Tell me about it (I have even more!) I also take care of several feral colonies. And you have raccoons?
I've had up to 13 permanent members before. I do cat rescue on my own and adopt out whoever I can, but always get left with either the elderly or ones with medical conditions no one seems to want. Last year was a bad year for us. Lost 4 seniors in a 7 month timeframe. One had HT, severe ibd, and bone marrow cancer got that sweety in the end. Another actually had his kidney failure reversed! Only to get a blood clot after a year. Then another favorite had lived with small cell lymphoma gi for 4yrs successfully on chemo once a week, ibd, and recently diagnosed with HT, but skin cancer got her. And then out of the blue a couple months after her, another had congestive heart failure. So it REALLY would've been nice to have a while in between crises. But I'm sure you know all about that with your work too.
As for the raccoons, I live in the woods and tend to a lot of animals out here. They're not mine, but I've 25 regulars that come to me every night for some basic needs. I have tons of cameras set up to watch for any needing help and do that if it's in my capabilities. If not, they go off to a rehabber. Most the time it's just bite wounds that get infected. But one year a 5mo old had a compound fracture on his back leg. I could only see him limping on the camera, but then he started staying here and not leaving so I grabbed him and rushed him off to the rehabber. They said it looked like he got his leg caught in those sick leg traps. So I went and walked my property and a little beyond but never found anything. They had to have it removed, but an amazing refuge took him in and named him Waylan in Southern VA. He's an ambassador raccoon now.
I even built (with my husband) a med sized pond out back for them, but everyone uses it from the neighborhood cats and dogs, deer, hawks, possums, rabbits, squirrels and other birds and my raccoons. Oh, and the smaller fish I put in there. Originally so they could have fun fishing, but they never catch them so I added some pretty ones to it. That's me! A sucker to anything that comes this way.
Sorry about the rant, but as you can imagine, I don't get out much. Handicap, so can't work. NO one to talk to all day long.
Do they have blood glucose/ketone meters all in one that are trustworthy? I'm getting those new syringes, and figured I might as well buy the ketone one and just get it the same time. I also still have to look into that article about the reliability of using human meters and what's good. I didn't have the time to read through the page yet with all this (we also just finished pulling up the pond to dig it deeper by hand for the animals to enjoy more in between all this), but at this rate, I'm going to run out of those 150 test strips I just bought real quick. Definitely need to find the cheaper route. I'm already buying them the best in food, now have 2 asthmatics to buy inhalers for (actually thought I'd get to get my own before he started on his, can't afford 3 a month), and now the insulin too. Thankfully my vet gave me the first bottle free! A client had just donated hers and it was full. But got to save!
I'll do his +4 and +6 and put that in here too. Here's to hoping!
Those high numbers are frustrating to see but your cat is on insulin and the right diet. You just haven't found the right insulin dose yet. Dose increases are made slowly.