Chuck and Susan
Active Member
It’s a sad day at our house today – Chuck was put to sleep this morning at the vet’s office. He was in end stage kidney failure (kidney and liver values were 3-4 times above normal) and any treatments would only have prolonged his life (quantity) and not given him a quality of life. We chose to let him go in peace.
Chuck was our Old Blue Eyes – he had the most gorgeous eyes. He moved with us from Texas to Iowa and back to Texas. He dealt with grandchildren and Sergeant, Percy, Riley, Dallas and Bouncer with grace.
He developed feline diabetes in 2008. With a lot of hard work on all our parts, he was able to go OTJ about 45 days after a near fatal, vet-induced hypoglycemia event. He was diet controlled and doing very well until February, 2013, when he had to go back on insulin, likely due to a worn-out pancreas.
We all worked hard to control his blood glucose numbers, without much success. We started with his original insulin; when that didn’t appear to be controlling the BG, we switched to different insulin. Through twice daily insulin injections, then three times daily injections, thousands of home blood glucose tests and many blood tests at the vet, he never objected, never fought us. He would sit calmly and patiently while we poked his ear, hoping for enough blood with one poke. Sometimes we got enough, sometimes we didn’t get enough and sometimes we got way too much.
Several years ago, there was a movie called “The Ghost and the Darkness.” My oldest brother nicknamed Chuck “The Ghost” (because he was all white) and Sergeant “The Darkness” (because he was all black). The Darkness left us in 2007; The Ghost joins him today.
Chuck was our Old Blue Eyes – he had the most gorgeous eyes. He moved with us from Texas to Iowa and back to Texas. He dealt with grandchildren and Sergeant, Percy, Riley, Dallas and Bouncer with grace.
He developed feline diabetes in 2008. With a lot of hard work on all our parts, he was able to go OTJ about 45 days after a near fatal, vet-induced hypoglycemia event. He was diet controlled and doing very well until February, 2013, when he had to go back on insulin, likely due to a worn-out pancreas.
We all worked hard to control his blood glucose numbers, without much success. We started with his original insulin; when that didn’t appear to be controlling the BG, we switched to different insulin. Through twice daily insulin injections, then three times daily injections, thousands of home blood glucose tests and many blood tests at the vet, he never objected, never fought us. He would sit calmly and patiently while we poked his ear, hoping for enough blood with one poke. Sometimes we got enough, sometimes we didn’t get enough and sometimes we got way too much.
Several years ago, there was a movie called “The Ghost and the Darkness.” My oldest brother nicknamed Chuck “The Ghost” (because he was all white) and Sergeant “The Darkness” (because he was all black). The Darkness left us in 2007; The Ghost joins him today.
