Magical Update

Mainly very good news from Thursday's vet visit at the Glasgow University Vet School's Small Animal Hospital with Magic. This place literally has been a lifeline for my girlie. The staff are wonderful and really know their stuff as well as genuinely relating to their animal patients which is so reassuring.

The weekend before I'd done another glucose curve which showed a lovely stable blood sugar profile in the range of 5-8mmols with no seriously low hypo readings that made me want to wet myself. I was again humbled by how accommodating she was in allowing me to repeatedly stab her ears to check her readings. I was grateful she worked with me but sad to see the little haematoma I had caused on her ear with the repeated testing. The twice daily routine tests I do have allowed me to pinpoint which varieties of food have the least or most impact on her blood sugar which is useful info for the future.

 

In herself, Magic has become more playful and although I thought she was bright enough she has been doing a little more like raiding the toy box for something to play with and giving Red some decent hisses. Luckily the hissing is the usual 'wind and water' that doesn't even scare my wussie boy-cat!  

As usual at her appointment she was a little star and did her usual potter round the reception desk afterwards to say hello to the lovely receptionists. She came home with a leg bandage which displeased her greatly and I was struggling to loosen or cut it off until I realised I could just slide it off. Note the little poodle-style sock haircut on her leg from her time in ITU. Note also we do NOT mention it, point at it or worse laugh at it.....!

 

The offending bandage...

Her blood sugar levels have been going well on the 1unit of insulin and following a very positive lab sugar and fructosamine test she has been reduced to half a unit of insulin twice daily. Although its only been a day and a half she has been stable on this which I am delighted about.

Her vet was most cheeky when I asked if she thought a remission might be on the horizon. She said she was hopeful we were going in the right direction as "1unit for a cat of her weight was almost too low a dose to be controlling diabetes".....huh, my girl a chubby puss...I'm outraged...well, ok, maybe 5.4kg is on the voluptuous side, but we never speak of a lady's weight I've been cautioned against being too hopeful that she is achieving remission but each step is very positive.

On Friday the vet called with the latest blood results. She still has some results which are outwith normal but most have been heading in the right direction and they are very pleased with how things are progressing. However one dark cloud is looming as her creatinine has come back as elevated and is raising concerns that her kidneys may be developing signs of a degree of failure. We've come through so much recently and I am just hoping that perhaps it is maybe a reaction to the traumatic insult her body has had to handle as I can't really face up to another problem right now.

The vet was adamant that I didn't feed her the high protein diabetic food if her kidneys are in trouble but, as Magic has absolutely no intention of even looking at that stuff, there is not much chance of this being an issue. Trust her to develop a condition that stops her getting onto a diabetes control regime!

On Tuesday, after she allowed me to cut her nails, I removed her soft collar that was protecting the healing oesophageal tube site. It is looking a little tattered as she is a bit of a neck scratcher. My sewing skills are not up to much but I definitely think this is prettier than her exploded bandage look!

As a little side issue, since her collar came off she has developed a 'necklace' of bumpy spots around her neck. I'd initially thought the first two at either side were from the failed central line placement during her surgery but they were soon joined by half a dozen more.

I found it quite hard to get a look at them as, if I wasn't helping her scratch them, she was not interested in wasting time raising her neck. The vet thinks they are just from clipper rash and has prescribed a once daily antibiotic which is clearing them up beautifully.

Since she came home during her tube feeds and essential diabetes care I have signalled that we are in serious care mode by putting a towel down on the sofa and telling her what is happening. At all other times when the towel is gone she is quite safe from any treatment interventions and happily sleeps there or comes up for cuddles. As I needed to give her the oral antibiotic directly and with the nail trimming I chose to do this elsewhere so that I did not confuse her, or worse lose her compliance. And what hell both of them have been. This little girl who allows me to stab her with lancets and needles turns into a ninja octopus when it comes to giving her half a tablet or a mani-pedi. So I was right keeping the two strands of her care apart and it proves cats are a law unto themselves.