Acacia's diabetes & cancer, my nursing school...

Hi everyone! My name is Jess and my kitty Acacia is 13 years old (best guess). Four years ago she had a unilateral mastectomy and was diagnosed with mammary adenocarcinoma. She's been doing great up until a few weeks ago. She has a large tumor and several smaller ones, and she has surgery for this scheduled for this coming Thursday. To complicate matters, she is now diabetic. I have taken her to several local (Milwaukee, WI area) vets and so far not a single one has impressed me, as none of them have told me I need to home test and in fact some have even tried to discourage me from doing so! She's fully switched over to low carb wet food in the form of Friskies pates, and her blood sugar has come down from ~460 to ~200 in the past week and a half or so. Being a diabetic myself, I already have all the supplies, so I test her at home regardless of what any vet says. Now, regardless of what I've told my vet about how much her glucose has come down, she keeps wanting me to start her out on 1.5u of Lantus twice a day. In my mind I feel this is too much and I would much rather do the "start low go slow" method. I have not started giving her the Lantus yet in part because the thought of 1.5u scares me, and in part because I have no idea how to work any of this into my schedule. Are there any super patient, awesome people here that would be able to help me figure this out? Classes start back this coming Wednesday so I really need some help/advice!

My classes (including travel time) will be Mondays & Wednesdays from 1:30pm to 4pm, and Tuesdays & Thursdays from 5:30pm to 9:30pm. I typically don't go to sleep until around 3am and usually wake up between 10am and noon. Of course, I am willing to move around my sleep/wake times to help my kitty! I'm sure there are obvious answers on how to schedule everything, but my mind just cannot seem to grasp anything because when you put diabetes and terminal cancer together.. I'm just an anxious worried mess 24/7. I second guess every single decision I make and often feel like I'm losing my mind. I've thought about taking the semester off, but I really can't afford to do that.

I'm also confused about feeding her. I would much rather free-feed her than have specific meal times, but how does one work that in with being able to have fasting pre-shot blood sugar readings? Again, I feel like all these things I have questions about are probably pretty obvious. It's just not obvious to my worried mind.

Help! And thanks in advance for any help and advice, too. I very much appreciate some guidance!

~jess & Acacia

 

Jess, a big welcome to fdmb. You have found a fantastic community of individuals who understand how you are feeling. Looking at your schedule I would suggest 11am and 11 pm this would allow you to get a test in the morning before you leave for classes.
There are a couple of things you can do in order to get the best out of this forum. Could you please set up your signature ( that's the light gray text under this message) go to your name top right and click. You'll get a drop down box, on the left you'll find signature. Click and type in cats name and yours if you'd like, cats sex, weight, date of diagnosis, type of insulin and test meter you're using. Food you are feeding and any other meds and illnesses. Geographic location is useful too as we have members all over the world. Once done don't forget to save. This just saves us asking the same questions over and over.
Next thing is to set up your spreadsheet. This is a terrific tool so you can record your BG tests and over time you can see trends and patterns. Its nearly impossible for anyone here to help you with dosing advice unless they can see a spreadsheet. You'll find the spreadsheet in the board "tech help". If you have any problems with setting it up just post for help.

You are way ahead of most new members in that you are home testing and feeding low carbs so well done.

Feel free to feed when you wish, only criteria would be that you remove food two hours before you take the BG levels at shot time.

I know you are feeling stressed out and I understand only too well how that feels so take it one step at a time and just do the signature and spreadsheet when you can no pressure.

Again a big welcome hope to see you around the forum. Keep asking questions, it's how we learn and continue learning.

 

Hi and welcome Jess and Acacia. It's difficult and seems very overwhelming at first when you get the diagnosis and begin to learn about diabetic treatment.

You have some specific issues with your schedule and Deirdre has already come up with a suggestion on that. Other members will also have some input to try to help you out on that too.

Many of us use a timed feeder for our cats when we can't be there to personally serve our sugar cats. There are models that have 2 or 5 feeding dishes, and don't open until the time that you program them. I believe there is a model that closes the previous container, then rotates to the next, and if there is no food there to eat, then that could be your failsafe for the 2 hour window of no food before the morning or evening test. Using that 2 hour/no food before testing is only to help new members get an idea of BG without food influence for tests before shots, and does not have to stand for all time. The answers to the questions you have are not necessarily obvious, heck this is all new territory and that's one reason we all all here. There is a vast pool of methods, knowledge and levels of experience here for you to draw on. We will do our best to help you address all of your questions, concerns and issues.

So, taking the semester off may not be something you have to do, or be anxious & worried 24/7. My gosh girl, you have already begun effective diabetic treatment with proper diet and home testing. That is monumental. Now we just need to assist with getting a proper starting dose of Lantus to make Acacia feel better.

Deirdre gave you instructions for the signature..very important for advising members to know about the cancer and imminent surgery right away. Please tuck a few words regarding this in the signature, then you can provide more information in your profile (more room to record).

When the experienced Lantus users can see her weight and whatever testing data you have on the spreadsheet , they can advise on insulin dose.

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/understanding-the-spreadsheet-grid.156606/

You can ask for help in the Lantus forum for starting dose recommendations.

Very best wishes going forward