Is this weight gain normal?

[Lydia's mom]

My poor little Lydia has had a rough couple days. She has been super nauseous, and maybe dizzy, but not actually throwing up, seems too weak to actually do it. She's going in to the vet tomorrow morning for blood work and imaging. It was the soonest they could see her. She's not getting around very well at all and I'm concerned that it's because of weight gain. She has put on 1.2lbs (maybe more, it's been a few days since she was weighed) since being diagnosed and starting insulin 11 days ago. She is not eating that much. Seems like at most she's eaten 2 small cans of food a day. She's tough to feed, always been fussy, and mostly she used to pick at the wet/ lick the gravy off and snack on dry. I think I may have tried to change too much at once.
Currently she gets a variety of wet food, but it was mostly fancy feast savory centers and meow mix pate toppers. I've had to go higher carb just to get her to eat anything the past couple days. So, I went out and bought whatever the store had including some gravy packet things and other fancy feast gravy foods.
I guess what I really want to know is, Is that kind of weight gain normal? Why is she blowing up? It took an entire year for her to lose 1lb from her normal 13ish down to 12 and she's now 13.2lbs. That can't be normal...
I'm also wondering if the high blood sugar might be actually a symptom and not the real problem... Hopefully the vet can figure that out.
I'm really worried that this might be the end and I'm just prolonging her misery by trying to fix her. I'm also not the best advocate for her, I get panicky with confrontation. I know it's my responsibility as her human to be the advocate, but I suck at it. Maybe I should have gone to the urgent care vet yesterday but I didn't want to add to the confusion, so I've been trying to care for her at home and hang on til her vet can see her...

 

[Wendy&Neko]

When Lydia was diagnosed, did the vet run a urinalysis? The slightly pink urine sounds like maybe blood in the urine? Or an infection? Since she's going to the vet tomorrow, might want to ask about that. Good luck at the vet tomorrow, I hope they find an answer for you. It does sound like a rather quick weight gain.

Is she getting anything for nausea? I find ondansetron to be the best drug for treating that.

 

[JL and Chip]

Is the weight gain visibly obvious (such as a pot belly or something like that)?

How is her breathing? You can get check her resting respiration rate by counting the number of in and out breaths in one minute (an “in” and “out” counts as “one”).

That does seem like a somewhat quick weight gain (I assume same scale and method of weighing was used??). I hope the vet has some answers for you tomorrow.

 

[Lydia's mom]

The vet did do a urine culture. The reason she was diagnosed was because I noticed the pink urine after cleaning it up off the bathroom floor. They said there was no growth but there was blood, sugar and a few crystals. They gave her fluids and said to treat the diabetes and see what happens. She's not getting anything for the nausea yet. That didn't appear to be an issue the last time she was seen. The other day I was convinced the poor cat had a seizure but after I'd seen it a couple times I realized it was that she has an almost violent reaction to gagging and it takes all the energy she has. My vet is so short staffed, used to be a 2 vet practice, they've been down to 1 for months, so it's difficult to get anything done. The other practices are either an hour or more away, or not accepting new clients. It sucks. I'll ask about ondansetron tomorrow among my myriad other questions.

I'm glad and grateful that this group exists, especially with my limited vet availability.

 

[Lydia's mom]

Her breathing is currently at 17 breaths per minute. She isn't snoring and wheezing like she's done for years so I think it's fairly shallow.

The weight gain is noticable. She's just bigger in the body and squishier looking where she was kind of saggy before. I'm fairly sure she was weighed on the same scale both times.