Tom & Monty
Member Since 2020
I realise mine and Monty's position is not unique and not even the worst around here - but I'm struggling to cope and I'm hoping writing this out will help.
I adopted Monty and his sister (Molly) in November last year. Monty was annoying, but cute. He's the friendliest cat I've ever known and even when he's seriously being made uncomfortable he never tries to hurt anyone. He's not the smartest cat but I love his eyes when he stares blankly at me.
In February he was diagnosed with diabetes. I was complacent in getting them both insured so I'm paying out of pocket for anything related to his diabetes.
His diabetes was discovered when I woke up one morning to discover he'd peed blood around my flat. I took him to the vet and it was revealed he had a bladder infection and also diabetes. I thought nothing of his excessive water consumption the preceding week.
I remember crying for hours that night and researching feline diabetes through the tears. I felt a bunch of emotions: fear of losing him, regret for adopting him, guilt for feeling regret, sorrow that he is suffering. Over the next few weeks I came close several times to asking the cat charity to take him back, they were willing but asked me to give it time to settle in before deciding for sure.
During that time I discovered this forum, I was amazed at the wealth of information but also skeptical that I didn't get this information from my vet directly.
Initially Monty was prescribed anti-biotics for the infection and 2U of caninsulin twice daily (he's a big cat, 5.6kg). I was hesitant to test for the first 8 weeks because I was afraid of hurting him and also a bit lazy, and my vet didn't impress on me the importance of home testing. Monty isn't a lap cat, he hates being tested and wouldn't sit on me even when I'm not testing him.
The clinical signs didn't improve, he had a second round of urinary infections a week later, his dose was increased to 2.5 and more anti-biotics. Over the following weeks his dose increased to 3.5 and then 4U.
Around this time I started to feel like I knew more about taking care of diabetic cats than my vet does and started to have serious trust problems with my vet. I convinced my vet to switch him to Lantus and scheduled an in clinic curved for his first lantus day. They started him on 2.5U.
Ten days before he was to start on Lantus he stopped eating, vomited, had diarrhea and had low energy. He ended up being hospitalised on IV for 3 days and released to me. I remember being very frustrated at my vet's reluctance to test him for pancreatitis as I believed all of the symptoms matched. I had to essentially bully the guy into doing an fpli test. I consulted with a video-vet for a second opinion and she immediately said "that sounds like pancreatitis". My vet did the test and it was positive.
He recovered quickly after being hospitalised. On Lantus i started to take testing seriously and observed over the first 3 days that his BG pre shoot was getting rapidly lower every day. 4 days later he started symptoms again, but no vomit this time. My vet prescribed appetite stimulants and pro biotics. He said a new fpli test would still show a positive from the previous flare up so there was no point.
Two days later without much improvement, he almost had a hypo, I caught him on 45 on a spot test and immediately fed him high carb food and rushed him to the emergency vet. I got him back up to around 160 within 2 hours ago with help from forum members here. The emergency vet gave me vetergesic and told me she's fairly confident it's pancreatitis given his symptoms. He did not have a high temperature at the time.
Here I am two days after that having just got back from the vet again because he isn't eating. He ate some food yesterday and looked to be getting better but today he's worse again. Not eating, not engaging with me during the day (he did wake me up at 3am by climbing into bed and laying against me for an hour <3). I called the vet to update them and they asked me to bring him in right away. He injected more vetergesic, gave me 2 hits to take him in case he needs it and told me his temperature is very high right now and he likely has an infection or necrosis of the pancreas, either way anti biotics should help and we can reassess tomorrow. I'm to call them tomorrow morning to update on his condition. I'm also giving him cerenia for nausia and mirtapazine for appetite.
That's my story so far. I'm feeling incredibly stressed. The amount of responsibility I'm shouldering is unexpected and hard for me to cope with. If I weren't working from home right now because of the pandemic then I don't know what I'd do.
I'm making frequent vet visits, spending hours a day caring for him, racking up thousands of pounds of costs. I'm fortunate in my financial situation but it's adding up. This is having a serious impact on my mental health and I can't see the end of the tunnel. I'm willing to sacrifice my own well-being for another living creature but there are limits.
My partner is helping with his care. She always helps me to test him, to prepare his things for vet visits (I usually am the one to go). She feels different emotions to me about this situation. She has repeatedly directly and indirectly brought up the idea of euthanasia because she believes his quality of life is low. I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum and want to get him stable and then assess his quality of life after that. Her attitude is compounding the impact on me, it's getting hard to remain enthusiastic about his care when my co carer is essentially defeated. I don't blame her, she is stressed too. Everything is harder now, visiting friends after work, going on holiday, waking up late.
I don't even know that I'm asking for anything here, I just wanted to write it down while I sit next to my sick cat stroking his chin, and worrying immensely about how he's feeling.
I adopted Monty and his sister (Molly) in November last year. Monty was annoying, but cute. He's the friendliest cat I've ever known and even when he's seriously being made uncomfortable he never tries to hurt anyone. He's not the smartest cat but I love his eyes when he stares blankly at me.
In February he was diagnosed with diabetes. I was complacent in getting them both insured so I'm paying out of pocket for anything related to his diabetes.
His diabetes was discovered when I woke up one morning to discover he'd peed blood around my flat. I took him to the vet and it was revealed he had a bladder infection and also diabetes. I thought nothing of his excessive water consumption the preceding week.
I remember crying for hours that night and researching feline diabetes through the tears. I felt a bunch of emotions: fear of losing him, regret for adopting him, guilt for feeling regret, sorrow that he is suffering. Over the next few weeks I came close several times to asking the cat charity to take him back, they were willing but asked me to give it time to settle in before deciding for sure.
During that time I discovered this forum, I was amazed at the wealth of information but also skeptical that I didn't get this information from my vet directly.
Initially Monty was prescribed anti-biotics for the infection and 2U of caninsulin twice daily (he's a big cat, 5.6kg). I was hesitant to test for the first 8 weeks because I was afraid of hurting him and also a bit lazy, and my vet didn't impress on me the importance of home testing. Monty isn't a lap cat, he hates being tested and wouldn't sit on me even when I'm not testing him.
The clinical signs didn't improve, he had a second round of urinary infections a week later, his dose was increased to 2.5 and more anti-biotics. Over the following weeks his dose increased to 3.5 and then 4U.
Around this time I started to feel like I knew more about taking care of diabetic cats than my vet does and started to have serious trust problems with my vet. I convinced my vet to switch him to Lantus and scheduled an in clinic curved for his first lantus day. They started him on 2.5U.
Ten days before he was to start on Lantus he stopped eating, vomited, had diarrhea and had low energy. He ended up being hospitalised on IV for 3 days and released to me. I remember being very frustrated at my vet's reluctance to test him for pancreatitis as I believed all of the symptoms matched. I had to essentially bully the guy into doing an fpli test. I consulted with a video-vet for a second opinion and she immediately said "that sounds like pancreatitis". My vet did the test and it was positive.
He recovered quickly after being hospitalised. On Lantus i started to take testing seriously and observed over the first 3 days that his BG pre shoot was getting rapidly lower every day. 4 days later he started symptoms again, but no vomit this time. My vet prescribed appetite stimulants and pro biotics. He said a new fpli test would still show a positive from the previous flare up so there was no point.
Two days later without much improvement, he almost had a hypo, I caught him on 45 on a spot test and immediately fed him high carb food and rushed him to the emergency vet. I got him back up to around 160 within 2 hours ago with help from forum members here. The emergency vet gave me vetergesic and told me she's fairly confident it's pancreatitis given his symptoms. He did not have a high temperature at the time.
Here I am two days after that having just got back from the vet again because he isn't eating. He ate some food yesterday and looked to be getting better but today he's worse again. Not eating, not engaging with me during the day (he did wake me up at 3am by climbing into bed and laying against me for an hour <3). I called the vet to update them and they asked me to bring him in right away. He injected more vetergesic, gave me 2 hits to take him in case he needs it and told me his temperature is very high right now and he likely has an infection or necrosis of the pancreas, either way anti biotics should help and we can reassess tomorrow. I'm to call them tomorrow morning to update on his condition. I'm also giving him cerenia for nausia and mirtapazine for appetite.
That's my story so far. I'm feeling incredibly stressed. The amount of responsibility I'm shouldering is unexpected and hard for me to cope with. If I weren't working from home right now because of the pandemic then I don't know what I'd do.
I'm making frequent vet visits, spending hours a day caring for him, racking up thousands of pounds of costs. I'm fortunate in my financial situation but it's adding up. This is having a serious impact on my mental health and I can't see the end of the tunnel. I'm willing to sacrifice my own well-being for another living creature but there are limits.
My partner is helping with his care. She always helps me to test him, to prepare his things for vet visits (I usually am the one to go). She feels different emotions to me about this situation. She has repeatedly directly and indirectly brought up the idea of euthanasia because she believes his quality of life is low. I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum and want to get him stable and then assess his quality of life after that. Her attitude is compounding the impact on me, it's getting hard to remain enthusiastic about his care when my co carer is essentially defeated. I don't blame her, she is stressed too. Everything is harder now, visiting friends after work, going on holiday, waking up late.
I don't even know that I'm asking for anything here, I just wanted to write it down while I sit next to my sick cat stroking his chin, and worrying immensely about how he's feeling.
I’ve had my Ducote for 11 yrs (since he was 5 weeks old) and we are very close. He never liked my hubby though so in turn my hubby never got close to him. I’m doing all the tests, doses, data, vet visits, and worrying alone. He has mentioned putting him down as well but I would never think of such a thing if there is something I can do to help him get better. My hubby gets upset about me being on a dose schedule and having to be home for a certain time. I get overwhelmed at the dosing schedule as well but I can’t vent to him about it bc his advice is not helpful. I get very depressed thinking about the future (vacations, out late in town, visiting family, etc.) so I try to just think of one day at a time. It’s a lot to take on and not having support makes it so much harder 
