PhantomBanker
Member Since 2016
TL;DR at bottom.
Our 10-year-old cat was diagnosed with diabetes a couple years ago. For the past year, we have been giving her 3u of Novolin N twice daily. This has been fairly consistent, and we haven't had any real issues or complications since.
Earlier this month, my wife and I surprised our daughter with a birthday trip to Disney World. We brought both our cats to a boarding hospital on Saturday 3/9 and flew down to Florida on Monday 3/11. We provided them with food and insulin.
On Monday evening, we received calls from the vet in charge: Tonks was experiencing seizures and was unresponsive. Her BG was 13. We approved additional care, including an IV of dextrose (sp?) to get her levels back up, but the clinic did not provide 24-hour care (only boarding). My mother-in-law drove up and brought her to an emergency clinic that was able to monitor throughout the night. The vet tried to be honest--he was worried our cat may be dying.
The emergency clinic continued the IV and administered anti-seizure meds. They wanted to run a whole battery of tests to determine why her sugar was as low as it was, but we asked they just try to keep her stabilized and we would make another determination in the morning.
The next day, we spoke with the day-shift doctors. Tonks did have another small seizure, but for the most part was alert and moving. The BG wasn't as high as they wanted (I don't have the exact numbers in front of me), but it was moving in the right direction. Over the next day or two, she started to respond better to the high-calorie foods (the IV was no longer "patent"--not exactly sure what means, but I'm guessing she kept trying to remove it herself). They still refused to give her insulin unless the BG got too high, which it never did.
She was returned to the boarding hospital for the remainder of the week. They continued the anti-seizure meds, checked her BG every four hours or so, and continued to hold off the insulin. We returned on Friday afternoon and brought her to her regular vet on Saturday for a checkup. They didn't run any tests (probably figured she's been poked and prodded enough) and just relied on the notes from the two clinics. She was to continue the anti-seizures but no insulin.
The following Thursday, her regular vet did a quick BG check, and she was over 300. We were to start giving her 1.5u of insulin twice daily, and slowly wean her off the anti-seizure med. We scheduled an appointment a few weeks later for a curve.
Here's the impossible question to answer: What happened to her, and to what extent can we hold the boarding hospital responsible? They were adamant that they kept to the insulin and feeding schedule and stated they would not have given it to her if they felt she wasn't eating enough. They even had a staff meeting just the week before in regards to boarding diabetic animals. While I'm willing to believe they wouldn't do anything to jeopardize the health of their animals, it almost felt like they were protesting just a little too much. The costs were much higher than the original estimate due to the additional treatments. We agreed to pay the boarding fees for the other kitty, but we didn't want to pay them for Tonks until we got her vet's input on what happened.
TL;DR: Cat had severe BG drop while on vacation. Was it something with the cat that was unavoidable, or did the boarding hospital make a mistake they won't admit to?
Our 10-year-old cat was diagnosed with diabetes a couple years ago. For the past year, we have been giving her 3u of Novolin N twice daily. This has been fairly consistent, and we haven't had any real issues or complications since.
Earlier this month, my wife and I surprised our daughter with a birthday trip to Disney World. We brought both our cats to a boarding hospital on Saturday 3/9 and flew down to Florida on Monday 3/11. We provided them with food and insulin.
On Monday evening, we received calls from the vet in charge: Tonks was experiencing seizures and was unresponsive. Her BG was 13. We approved additional care, including an IV of dextrose (sp?) to get her levels back up, but the clinic did not provide 24-hour care (only boarding). My mother-in-law drove up and brought her to an emergency clinic that was able to monitor throughout the night. The vet tried to be honest--he was worried our cat may be dying.
The emergency clinic continued the IV and administered anti-seizure meds. They wanted to run a whole battery of tests to determine why her sugar was as low as it was, but we asked they just try to keep her stabilized and we would make another determination in the morning.
The next day, we spoke with the day-shift doctors. Tonks did have another small seizure, but for the most part was alert and moving. The BG wasn't as high as they wanted (I don't have the exact numbers in front of me), but it was moving in the right direction. Over the next day or two, she started to respond better to the high-calorie foods (the IV was no longer "patent"--not exactly sure what means, but I'm guessing she kept trying to remove it herself). They still refused to give her insulin unless the BG got too high, which it never did.
She was returned to the boarding hospital for the remainder of the week. They continued the anti-seizure meds, checked her BG every four hours or so, and continued to hold off the insulin. We returned on Friday afternoon and brought her to her regular vet on Saturday for a checkup. They didn't run any tests (probably figured she's been poked and prodded enough) and just relied on the notes from the two clinics. She was to continue the anti-seizures but no insulin.
The following Thursday, her regular vet did a quick BG check, and she was over 300. We were to start giving her 1.5u of insulin twice daily, and slowly wean her off the anti-seizure med. We scheduled an appointment a few weeks later for a curve.
Here's the impossible question to answer: What happened to her, and to what extent can we hold the boarding hospital responsible? They were adamant that they kept to the insulin and feeding schedule and stated they would not have given it to her if they felt she wasn't eating enough. They even had a staff meeting just the week before in regards to boarding diabetic animals. While I'm willing to believe they wouldn't do anything to jeopardize the health of their animals, it almost felt like they were protesting just a little too much. The costs were much higher than the original estimate due to the additional treatments. We agreed to pay the boarding fees for the other kitty, but we didn't want to pay them for Tonks until we got her vet's input on what happened.
TL;DR: Cat had severe BG drop while on vacation. Was it something with the cat that was unavoidable, or did the boarding hospital make a mistake they won't admit to?
