Stormy Blue's half-sister....

[Mary & Stormy Blue]

....Samantha, 1 year his senior, has now developed diabetes. *sigh*

My Mom is beside herself as she is already caring for my step dad, type 2 diabetic with COPD and epilepsy, and my 16 y/o niece, Charity, type 1 diabetic since pre-school. AND Annabelle the diabetic schnauzer. Plus my mother has IBD, severe back pain, and walks with a walker now. She does not know how she is going to cope with another diabetic. She honestly is not, in my opinion, emotionally capable of dealing with this right now. And my Dad? Forget it - Mother manages everything and even though Charity is capable of managing her own - AND Annabelle's treatment, well, she just lets Mother do it all.

I went over today to get Charity and take her for a driving lesson, (my Dad tends to holler when she does something wrong), and I noticed that Samantha just did not act, or look like her normal self. I picked her up and noted that she had lost some weight since I saw her last month, and that she was pretty well dehydrated. Mother said she has been acting a bit more skittish than usual, hiding more - but that was about it. I grabbed one of the test kits, and poked her ear and got a 402. Ran back to my house and got insulin syringes, (they use the insulin pens there so have no syringes - but hey!! they have an ABUNDANCE of insulin - lantus and humilin N & R), made a rice sock, grabbed a bag of LR, (spiked it with 2cc vit B-12), an IV set-up, and some needles, several cans of low carb canned foods, (Mother had been feeding her the canned Friskies in gravy foods), and made a mad dash back to their house.

Get back to the house and grab Samantha off of the couch, sit her on the table and run 100cc LR into her. Brushed her and told her what a wonderful kitty she was and then let her peel out and run hide for an hour. Mother says that she would never have been able to test, or SubQ her because Samantha would be too wriggly for her to manage it, so after an hour, I made Charity go catch the cat and showed her how to test her. We got a 372. Shot 1/2u lantus and told Charity to get me a +4, +6, and a +8 too see what, if any effect, the lantus will have. (I rather doubt it is going to do anything with her being as dehydrated as she was). Asked them all to watch her like a hawk and to get me a ketone test ASAP.

Tomorrow AM, early, I will go back and run her another 100cc LR, test, shoot, and go from there...it will probably be a +14 when I get the AMPS, but I have to work Samantha around to times of day that I can go and help out.

~M

 

[Venita]

Mary, you are an angel for helping Samantha. So glad you have all the tools you needed.

Just a caution that once one pierces the "skin" of a cartridge of insulin with a syringe, they should not later use the same cartridge with a pen. Source: Wikipedia article on pens.

 

[Mary & Stormy Blue]

Mary, you are an angel for helping Samantha. So glad you have all the tools you needed.

Just a caution that once one pierces the "skin" of a cartridge of insulin with a syringe, they should not later use the same cartridge with a pen. Source: Wikipedia article on pens.

Thanks, Venita. I believe that they have enough cartridges to get themselves, and Samantha thru this w/o my damaging one that is necessary for them. I just hollered for a Lantus cartridge and Charity handed me one. It did not have any sort of a cap on it at all, so I am assuming it was a newish one. They normally use the pen needles for everyone on the Lantus, (and the other types of insulin), including Annabelle, (she is a bit chunky), but I don't think they work so good for a kitty, especially one I started off with only 1/2u.

I will make sure they keep that particular vial set aside for Samantha's use only.

~M

 

[Mary & Stormy Blue]

Samantha's +6 last night was 370, +8 was 375. Her AMPS today, (which was +15.25) was 402
Ran 100cc LR subQ, shot 1u Lantus, and put her food out for her.
Charity is in charge of getting me the +4, +6, +8 today and I will return to shoot again @ +12 and run more fluids.

Samantha seemed a bit brighter and perkier this morning, than she did yesterday afternoon.
She growled at me the entire time I was running the fluids, but she behaved. Behaved for the testing and the shot as well.
She got a good brushing after all of the poking and prodding as her treat.

~M

 

[Venita]

Good move to up to 1U. Glad she is feeling perkier.

 

[laur+danny+horde]

Whew, you are literally a life saver. Great job. ((((Mary))))

Good job on the tough love for Charity. If she lives there (sounds like it), she needs to take a look around and realize that she needs to step up to the plate. She has a great teacher so there is no reason she can't take care of the cat (and dog). Being diabetic herself, she should be able to empathize with how awful Samantha has been feeling.

Thank goodness you are so alert.

laur

 

[pamela and tigger]

Mary, just thinking, could there be an infection going on somewhere?

Just wondering. Maybe she is not really diabetic at all.

 

[Mary & Stormy Blue]

Whew, you are literally a life saver. Great job. ((((Mary))))

Good job on the tough love for Charity. If she lives there (sounds like it), she needs to take a look around and realize that she needs to step up to the plate. She has a great teacher so there is no reason she can't take care of the cat (and dog). Being diabetic herself, she should be able to empathize with how awful Samantha has been feeling.

Thank goodness you are so alert.

laur

Charity does live there. My parents have had custody of her since she was 6 weeks old. She is LAZY and that is the main problem. She is fully capable of taking care of the dog's needs, the cat's needs, and her own needs, but she is lazy. My Mom is well versed in diabetes - she was a diabetic educator at Childrens' Medical Center in Dallas up until the first of this year, but she is not capable of it any longer, physically, or emotionally.

Mother also tends to micromanage Charity's care rather than letting Charity step up to the plate and make any of the decisions for herself. She has snacks and cans of stuff on the table with the carb content % written on the cans in magic marker so that Charity does not have to figure it out for herself... *rolls eyes* When I was at home, and same for my siblings, Mother would NEVER have "babied" us in this manner. Mother was as hard as granite with us. It seems that Mother has become more lenient as she has gotten older, at least as far as Charity is concerned. Mother tends to ask Chrity to do things - asking is nice, I suppose, but Charity needs to have set responsibilities that she does not have to be "asked" to do. Caring for the cat - AND the dog, need to be part of those responsibilities.

Mary, just thinking, could there be an infection going on somewhere?

Just wondering. Maybe she is not really diabetic at all.

I honestly do not think infection is the case. Months ago, Mother mentioned that Sam was having issues with PU/PD and at that time, I suggested that it was possible she was on the verge of diabetes. She *is* Stormy Blue's half sister, after all, and he is a diabetic - it could be hereditary. I did test Sam once when this was happening and got a 148. A bit high, but it could have been stress, too, as she does not like to be handled, (especially by people not living in the house), and she was being fed Purina One at the time. I had them put her on low carb canned food, (FF), and the PU/PD went away and Sam got much better. But, FF is expensive for people living on SS and Mother put her on Friskies. I was okay with that - told her to make certain it was only the low carb kind and gave her a list of acceptable foods. Sam rocked on that way for months and everything was okay. Well, then they started feeding her the Friskies in gravy and, ("but she likes it better"...ugh), I found out, Mother started letting her have Purina One kibble again last month, ("she loves her kibble, though"). Of course she did not share that bit of info with me the other day - my Dad ratted her out last night *frown*

Needless to say, these issues have been addressed - strongly addressed - and the high carb food is gone from the house as is the Purina One kibble.
I took over a case of low carb FF and a case of low carb Friskies and ordered, yes ORDERED them to feed her nothing else unless we discussed it first.
I sort of turned into a raving witch and threatened to remove Sam from the house and bring her home with me FOREVER unless they complied.
And threatened Charity with NO MORE DRIVING LESSONS!! Unless she stepped up to the plate. They are actively keeping a log for me and Charity is testing her on the even hours today.

Sam had a decent nadir of 87 yesterday afternoon, and her PMPS was 373. Her AMPS, today was 427, but that was after I had to chase her all over the living room and, finally, pull the couch out from the wall to get at her as she figured that she'd be safe from my cat ear poking self back there....

btw, two ketone tests in two days and both were negative. Still on 1u Lantus BID. This AM was her 4th dose of it. Also gave her 75ml of LR SubQ and will repeat this evening.

~M

 

[pamela and tigger]

Mary, just thinking, could there be an infection going on somewhere?

Just wondering. Maybe she is not really diabetic at all.

I honestly do not think infection is the case. Months ago, Mother mentioned that Sam was having issues with PU/PD and at that time, I suggested that it was possible she was on the verge of diabetes. She *is* Stormy Blue's half sister, after all, and he is a diabetic - it could be hereditary. I did test Sam once when this was happening and got a 148. A bit high, but it could have been stress, too, as she does not like to be handled, (especially by people not living in the house), and she was being fed Purina One at the time. I had them put her on low carb canned food, (FF), and the PU/PD went away and Sam got much better. But, FF is expensive for people living on SS and Mother put her on Friskies. I was okay with that - told her to make certain it was only the low carb kind and gave her a list of acceptable foods. Sam rocked on that way for months and everything was okay. Well, then they started feeding her the Friskies in gravy and, ("but she likes it better"...ugh), I found out, Mother started letting her have Purina One kibble again last month, ("she loves her kibble, though"). Of course she did not share that bit of info with me the other day - my Dad ratted her out last night *frown*

Well that explains it then, the dry food. I do agree too that some of this can be genetic as well. Some cats being more prone to the disease than others who can possibly get by eating dry food.

Hopefully she will have a good chance at going into remission since it seems you have caught it early and are giving her good care.

ETA - keep us posted!