the vet--not a 24 hour hospital that was well equipped but a nice vet who works with tons of rescues.

Anyway, the vet did save his life from ketoacidosis, I'll give him credit for that. But then, once he was in better condition after a week and ready to go home and be stabilized on his regular insulin, I requested that a certain insulin be used--Lantus Glargine. He said OK but hadn't used it and didn't know it. I provided him with all sorts of resources on the dosing and how it worked--all from this site. He was impressed and grateful I thought. I asked hiim to be CONSERVATIVE with the dosing. This kitty was 6 pounds!!! (Normally he would be 14 at a healthy weight I think, he's a big boned boy.) I asked him to give 0.5 units and stick with that for AT LEAST 3 days as the literature suggested.

He did not. He raised it on each and every subsequent dose because he kept getting high blood glucose numbers. But because they were not testing very often, they were MISSING the hypos--low numbers that the cat was dipping to that then catapulted him into HIGH numbers--to save his life from hypoglycemia. But the vet didn't test the glucose enough so missed this and assumed that the insulin wasn't working and kept jacking up the dose. On top of that they starved the kitty for the 12 hours between shots--ONLY Feeding at shot time. This also is wrong and ontributed to the hypos. Anyway, when I realized that they were doing everything all wrong--it's hard not to trust the vet even when you do know because they are the 'doctor' after all--I insisted on taking him homoe. They wouldn't let me do so without signing a waiver saying I was doing so 'against medical advice' Ha! The arrogance. One hour after I got the kitty home, the morning when the dose had been jacked up again to 2.5 units---from 0.5 units 3 days prior--I checked his blood sugar and he was 39--hypoglycemia and serious possibility of death. I was able to raise it up, etc. And now I have him on 0.5 dose, we are still figuring it out, but he's looking GREAT on this dose, his blood glucose numbers.

Anyway, that's just my little recent tale, I have others from Fred. Where the vets were wrong about how I should treat and/or medicate his kidney disease AND heart disease. And in all the instances I questioned it and then was able to do the right thing--one example was the doc prescribed 4 drugs for his newly diagnosed heart disease. The second day on the drugs Fred did not move for 10 hours--even though he'd been GREAT the entire week before on NO DRUGS. I took him off one of them--thevet got mad at me (but I researched--ON THE INTERNET--pulled up the vet medical journal articles myself and I have a PHDn in nutriton and phsyiology-- I can understand this stuff). I knew one of the other drugs was bad too, so after toing and froing--and feeling very bad as well about confronting my vet--I finally decided I had to stump up the money for another cat cardiologist opionin. And, as it turns out, that one agreed that Fred, at the time was 19 1/2 years old, none of these drugs were PROVEN to prevent anything- they were more standard protocol he said (what I'd read on my INTERNET RESEARCH!) And he agreed, this kitty is old,had multiple chronic conditions, he was fine OFF the drugs, let's just keep him on one--Plavix--to prevent blood clots. And that's what we did for 10 more months till he died.

But it was only because I challenged the vet that this occurred. I'm pretty certain that the drugs would have to Fred's demise much sooner. However, Fred's brother, ARtichoke, who died at 14 was not so lucky. I did not have the knowledge or research tendencies then and I look back and realize that there were many things I could have done that I didn't. But I just didn't know. Which is sad, but that is what it was.

So....I'm so sorry for you. I know how hard it is to be without your baby, and also to have wished it coudl have been a different way of dying.

You may not be ready, but this experience may be a catalyst for you to help other cats who are helpless--and there are plenty. You clearly have a ton of love to give, and the fact that you are here means that you are capable of going above and beyond to help some kitties that would others be ignored or even put to death. There is a huge need for foster and adopted homes for senior pets. Lots of subhuman people just dump them like they are trash once they get sick and old, and they often don't treat their disease eitehr. If you look at Pets On Death Row on Facebook, you'll see the kitties every night in New York city that are killed--I have fostered 5 of these kitties now this year--all of them adoptable and not worthy of being killed. The last of the 5 is the diabetic one.

So anyway, my thoughts & Prayers are with you. I'm so sorry. I'm afraid it's probably going to be sad for you for a long time. Maybe the only thing that could give you even a little relief is to help other kitties somehow.

best
Martica
 
Don't keep second guessing yourself Teri you'll drive yourself nuts. You did what you thought was best for Blue with the information that you had and that's about the most that any of us can do for those that we love.

Your vet was wrong but how were you to know. My vet told me not to treat Vyktor's diabetes. I wasn't comfortable with that answer so got a second opinion. The second vet said the same thing. A week later Vyktor was hospitalised with DKA and his life hung in the balance. Thankfully he survived and I have now found the confidence to tell the new vet we are seeing that we are treating Vyktor my (the forums) way not his way. If there's a next time you will know better than to trust the vet and that kitty will have Blue to thank for that.

I'm sure that Blue knows you did your best. Deepest sympathy.

Serryn
 
I am so sorry for your loss.

You did everything you could with the information you had.

May all your wonderful memories of Blue comfort you...

...'til you meet again.
 
I am so sorry about your loss of your sweet boy. It was not your fault. You were trying your best....your baby would tell you not to be hard on yourself. You loved him, you tried to help him. It's all you could do. And now you will grieve...but just grieve...don't blame yourself. We all have regrets....my diabetic kitty is in remission right now....but I watched him suffer for 2 or 3 months and just thought it was because he was getting older.....until he started looking so bad and had this smell.....which was the sweet smell that the vet knew immediately was the smell of diabetes. When I see him running through the house playing, chasing, I beat myself up about letting him suffer needlessly for those weeks. But we don't know.....as much as we care, and as much as we we would do anything for our kitties......recognizing and treating illness in kitties is difficult....it's hard for the vets, too.

But this situation repeats itself over and over....we see it so much here. Kitties that could be greatly helped, and beans who are willing to do anything for their kitties, are denied the tools to take care of the kitties. I don't think most vets deny the treatment on purpose....it's like Sue says, they do not have enough experience with it, and, I'm sure, that not all of their caregivers of the kitties are willing to do what we will do. It is hard, it's time consuming, it absorbs your life until you get a handle on it. But it is so hard due to the fact that, frankly, those of us who will do anything have to find out what to do on our own, be willing to do it, and be willing to, respectfully, disagree with our vets and entreat them to work with us.

Feline diabetes is growing....we see so many new people on this board every week.....so many more register than ever post. Cats are living so much longer than they did, and with them living longer, diabetes becomes more common.

Is there anything this board could do....appeal to licensing boards for vets, to whoever sets continuing education requirements for vets, to vet schools....somehow to require more training/updated training in diabetes.....perhaps a script for the vet to have in their initial discussion of the diagnosis with the bean....to determine if they've got a bean who wants to, or can only, just shoot blind and hope for the best, and leave all the testing to the vet, or if there is a bean who is like the people on this board....who want the knowledge and the tools to aggressively fight this disease. And, of course, training of the vets for what we know is working. We don't just think it's working. We see it work over and over and over. I don't see how the veterinary community could possibly see what happens to the kitties who are taken under the wings of this community....the success stories.

I am no expert, so I can't do this. There are experts here who could verbalize this.... This probably belongs over in Think Tank....but too late now. Maybe Dr. Lisa would have some ideas on how and whom to approach with our appeal for better treatment by vets of this disease.....I know most of us do not have much in the way of financial means (most of our money goes to our kitties), but we might be able to cough up a little money each, for postage for mailing letters, printing letters to appeal to the state license boards asking for help for better treatment????
 
Teri,

My heart goes out to you for your loss. When our pets are in trouble, or need other care, we naturally take them to the vet, schooled in caring for our animals. As others have said, we do what we know to do to care for our fuzzy loves.

A cat with diabetes is no different. We take them to the vet and follow their advice. We care for our fuzzy love as instructed. We do the same with ourselves with our doctors. In our case, though, we have doctors that specialize in areas, as well as general practitioners. Vets tend to be general practitioners (GP). Would we continue to see a GP if we were diagnosed with diabetes? No, we'd go to a specialist. We don't have that option for our cats so we do the best we can do with what we have.

You cared for Blue. You loved him. He loved you. Grieve his loss, not his care or lack thereof.

If you ever have another diabetic cat, you now know there are alternative sources of information, "specialists" of sorts - those that live with this disease and care for it day in and day out. In truth, if I ever have another pet ailment needing specialized care, I will search the internet for others more involved instead of blindly following a vets limited educated advice, now knowing what I know from here.

Again, grieve the loss of Blue, not what might have been. :smile:
 
You are ALWAYS welcome to come here. Sometimes everything you can do is not enough. Sometimes it's just their time. Please know your Blue knew your love He did. There is something between us and our kitties that love concurs...Let that love fill your heart. That is where Blue is...waiting till you meet again. cat_pet_icon
My sincere and heartfelt condolences,
jeanne
 
thank you everyone for giving me support, i just cant sttop reliving the fact that i left him alone for two whole days at the vet not once visiting i feel horrible that i did that!!!! I know u say i did the best i could but i think really if i went to visit at least for an hour or two just him knowing i was there would have perked him up and i cant forgive myself....he would have probably made it, when he came home tues nite, when i brought him back wed they said he had looked better cuz he was w/me...so you see thats why i feel i screwed up....can stress really throw him into dka??? becuz like i said monday he wasnt that bad i feel like on monday they took him in the back and didnt work on him right away or something bcuz he looked like he was dying when i got him on tuesday!!!! also, they said he had liver and kidney failure or infection i didnt have money for the ultra sound so they gave me anitbiotics....the vet said this had nothing to do w/diabetes...but i dont believe that dont the kidney and liver get effected and work harder from lack of insulin??? and his mouth was locked what did that mean? and his legs and arms were stiff what did that mean? he was shaking his head thurs and groweled what was that does anyone know? pleasse.....his eyes were black did he go blind??? or was he in shock???the vet couldnt answer any of this
 
I hate to see you do this to yourself. DKA is caused by too little insulin and high bg numbers. As others have said, cats here who are being monitored have gone into DKA.

It sounds like your vet may have been in over his head, but sometimes cats die with even the best care. You aren't a vet. This wasn't something you could have fixed.

What was important to Blue that you loved him, cared for him. He was safe and happy and content. Please don't let the last hours of his life overshadow the wonderful life he had with you.
 
Hi Sue,

Thank you, i know i should stop i think if someone could clear some of my questions i could rest and let him rest in peace...thank you he was so special to me.....i had no children, he was my kid...i just was hoping if my questions were truthfully answered it would help..like would two days of missing shots do this? or changing times because of work? maybe i will go get help i really have no one to talk to about this my family thinks im crazy
 
The problem is that no one can truthfully answer your questions, probably not even your vet. We are guessing it was DKA and yes, no insulin can cause DKA. But maybe your vet was right and it was a major infection that couldn't be stopped in time.

I just hate to see you make your focus the way he died, instead of the way he lived, with you.

Have you posted on our Grief forum? There are lots of people there trying to make their way through, just like you. Maybe seeing how they are coping will help you.

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewforum.php?f=16
 
i asked the vet and the emergency vet and they both said that wouldnt do it, it would take longer then that to throw him into dka, but i didnt miss it, just there were times i thought i gave him the lantus and his fur was wet, anyways....so new here not sure where i posted...but i will start posting there ...thank you
 
im trying to find out if there is a way to copy and move this to the grief forum. sorry i am so new to this wasnt sure....hopefully someone can help.
 
There is. Go up to the URL on the top of this page. Copy it. Then go to the other forum, start a new topic and paste the URL into the text box. Highlight the whole URL again and choose the URL button just above the text box. That will put the link in your new post. If you can't get it to work, tell me where you want it and I will put it there for you.
 
its not working, thats great if u can do this , in grief...i really would appreciate it ..Happy New Year
 
BLUE DIED FROM COMPLICATIONS AND KETOACIDOSIS I HAVE WRITTEN MOST OF IT ON HERE BUT WAS TOLD IT SHOULD BE MOVED PLEASE USE THE LINK I COULD USE FEEDBACK THANK YOU
 
It doesn't have to be moved. It is now posted on both forums- here and grief. I just suggested grief because you said you thought maybe you should talk to someone and the posters on grief know what you are going through. The grief forum has been really quiet this weekend but check in every so often for replies.
 
I'm so sorry for your loss.
Like someone said - don't beat yourself up. You didn't know.
Your Blue is at peace now. Try to remember the happy times.
((((((hug)))))))
 
I know how you feel. Midora was ill in the spring of 2005 and I had taken her to the vet 3 times from January to May. The day before she died we xrayed her and her kidneys were kaput - one enlarged one shrunken. i spent the night on the floor with her, ready to have her PTS the next day but she died at 5am the following day. I cried going down to my garage to get the arrier to put her in. I cried to the vet's office, where I sat in front, crying for a 1/2 hour waiting for them to get there. Thank God for Lisa (vet tech) who gave me comfort and took great care of midora until Happy Trails came for her (I had her privately cremated and have her remains). I went to morning Mass and cried. I couldn't go to work that day (weird thing was a co-workers dog died the day before).

I blamed myself and my vet for a long time, but mostly myself. This vet was recommended to me by my BFF, who had moved to Orlando about 4 years before me. The man who saw Midora that spring was the old vet - he had sold his practice to a new guy and was working part time. The last time I saw the new guy, who was younger than I was and more "tech." He was the one who ordered the x-ray. a year later I adopted Cedric and had no qualms about taking him to this guy. When cedric was dx'd last April with FD, he had experience, having a FD and K-9 d at home, but I don't think he expected Cedric to go into remission so fast - after a month on Lantus. Change to his diet, a little more exercise in our new townhouse, and the insulin did the trick. I have told them about this site and bought them our FDMB calendar for 2012 in the hopes that others who come in will learn a little too (they are aware of DCIN as well).

I had Midora for 13 years and I hope she felt that she had a good life with me. I loved her dearly and was crushed when she died. I too don't have children and my cats (I recently rescued the neighborhood stray) are my babys. When I can't get a straight answer out of them, I have found a wonderful animal communicator on this board who gets the point accross.

Please try to remember the good times and love you had with your blue. My nana, who died last month, had a blue points siamease that she named - you guessed it - Blue. How did your baby get his name?
 
aww....well midora is playing upstairs w/blue....my nephews named blue, and i love the name i just got a new kitty and having trouble naming it....we were thinking blue jr. i need help!!!! lol..take care and thanks for the comforting words.
 
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