New member, Whisper (but not newly diabetic)

Hello All,

I have already “met” some of you on the Facebook page, but hadn’t posted anything on FDMB until now. So this is an intro and history on my family, and then I will post a follow-up question over in the Health Forum (or should it be in L&L, I am not sure). Bear with me, I want to be sure to cover everything you might need to know!

My name is Sandi, and my husband’s name is Mike. There are currently six members of our current feline family: Miss Sara (born 1999), Homer & Miss Poe (siblings born 2000), Maxwell (born 2008), Miss Molly (born 2014), and our sugar cat Whisper (born…2001? 2005?...more on that in a minute).

But to back up, our oldest boy Brady passed away on Christmas Eve of 2014 in the NCSU Vet School ICU due to what was determined on necropsy to be a deep gastric ulcer that contributed to multi-system organ failure. A fluffy ginger boy, he had developed diabetes in 2009 at the age of 12. With home testing and PZI, we were able to get him into remission after about 4 months. Between 2009 and his death in 2014, he would need to go back on a tiny dose of PZI for about 3 weeks every 6 months or so. Brady was an EASY diabetic. VERY consistent in his BGs, no bouncing, no hypo, nothing. It was a piece of cake.

In September 2015, Brady (GA) led us to Whisper. Whisper was currently at a rescue about 6 hours from us. In response to my original inquiry about Whisper, I was told that he was 10 years old, had been at the rescue for “about a year”, was surrendered to a kill shelter by his original owners when he became diabetic, but was subsequently pulled from the kill shelter by the rescue organization.

What follows are just facts: After we picked him up, his only records were a Vet receipt from Jan 2013 in the name of the rescue, not the original owners or the kill shelter, and a “health report” sheet from a different vet in June 2015 which noted his age as 14 years old. So the original 2013 receipt leads us to believe that he was not at the rescue for about a year, but rather more like 2 years 9 months (and therefore diabetic for longer than that because we don’t know how long he was at the kill shelter?), and his age is either 10 or 14. Doesn’t ultimately matter, he WAS coming home with us, but it would have been good to have more history on his diabetes and overall health. We also know that he had been on 2 units of Lantus twice a day, given at anywhere between 10 and 14 hour intervals. They did not BG test at the rescue, so the last time that his BG was tested was at that vet visit in June 2015. They free-fed Meow Mix dry.

On Whisper’s first evening home, we kept him isolated from the resident cats in our bonus room and I slept in there with him. We had an appointment for a full workup from our vet the following morning. He did test FeLV/FIV negative (we wanted to be certain), fecal was negative, he had a really bad yeast and bacterial infection in his ears, he had horrible gums, he was underweight, had severe stud tail and chin acne, and he has slight diabetic neuropathy and walks slightly down on his hocks.

So he has been on two courses of azithromycin antibiotics, otipak for his ears, a shampoo and Miconahex+Triz wipes for his chin/tail acne, Tresaderm drops for ear infection, and flagyl for the diarrhea caused by the AB. Once the original round of AB calmed his gums down, it was clear he needed extractions, so he has since had a full dental with 3 tooth extractions for really bad neck lesions.

The whole house was already eating some FF Tender Beef Feast (5% carb per catinfo.org) twice a day from back when Brady was diabetic, but we primarily fed Blue Buffalo Sensitive Stomach based on our ultra-picky Miss Sara. Miss Poe eats K/D dry separate from everyone else. As of about the first week in October, Whisper now gets purely FF Tender Beef Feast 4 times per day, PureBites freeze dried turkey as post-injection and post-testing treats, and nothing else. Everyone else gets FF 4 times per day as well, but we are still struggling to get Homer and Sara off of dry and they get it only when we can supervise so that Whisper doesn’t get any. We are awaiting samples of Young Again zero carb mature (YAZCM), and hope that we can get Blue Buffalo out entirely, and then leave the YAZCM out all day as a dry supplement without having to worry about Whisper. We’ll try the EVO if they don’t like YA, or continue to just try to get off dry entirely.

Ok, now our experience with diabetes just to give you a baseline: We know how to test at home, give injections, store and handle insulin (and knowing the difference between how to handle PZI vs. Lantus), not to test within 2 hours or eating, how to handle hypos, and that I need to keep his schedule super consistent.

What I didn’t already know, but have since read, is how the insulin depot works for Lantus and Levemir, what “bouncing” means, and how it is now critical to test AMPS and PMPS, plus mid-cycle, both day and evening at least periodically. Now…That doesn’t mean that I have a solid grasp on the insulin depot, bouncing, or being really good at doing as much testing as I should. But I read enough to both give me a migraine every night after work, and to scare the heck out of me. So if you want to look at Whisper’s SS (linked in my sig) for BG testing, please be kind…I know where I need to be headed, and as more time goes along I am getting better at it, but I also have guilt and know that my early weeks were not really sufficient due to a false sense of what testing was really required based on our original experience with Brady.

But one thing that I have really struggled with is trying to bond with our new boy. He is really sweet, and I absolutely love him to pieces already. However, I am pretty sure that the feeling is not mutual ;-) But that is understandable since we have taken him from his home 2 states away with his feline friends of almost three years, he wasn’t used to getting BG tests, and I have put him in a house with 5 cats he doesn’t know, two of them who appear to really dislike him still, completely changed his food, and I am sticking stuff in his ears, mouth, scruff, etc. at all times of the day. But we really can’t delay any of this treatment at this point either. So what we have done is install pheromone diffusers, our spare mattress is on the floor in our bonus room, and although he is out with everyone during the day, Mike or I sleep in the bonus room every night with him to give the other cats some peace (and then we can still leave some Blue Buffalo out overnight without Whisper getting into it until we either transition off entirely or find a low carb dry alternative), and to have some alone time with him. Whisper is very cuddly at night and I am hoping that this will help him learn that we aren’t all about pain. We are also hoping that once Whisper gets feeling better and we are poking and prodding him a little less, that he will be happier and everyone will get along better. Note that there haven’t been any actual cat fights, just hissing and growling on occasion (not even every day).

Phew, ok that should catch you up on everything but Whisper’s current diabetes info! I am actually going to stop that part of the story here, and I’ll pick it up there in the L&L section along with my questions momentarily.

Even though I hadn’t posted yet, I have read many of your stories, successes, trials and tribulations, and sadnesses, and I feel like I know a lot of your babies. I am not hoping for remission with Whisper, due simply to the length of time he has already been diabetic and how unregulated he has been for so long, but I just want to get him feeling good, happy, and loved for the rest of his life.

Thanks for listening!

Sandi, Mike and the “Six Pack”

 

Wow - You and Mike are really special people. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I am sure Whisper will eventually warm up to you all. I really don't have much to add other than this world is a much better place because of families like you. I am sure the folks in LLL will answer all your questions.

 

Thanks Cindi, but I am not feeling like a good kitty mama yet. I hope that will change soon too though

 

Sandi, what a great story and how lucky Whisper is to have you ad Mike. He looks so sweet and reminds me of my civvie cat, Forrest. Fingers and Paws for his treatment and that he and all you other fur babies will co-exist in harmony.

 

Sandi, you are an excellent kitty mama. You have given Whisper a second chance at life. He is a lucky boy and I'm sure he will settle in soon.