Tuesday 29 July 2014

Feline Hope

Thank you so much to everyone who has commented and left their good wishes for my girlie. We are most grateful to the lovely Sparkle for thinking of us too and sending you over here to leave your lovely comments. We are also absolutely tickled with Sparkle modelling the bracelet. I'm sorry this is a very quick update but I thought it better to do a summary to let you know how things are going than wait till I get time to do a long version.

Magic seems to be stabilising and everyone's prayers seem to be doing the trick to my immense relief. We have had a really rocky time but seem finally to be getting there. When I did her first glucose curve on the 3units of insulin, which she has been on since discharge, she had two critical blood glucose dips. At 4hrs she went to 2.9mmols and at 8hrs she went to 1.8mmols both of which are dangerously low. I was horrified and did a control check on the monitor as I wondered it if had become faulty, but it wasn't. She looked otherwise well and without the blood glucose reading I was oblivious. I felt like I'd had ice water poured over me as this has obviously been happening while I have been at work in the preceding days too and I just never knew.

Logically the nadir, which is the name for the lowest reading, would occur around 6hrs and I had been testing at this point when I was not at work. Similarly her vet appointments where around the 6hr stage and didn't pick this up either. Trust my Magic to be like the recession and have a double dip! This all happened on the 19th Jul and it has taken me this long to even make a flippant comment about it as it scared me so much.

Luckily, her diabetes and critical care vet were both on shift on the day this happened and it was really reassuring that staff who knew her were available and could give very specific advice. We withheld the insulin for the evening dose, and the next day she was still lower than would be expected so she has been reduced to one unit of insulin twice daily. She seems to be maintaining really well so far on this dose and the latest curve done this weekend has shown a really nice consistent level. Crucially, none of this Saturday's results made me want to wet myself!

In herself she continues to be an absolute delight and I am still blown away by how good she is even when I am stabbing her ear or scruff. She occasionally protests or gives me a warning snarl or swipe if it is sore, but there is absolutely no malice or injury. She sits without being held and if she jumps to the top of the sofa or window ledge she will come back if coaxed. This morning I was in a rush as I had a 9am meeting. When I came out of the kitchen after drawing up the insulin I was all set to find her but saw the last inch of her tail disappear round the living room door as she was making her way to the sofa to wait on me to come and do the needful. I cannot imagine how awful this whole process would be if I had to kitty wrangle and see her being distressed. Obviously, I would do it as it needs done but being able to work in partnership with her is a blessing.

I'm not sure where we are headed next with her condition but probably just need to have faith. We see her lovely diabetes vet on Thursday and I'll write an update on where next from now. In the meantime, thank you so much and please accept my virtual hug to you all.

7 comments:

  1. I'm sending more purrs to Magic, but I do want to say I am so glad she is stabilizing! And how awesome that she is working with you on this. Not always, but sometimes we kitties understand that what is going on is for our good, especially if we trust our human.

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  2. I have been thinking of you lots. My human friend has been all over the place with the weather and he can't understand his readings either so don't beat yourself up xx

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  3. More purrs are coming your way and to Magic too - it sounds as if she knows you are trying to help her and is trying to help you by being so good.
    Take care.
    Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx

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  4. I can't imagine any of mine allowing this to go on, most of them don't even like being brushed. So good that she's holding her own.
    By the way, I've had several compliments on my bracelet.
    Briony
    x

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  5. the better the food you feed, the higher the animal protein the lower the plant based ingredients, the less glucose you are going to have floating around. When my Em was eating kibble her glucose was 5x a normal reading, and she had to have 7 u BID. When I got her on to a low carb canned food, her glucose went down to around 2x a normal reading and her insulin need was 1 u BID. I got her on to a raw diet and her glucose normalized. Sadly very shortly after that she developed cancer and we got back on the diabetic roller coaster, but she lived with diabetes from the time she was nine until she was sixteen... with a bad heart.. I was so blessed to have her as long as I did.

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