Jester - the skinny after my trip

[shelaghc]

After much mental quibbling and revisiting everyone's input, I first told the sitter 1.25U, at least to start until we saw how much Jester was eating without me around.
Then I changed my mind and decided since he had had 1.5U before I left, to keep that dosage in the evening.

The main sitter was extremely indulgent and Jester wound up eating almost 2 cans that night, so we kept him there the next morning.

But when he ate under a can Saturday morning and had been given 1.5U I had a minor panic and had the secondary sitter drop his dosage all the way down to 1U - forgetting that it wouldn't be a great idea to increase the dosage again without monitoring.

Duh.

So, reluctantly, I told her to keep it at 1U for the rest of my time away.

The good news is that his pre-bed BG was 324 and AMPS was 327. Not *too* bad underthe circumstances. So back up to 1.25U for now.
His appetite is a little off this morning. But the temps inside, with no AC, have been around 80. So it's not overly surprising.

I have an appointment at about 10:30 and will check him again before I leave.

Thanks to everyone for putting up with my neuroses last week and apologies if I was rude with anyone.

Btw, the second sitter said she's willing to learn how to test, provided we take it slowly. This part will be wonderful if it works out.

 

[Djamila]

How was your trip? Did you enjoy your time?

 

[Rachel]

The mental quibbling made me laugh...I do the same thing! Whole arguments in my head. How lovely that the sitter is willing to learn to test! That would make life easier.

Did you have a nice trip? A little break can mean the world sometimes.

 

[Kris & Teasel]

This was a great experience for you! I hope your sitter will learn to test.

 

[Noah & me (GA)]

Thanks to everyone for putting up with my neuroses last week

That's not neuroses! I'll show you neuroses!
I'm not sure if you knew this but earlier this month we flew in eight friggin' airplanes, stayed in one sketchy hotel, rented a monster van all for a trip I really did NOT want to go on. I'm still coughing up sometime I caught on the really dirty airplane.
Our cat sitters were great but Noah had to be boarded at my back up vet for six days. I read them the riot act about unnecessary middle of the night testing, made them understand what bouncing (MADE THEM!!!) is and included end of life instructions.
Now you now why I had this seemingly morbid fascination with Jester's care. Is this what it's like to have children?
I did some voodoo on you and Jester by "following" you. That was not me in the green van with all the antennas.
Would you mind at all if I now unfollow you? I don't want to use all my magical powers at once.

 

[Tina and Gracie (GA)]

@Noah & me (GA) how did you backup vet take to you lecturing them about bouncing and end of life care?

When I first considered boarding Gracie back in early Dx the pet boarding place required a $1500 deposit incase something happened. When I mentioned she was newly Dx they bumped up the charge to $39 per feeding.
It was ridiculous and she was STILL going to be in a confined cage.

I was beyond grateful when I found my pet sitter (who is also on the board somewhere) I received photos and videos.

 

[Noah & me (GA)]

how did you backup vet take to you lecturing them about bouncing and end of life care?

First I need to say we have a great primary vet and her father was a vet too. The little snippets of common sense like "mouth breathing=stress" are apparently not taught in vet college so she is always struggling with her new staff. When Nigel was first diagnosed she was on a land line with us twice a day, every day for two weeks giving us dosing advice. Nigel started going downhill and she finally said "Screw it this isn't working, free feed him" and he bounced right back into the perfect patient. But her staff doesn't know anything about bouncing and have never heard of Prozinc. I get repeats on BUPE and they haven't seen Noah in a year, maybe they just think I'm good on my own. She has also told me about The World of Vets and how they don't like being told things by mere mortals like us.
So to answer your question... On the advice of other members I printed out very detailed instructions for Noah and made them understand, almost a confrontation, if you pick him up keep him close to the floor and do it quickly, he is 14 and he is NERVOUS! His PM numbers are always low, cut his dose to 2/3. Page after page. I printed out the best stuff I could find on bouncing and the vet actually found it so interesting he asked if he could keep the printout. It was for him anyways. I guess you just have to have a rapport with someone to talk like that. Then I made double-damn-sure the head tech read it IN FRONT OF ME.
The end of life situation was easier because this guy loves his toys, does all his own lab work. So those instructions were "If he has to leave this building then it's over". That might sound incredibly cold but at Noah's age and with an enlarged heart he would not survive in an emergency clinic.
My major annoyance is never with vets, it's the staff.
Noah's brother Andrew was dragged from a crate at 2AM for a blood pressure test. He freaked and had a stroke/cardiac event. I have to live with that forever.

 

[shelaghc]

Just realized how long it's been since I've been around. Life's been busy lately.

Did you have a nice trip? A little break can mean the world sometimes.

How was your trip? Did you enjoy your time?

I did have a good time. It was very restorative for someone else to be in charge of all of my babies, but particularly my Jester. Even if I knew the dosage he was getting was lower than it should have been.
One hard thing has been getting back into all of my old routines. While I test Jester regularly, I'm not as good about updating his spreadsheet and lousy at keeping track of his food intake. Considering how changeable he can be about food, that's been a valuable resource and I really need to get back into that habit again. (I'm not very disciplined so I fall out of good habits pretty easily.)

The funny thing about the nanny cam, btw, was that my internet connection wasn't fast enough to view anything in real time. However, unbeknownst to me, I had access to 12 second spurts of video in the cloud of motion captures nearly all the time. Frankly it was probably a good thing that I didn't know. I found out that every evening - about half an hour or so after I would normally have been home - Jester was in the kitchen crying plaintively and very loudly.
Every. Single. Day.
My heart would have been ripped out of my chest if I'd seen those right after they'd happened. As it was, I still felt belated guilt.

I did some voodoo on you and Jester by "following" you. That was not me in the green van with all the antennas.

I hope your sitter will learn to test.

Having two sitters, I think, actually made the trip more relaxing. One just for insulin, the other for everything else. Now the primary sitter (the one who does everything else) seems open again to learning how to give Jester his insulin.
The secondary just soloed on Friday when I had two things lined up in a row on Friday unexpectedly. It didn't seem necessary for both of them to come by, so I just arranged for the "insulin" sitter to do it all.
Afterward, I realized my primary sitter has spoiled me. *g*
The secondary left the kitties dishes in the sink, didn't clean out the cat food cans before putting them in the "cash for recycling" bag, and left the removable can lids on the leftovers that went in the fridge instead of using the plastic lids.
She needs a little training up, but she's the one who's willing to learn how to test. If it works out and I have two sitters who can give Jester his dosage along with one who can test, I may actually be able to take a trip longer than just three full days.

I was beyond grateful when I found my pet sitter (who is also on the board somewhere) I received photos and videos.

You should really look into the Wyze Cam - I got two of them and am going to get two or three more so I can keep an eye on the kids in all the rooms. They only cost $20 apiece and all you need is a decent internet connection. I had to bump mine up, but it's honestly worth it.
I'm at work and I can check in on all the kids periodically during the day. My only current regret is not having those extra cams already. (One of the motion detection vids caught one of my civvies in the kitchen and in the background I could hear Jester meowing very loudly but there's no camera with a view of that room so I don't know what all the noise was about.)
(OMG! They have one now with pan and scan!)

 

[Djamila]

Sounds like you had a great vacation and the break did you good! It's always nice to get away and be able to relax a bit. And that's great that your pet sitters were able to take such good care of your babies! It would be wonderful to have two people you could call on if you needed to.

So glad to hear that the nanny cams were helpful as well! Other than the meowing , how is Jester doing?