Rea and JayJay
Member
Hi all!
First and foremost I want to say how thankful I am to have found this board. My JayJay was just diagnosed this past Thursday and I have done pretty much nothing but read and research every moment that I'm not at work or taking care of the lil guy.
JayJay is a 9 year old long haired tuxedo that I rescued from a shelter 8 years ago and (like a lot of the stories that I've read on here...) I've had him on indoor cat dry food since the day he got home. He was 18 pounds - but so fat and cute about it I never worried. We did have a bout of sickness roughly four years ago - the poor guy refused to throw up hairballs and ended up tangling up his insides from mouth to bottom but after surgery and much attention he pulled through and hasn't had another health problem until recently.
I noticed a few months ago I thought he was drinking more water and outputting more urine but it was summertime in Florida so I didn't pay as much attention as I should've *guiltguiltguilt*
A few weeks ago he seemed to start dropping weight like nobody's business and I got scared and called the vet. Bad news
Pancreatitis (spelling!) and a blood sugar level of 573. My little boy is SICK.
I have an amazing vet whose office is actually a reconfigured Winnebago and she's a mobile vet so she comes to the house so I don't have to worry about stressing him with trips to the vet - she's been an unreal support system, we're blessed to have found her. But even the best blessings sometimes don't help the worry and the over thinking and the fear and right now I have all of that.
What we've found out so far: The diabetes is most likely caused from the Panceatitis and since it's not acute, it's just something that we're going to have to deal with along with the diabetes.
We started him on 1cc of lantus on Tuesday morning but the vet had to come to the house again by Tuesday afternoon due to JayJay not acting... well, like JayJay. Now that I've done so much reading here, I think that he was plain old nauseous. (She gave him a high does of antibiotic on Monday evening just in case of infection.) Sleepy, licking his lips, coughing up spit etc... I didn't really sleep so much as sit and stare at him last night. I'm pretty sure he's super annoyed at me at this point.
When the vet came out on Tuesday evening she checked his blood sugar and it was already down to 270 (from 573!!) after just the one dose. So there's that.
She gave me a prescription for Hills food so I went and bought a mix of the canned and dry... thankfully JayJay doesn't really care what he eats, as long as he's eating... so changing diet is not a big deal. (I once found him on the counter lapping at butter!) But with further reading here I think perhaps I shouldn't feed him the dry food and go only with the wet? I was going to mix the two together. I don't know.
I also give him teeny-tiny bits of boiled chicken throughout the day. Tomorrow morning I'm going to try giving him a quarter of a Pepcid to try and help with the lip licking, slight burping and hard swallowing. Poor guy.
So, that was far more long winded than intended and Hello!
Thanks again to everybody on this board. I am open to all suggestions, cajoling, finger wagging and greetings that anyone has! Just reading here for the past couple of days has done so much to help my fears.
First and foremost I want to say how thankful I am to have found this board. My JayJay was just diagnosed this past Thursday and I have done pretty much nothing but read and research every moment that I'm not at work or taking care of the lil guy.
JayJay is a 9 year old long haired tuxedo that I rescued from a shelter 8 years ago and (like a lot of the stories that I've read on here...) I've had him on indoor cat dry food since the day he got home. He was 18 pounds - but so fat and cute about it I never worried. We did have a bout of sickness roughly four years ago - the poor guy refused to throw up hairballs and ended up tangling up his insides from mouth to bottom but after surgery and much attention he pulled through and hasn't had another health problem until recently.
I noticed a few months ago I thought he was drinking more water and outputting more urine but it was summertime in Florida so I didn't pay as much attention as I should've *guiltguiltguilt*

A few weeks ago he seemed to start dropping weight like nobody's business and I got scared and called the vet. Bad news

I have an amazing vet whose office is actually a reconfigured Winnebago and she's a mobile vet so she comes to the house so I don't have to worry about stressing him with trips to the vet - she's been an unreal support system, we're blessed to have found her. But even the best blessings sometimes don't help the worry and the over thinking and the fear and right now I have all of that.
What we've found out so far: The diabetes is most likely caused from the Panceatitis and since it's not acute, it's just something that we're going to have to deal with along with the diabetes.
We started him on 1cc of lantus on Tuesday morning but the vet had to come to the house again by Tuesday afternoon due to JayJay not acting... well, like JayJay. Now that I've done so much reading here, I think that he was plain old nauseous. (She gave him a high does of antibiotic on Monday evening just in case of infection.) Sleepy, licking his lips, coughing up spit etc... I didn't really sleep so much as sit and stare at him last night. I'm pretty sure he's super annoyed at me at this point.
When the vet came out on Tuesday evening she checked his blood sugar and it was already down to 270 (from 573!!) after just the one dose. So there's that.
She gave me a prescription for Hills food so I went and bought a mix of the canned and dry... thankfully JayJay doesn't really care what he eats, as long as he's eating... so changing diet is not a big deal. (I once found him on the counter lapping at butter!) But with further reading here I think perhaps I shouldn't feed him the dry food and go only with the wet? I was going to mix the two together. I don't know.
I also give him teeny-tiny bits of boiled chicken throughout the day. Tomorrow morning I'm going to try giving him a quarter of a Pepcid to try and help with the lip licking, slight burping and hard swallowing. Poor guy.
So, that was far more long winded than intended and Hello!
Thanks again to everybody on this board. I am open to all suggestions, cajoling, finger wagging and greetings that anyone has! Just reading here for the past couple of days has done so much to help my fears.