Sandysdad
Member Since 2022
Hey All!
I'm brand new here, wanted to introduce myself, and honestly rant a little after a frustrating month.
3 weeks ago Sandy peed outside the litter box. This was an instant fire alarm for me, the second she did it I panicked more than when there was a tornado a block away from my school back in elementary times. She's used litter boxes that were worse than a trucker rest room, so peeing outside with a clean box (we had just got a litter robot!) was insane. That night the vet was closed, but we spent the whole night awake and I realized she was basically constantly leaking urine, and sneaking off (unstably) to drink water.
Finally in the morning I called a vet and got an appointment immediately, during which they gave her an IV and took blood work. The following day (as she kept getting worse, to the point where now she wobbled when walking) they said she was diabetic and gave us supplies and said good luck, with their only real advice being not to inject her if she didn't eat, which she wasn't eating so....yeah. The next day I was unable to inject her, as she hadn't eaten all day, and finally on that friday morning of the day after, I took her back to the vet and demanded they run some more tests and figured out what was going on.
Long story short, 3 vets at that clinic say shes sick, with no diagnosis other than the diabetes, and say the prognosis is bad, put her down. I said no, they gave her fluids and gave her back. Then we went to our next clinic, where they repeated that she should be put down, but they at least managed to syringe feed her, and get her an insulin drip. However, they ended up closing for the weekend and told me to find another vet. So with no other vets to turn to, we went to the VCA.
The team of doctors at the VCA are nothing short of my heros at this moment, because they immediately realized it was KDA, with a UTI, her liver values were skyrocketed, her kidney values were skyrocketed, she was severely anemic, and that her sugar was basically untreated. They had to install a nasal feeding tube, pump her full of antibiotics, get her on an insulin drip, and so many other tests that you'd think she was in high school. But in the end, after $20k in loans, 2 weeks of being told she was a dead cat walking, and a ton of sleepless nights, on thursday march 24th she got to come home. And promptly at 7am on march 25th her sugar tested via glucose meter @ 768. crap.
I'll cut out these past 2 weeks of getting some footing, learning what she'll eat, and our current instability on insulin doseage and all the other chaos, because long story short I think we're getting there. We've got some vet appointments lined up to talk doseage and food, and we're looking at putting her permanently on the freestyle libre, and I think all together we might be able to land this plane.
I just wanted to share this because I was reading another post here about a really bad KDA case, and I just wanted to make sure that another story was told showing they can fight through this, and no matter how bad it feels in the moment, the tunnel has a light at the end, ya just gotta keep walking. I'm not saying there aren't times you have to let go, there's always a time we say goodbye, but if you feel you aren't done yet, try another step and see if you've got the energy for another. Step by step gets us to the end, this isn't a race for sprinters.
I'll be bugging ya'll for advice and reccomendations once we get past these next 2 vet appointments, until then, stay healthy kitties!
I'm brand new here, wanted to introduce myself, and honestly rant a little after a frustrating month.
3 weeks ago Sandy peed outside the litter box. This was an instant fire alarm for me, the second she did it I panicked more than when there was a tornado a block away from my school back in elementary times. She's used litter boxes that were worse than a trucker rest room, so peeing outside with a clean box (we had just got a litter robot!) was insane. That night the vet was closed, but we spent the whole night awake and I realized she was basically constantly leaking urine, and sneaking off (unstably) to drink water.
Finally in the morning I called a vet and got an appointment immediately, during which they gave her an IV and took blood work. The following day (as she kept getting worse, to the point where now she wobbled when walking) they said she was diabetic and gave us supplies and said good luck, with their only real advice being not to inject her if she didn't eat, which she wasn't eating so....yeah. The next day I was unable to inject her, as she hadn't eaten all day, and finally on that friday morning of the day after, I took her back to the vet and demanded they run some more tests and figured out what was going on.
Long story short, 3 vets at that clinic say shes sick, with no diagnosis other than the diabetes, and say the prognosis is bad, put her down. I said no, they gave her fluids and gave her back. Then we went to our next clinic, where they repeated that she should be put down, but they at least managed to syringe feed her, and get her an insulin drip. However, they ended up closing for the weekend and told me to find another vet. So with no other vets to turn to, we went to the VCA.
The team of doctors at the VCA are nothing short of my heros at this moment, because they immediately realized it was KDA, with a UTI, her liver values were skyrocketed, her kidney values were skyrocketed, she was severely anemic, and that her sugar was basically untreated. They had to install a nasal feeding tube, pump her full of antibiotics, get her on an insulin drip, and so many other tests that you'd think she was in high school. But in the end, after $20k in loans, 2 weeks of being told she was a dead cat walking, and a ton of sleepless nights, on thursday march 24th she got to come home. And promptly at 7am on march 25th her sugar tested via glucose meter @ 768. crap.
I'll cut out these past 2 weeks of getting some footing, learning what she'll eat, and our current instability on insulin doseage and all the other chaos, because long story short I think we're getting there. We've got some vet appointments lined up to talk doseage and food, and we're looking at putting her permanently on the freestyle libre, and I think all together we might be able to land this plane.
I just wanted to share this because I was reading another post here about a really bad KDA case, and I just wanted to make sure that another story was told showing they can fight through this, and no matter how bad it feels in the moment, the tunnel has a light at the end, ya just gotta keep walking. I'm not saying there aren't times you have to let go, there's always a time we say goodbye, but if you feel you aren't done yet, try another step and see if you've got the energy for another. Step by step gets us to the end, this isn't a race for sprinters.
I'll be bugging ya'll for advice and reccomendations once we get past these next 2 vet appointments, until then, stay healthy kitties!
