Sarah & Ellie
Member Since 2020
Ellie is black, fluffy and about 15-16 years old. She is cuddly, thirsty for attention, and jealous of my laptop. She snores when she sleeps and sometimes sleeps on her face. No positiion is too uncomfortable as long as she is within pet range.
I love when shelters let visitors open the cages without needing to track down a volunteer. I opened her cage, picked her up and she was all over me. She was cuddly from the start! I knew she was meant to be mine. The only thing I regret that day was that I didn't adopt her brother too, who was just as friendly and fluffy. There's another lucky cat mom/dad out there somewhere.
We've been through everything together; my first apartment, college, moving to Oregon (and driving cross the country!), meeting the love of my life (and liking his pets better than mine), and I fully plan for her to be there for my wedding.
Ellie has been very healthy her whole life, a couple UTIs several years ago and a benign lump on her forehead a couple years ago, but otherwise happy and healthy. She started to cough in August this year and I took her to the vet, who diagnosed her with bronchitis and gave her a steroid shot. She had a couple blood diarrheas, so he put her on antibiotics in case of colitis. Her cough came back, so he put her on oral steriods. This last weekend was her last dose of steriods and I noticed she started drinking A LOT and peeing A LOT. Her Pretty Litter indicated high alkalinity in her urine and she wasn't eating very well. Time to call the vet again. She was sluggish after her long bathroom trips and I finally told my vet that she also had been laying down to eat or drink, I thought she just had achy joints. Vet concluded she had diabetes after her urinalysis came back with sugar detected.
She's officially a Sugar Cat as of 11/10, my own birthday. The worst birthday present ever, I must say.
My vet says she needs to start off on 3 unit shots twice a day. He suggested I keep her on her diet of Hill's Science Diet Sensitive Stomach wet and dry until after we get a chance to monitor how she's doing on the insulin. Vet said that Lantus has shown to put cats back into remission when first diagnosed, rare but possible. I'm going to take his advice and put her on Lantus to see if her numbers improve after one bottle, then switch to ReliOn if she still needs insulin to manager her condition. I don't think I can afford the liquid gold that is Lantus on the long term. The vet said that he will teach me to give her the shot once I have the insulin. It was out at the pharmacy today, I hope I can get some tomorrow so I can start her on treatment tomorrow instead of Monday.
She's okay for now, still drinking and peeing a lot. But perky. I hope her old "zoomies" come back, bolting from one end of the apartment to the other. I just want to know that she'll be okay, that she'll feel better and her symptoms will go away. I can handle changing her eating schedule, giving her a shot every morning and night, checking her suguar. What I can't handle is her pain and discomfort.
I don't know anything about diabetes, how to recognize worrying numbers, how to test and monitor her sugar levels. Nothing. My fiance found this forum boasted about on Reddit when he started researching alongside me. I'm so thankful that it's an active forum with such compassionate and experienced members!
I love when shelters let visitors open the cages without needing to track down a volunteer. I opened her cage, picked her up and she was all over me. She was cuddly from the start! I knew she was meant to be mine. The only thing I regret that day was that I didn't adopt her brother too, who was just as friendly and fluffy. There's another lucky cat mom/dad out there somewhere.
We've been through everything together; my first apartment, college, moving to Oregon (and driving cross the country!), meeting the love of my life (and liking his pets better than mine), and I fully plan for her to be there for my wedding.
Ellie has been very healthy her whole life, a couple UTIs several years ago and a benign lump on her forehead a couple years ago, but otherwise happy and healthy. She started to cough in August this year and I took her to the vet, who diagnosed her with bronchitis and gave her a steroid shot. She had a couple blood diarrheas, so he put her on antibiotics in case of colitis. Her cough came back, so he put her on oral steriods. This last weekend was her last dose of steriods and I noticed she started drinking A LOT and peeing A LOT. Her Pretty Litter indicated high alkalinity in her urine and she wasn't eating very well. Time to call the vet again. She was sluggish after her long bathroom trips and I finally told my vet that she also had been laying down to eat or drink, I thought she just had achy joints. Vet concluded she had diabetes after her urinalysis came back with sugar detected.
She's officially a Sugar Cat as of 11/10, my own birthday. The worst birthday present ever, I must say.
My vet says she needs to start off on 3 unit shots twice a day. He suggested I keep her on her diet of Hill's Science Diet Sensitive Stomach wet and dry until after we get a chance to monitor how she's doing on the insulin. Vet said that Lantus has shown to put cats back into remission when first diagnosed, rare but possible. I'm going to take his advice and put her on Lantus to see if her numbers improve after one bottle, then switch to ReliOn if she still needs insulin to manager her condition. I don't think I can afford the liquid gold that is Lantus on the long term. The vet said that he will teach me to give her the shot once I have the insulin. It was out at the pharmacy today, I hope I can get some tomorrow so I can start her on treatment tomorrow instead of Monday.
She's okay for now, still drinking and peeing a lot. But perky. I hope her old "zoomies" come back, bolting from one end of the apartment to the other. I just want to know that she'll be okay, that she'll feel better and her symptoms will go away. I can handle changing her eating schedule, giving her a shot every morning and night, checking her suguar. What I can't handle is her pain and discomfort.
I don't know anything about diabetes, how to recognize worrying numbers, how to test and monitor her sugar levels. Nothing. My fiance found this forum boasted about on Reddit when he started researching alongside me. I'm so thankful that it's an active forum with such compassionate and experienced members!
