05/07 Kitty 1 month OTJ !!! Our story (Q: how to post pics?)

Hi LL family!
It has been a while since I have posted anything, but as it is now 1 month since Kitty's OTJ party (yahoo!!!), I thought to drop a note, and also share Kitty's story....
Kitty is still doing great! Any BG spot check is still in greens, all is well here. There have been a couple of litter box issues, but nothing major --- all is well with us . So, how did we end up at the Falls??

Little did I know on that Friday evening in May 2000 in Arlington (TX), when I met the precious small kitten in my (now ex-)boyfriend’s arms, that 11,5 years later Kitty was diagnosed with diabetes in Moscow Russia, a place I never would have thought of going to and even less knowing about feline diabetes. Oh boy – life takes us to strange places!

Let’s fast forward …. In fall 2011 I noticed that Kitty had started to drink and pee a lot. Usually quite independent and laid back, he became more needy and seeking for my attention, as if to say “please help me”. confused_cat Ok, I finally figured out that I have to find an English speaking vet in Moscow, and then had an appointment with Dr Elena on a Saturday morning in December. I will never forget the moment at the Russian vet clinic when the vet asked me to sit down and then she told me: “Your cat has a diabetes” (with those exact words). Of course I had suspected that based on Kitty’s symptoms, but to hear that said aloud felt horrible. She also said that Kitty will need insulin “for the rest of his life” (again, exact words). It was a very lonely taxi drive home with a vial of Caninsulin, one syringe and a bag of diabetic dry food – tears were falling downs my cheeks as we drove through the depressingly grey and rainy Moscow. :cry:

I was overwhelmed, sad, worried. Based on what I read in internet I became convinced that Kitty would be fine, but to be honest – I was afraid that my fairly worry-free life was over. Insulin shots twice a day! You have to be kidding! No more late nights out, no more weekend trips, no more vacations. Ever?

The first main hurdle was to figure out when to start insulin injections. I was heading home for a short Christmas break, so would my kitty sitter give injections? Can hypo happen when I am gone? Major stress factor just before the holidays!!! Luckily my regular kitty sitter was fine with giving the insulin shots and everything turned out fine. During my holiday break, my vet at home prescribed Lantus for Kitty, so the next was to figure out how to do home testing and converting from Caninsulin to Lantus. I started home testing when Kitty was still getting Cansulin, short lasting insulin. You can see in Kitty’s BG curves how short term impact it had: his BGs went really low in a few hours (it did not worry me then!) and then get up high again.

I was doing quite bit of travelling during the spring, so it became stressful to figure out when to change the insulin and the diet nailbite_smile . After all, I first changed from Caninsulin to Lantus, and later started the LC wet food diet. Changing the insulin was technically simple: you give the last shot with the one insulin and then start with the new 12 hours later. For initial dosing on Lantus, I used the advise from the vet at home, 2u BID. While this may be a bit high starting dose, I think it may have been right for Kitty as he was still on dry food. I was not sure what protocol I was really following, so for 2 weeks we had the same 2u BID dose, after which it was increased to 2.5u for about a week. He was still in pinks and yellows mainly, with some blues. When I went on a holiday for a week, it was decided to give just 1.5u BID. Pet sitter did not test, so it was better to be safe than sorry…. Right after my vacation I finally decided it was time to make Kitty to eat only wet food. On the first day of wet food only, I also lowered the dose from 2u to 1.5u which was a smart decision. :mrgreen: Kitty started to earn reductions very quickly, however the added complication was that I was travelling quite frequently so we always had to lower the dose for the time when I was not at home. Despite not following TR protocol diligently, Kitty was in a hurry to get to the Falls bcatrun_gif and in12 days after he converted to wet food only diet he did not need any more insulin! Pretty amazing! otj_icon

Even though we have a happy end to this story, I made pretty much all errors that one can do: started with “wrong” insulin, skipped shots, too high dosing, not converting to wet food soon enough, did not give shots exactly 12 hours apart, and so on and so on.... Additionally - I know everyone is overwhelmed and stressed out about the treatments, but just imagine learning and treating feline diabetes in a country where you don’t speak the language confused_cat !

So, my main learnings have been:
• First thing to do is to join FDMB – the most wonderful, helpful and knowledgeable people are here to support and guide
• Convert immediately to low carb wet food only diet
• Start with Lantus (or other long lasting insulins)
• Do home testing – it’s first a bit complicated, but easy to learn and master and you know what’s happening with your cat
• Every Cat Is Different – what worked for Kitty may not work for other cats. I consider us very lucky
• Moscow rocks! After all, I was able to get half unit syringes here and my closest grocery store sells the right kind of LC wet food (well, took me a while to figure out that Fancy Feast is Gourmet Gold here :roll: ). And I am truly impressed how helpful the people, especially women, are here in Russia.
• I can have a life even if I have a diabetic cat! I travelled quite a bit and was lucky that my kitty sitter was able to stop by twice a day and give insulin (she is worth gold!)

I hope that Kitty’s story would help any overwhelmed and worried newbies to believe that it is possible to live again normal life and that diabetes is treatable. It does take hard work and discipline to get there, but it sure is worth trying!

And after all --- I could not have done any of above without your support here at LL!
THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. :RAHCAT

I would post a few pics, but don't know how to do it... Pls help ;-)

 

Re: 05/07 Kitty 1 month OTJ !!! Our story (Q: how to post pi

Hi guys! So good to see you .. and so happy to read that kitty is doing awesome at the falls! Your story is pretty amazing but look how well it turned out .. I hope to see more updates of kitty soon!

 

Re: 05/07 Kitty 1 month OTJ !!! Our story (Q: how to post pi

What a great story and so good for newbies to read. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: Kitty is doing great!

When you are posting a reply look below the text edit box (where you type your message.) There is a tab labeled "upload attachment" Click that and it will walk you through the steps to choose a pic from your computer. ( It can only be 500 x 600 pixels. If it is larger you will need to make a smaller copy w/ image editing software.) Once you have selected your pic, you will be back at the post a reply page. Now you will see the name of your pic in the box on the upload tab. Click "Add the file" The last step is to place your cursor where you want the pic to be in the text edit box, then click place inline in the box below the text edit box (you can add a title for the pic here too).

OR

If your pix are on an online site, open the pic you want in a new window, copy the URL address and use the IMG button above the text edit box. Paste the URL between the sets of brackets

 

Re: 05/07 Kitty 1 month OTJ !!! Our story (Q: how to post pi

What a beautiful story and I'm glad I was here while it all happened. Well deserved :YMHUG: and all.

Thank you for posting this. I hope we can see some pictures of the famous Kitty

 

Re: 05/07 Kitty 1 month OTJ !!! Our story (Q: how to post pi

what a fantastic story - thank you for sharing! And congrats on the one month!!! YAY!

Ann's instruction on photos is 100% on target. The only ting I would add is: if you get a blank screen, or nothing happens, after clicking on "upload attachment" it usually means your photo is too large (too many KB's) and needs to be made smaller/resized.

I too hope to see some photos of Kitty!

 

Re: 05/07 Kitty 1 month OTJ !!! Our story (Q: how to post pi

What a great story and an even better story to pass along to newbies!

 

Re: 05/07 Kitty 1 month OTJ !!! Our story (Q: how to post pi

If you need to resize pictures you can do it here http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

I wanna see Kitty!!!

 

Re: 05/07 Kitty 1 month OTJ !!! Our story (Q: how to post pi

hi mia!

great to see you - and thanks so much for sharing your story to encourage all the new people! it does seem overwhelming to most people at first, i think, but jumping in with both feet and taking one step at a time really does get you there.

waiting for pictures . . .