Mistakes you've made!

Sometimes it's easy to feel like you're the only one who makes mistakes! We all want what's best for our sugar babies and try hard to keep them happy and healthy. But nobody is perfect, especially if you're still learning!

To make us newbies feel better, does anyone have any "oops" moments they'd like to share when it came to caring for your sugar babes?

 

1 time when I was giving bella his insulin, I stuck him and accidentally shot through his skin and insulin came out other side lol

 

Oh no!

 

I doubt there is enough typing space to list all of my screw ups so only the juiciest ones:

-was looking at ALL classic symptoms of FD for weeks prior to DX and did not recognize it. Double shame BC there is human medical professional in the house. Consequence for the cat: DKA, ER, survived by a miracle.

- Overdosed x 10 with insulin. Consequence for the cat: severe symptoms Hypo, ER, survived by a miracle. For the female caregiver: suffers from PTSD ever since, wears glasses and got grey hair.

-Gave second shot – full dose -mid cycle (due to sheer Ignorance.)

As you can see it is an impressive and hard to beat short list which in turn makes me mistake expert and if so then I say don’t worry about it. All of the bad feelings shall pass but you’ll keep the lesson learnt from a mistake forever.

Everyone here including the most experienced folks is still learning… there is always something new.

I wish I have words to explain/ convince all new CGs that 1. Thing will get easier. They definitely will get better/easier/just a routine.2. Read all the Yellow Star stickie notes several times. Repeat every now and then afterwards. Knowledge liberates from fear. Fear is just another word for Ignorance. And fear can prevent one from moving forward with the insulin therapy 3. Make sure to include/ to plan the time for your rest/ relaxation/ something other than FD into your new routine. I made huge mistake by over exhausting myself - it helped nothing/no one. And it'll make you prone to mistakes.

Surely everyone hates making mistakes but for some folks (like me, LOL) it is the only way to learn something for good. So mistakes are our friends, in a way.

I hope it makes you feel better.

Anyone posting/ learning from this Forum deserves to feel good for being caring, loving and courageous enough to help their furry ones (often times against the orders of their vets).

 

Oh i could keep going lol didnt want to make a book of it lol lol lol
We all have do just do the best we can
New and old have and will continue to make mistakes, we are human

 

@Tanya and Ducia That's not what you told me Tanya! I have your portrait hanging in the living room. (sorry about the beard)

If this is a contest I want in.
Elmo was street smart and I could trust him enough to sit on the front steps while I walked the dog quickly across the street. About a year before he passed I got up one morning and saw a little flash of yellow at the front door. He had spent the night locked outside. The truth came out on Elmo's last ever visit to the vet. That is the last place you'd think everyone would have a chuckle but our vet knew us and adored Elmo. I'm sorry Elmo.
Nigel was an Angel, he would have injected himself if he had opposable thumbs but the first week I had him he went running into the basement with a syringe hanging off his behind. I'm sorry Nigel.
Leroy lived to 23, that cat never ever gave me grief or cost me more than a few dollars other than flying him 3,000 miles but I'm sure he appreciated the drugs. When a cat gets that old the fur gets a little dry. One day he jumped on the coffee table and over a tiny candle. And that is how I once set a cat on fire.
Leroy my buddy, I am really, really, really sorry.
Where do I collect my prize?

 

Sorry for the double post. Leroy did not burst into flames, it was just a little flicker. That's when I threw a glass of water on him.

 

Oh boy. This made me laugh!

 

Not too bad considering he also managed to fall from a second floor window into a fluffy snow bank so deep I didn't even run outside in a panic to get him. I knew nothing about cats when I got him and his brother BJ who lived to 17. They ate Pig-Slop brand cat food and would spend hours outside when I rented a tiny house on a tree farm.
We should all be so lucky to have a cat like him. He was in his twenties when I took this photo.

 

@Noah & me (GA) OMG!!! I'm Dying!!!!!

 

One night I did the normal routine, testing, fixing bowls for all cats, pulling up the insulin. Next morning I found syringe with insulin in it, in the fridge. Apparently I never gave the shot.

 

I had a summer social outing to go to and got dressed in a totally white outfit. As per my usual routine, I decided to get that last BG test in before leaving only to have Menace produce a pristine larger than usual blood drop and promptly toss her head. There I sat with blood spatters from top to bottom on my white clothes. Needless to say, I was a little late for my social outing but I learned an important lesson......test then get dressed to go out!

 

There's a sign over my bed. First your pants, then your shoes. I have mentioned my concussions before right?

Mistakes I almost made. Just before we moved and after we lost three old cats I kind of tricked CJ into looking at "something" which turned out to be four kittens at our vet. She was none too pleased because she knew that I knew she couldn't say no. "Really Dickson? We're moving next week and this is your idea of being clever".
That was Jacob and Zoe and we were assured they were fixed. A year later out popped Andrew, Simon, Nigel and Noah. That's how we went from 3 to 5 to 9 cats in 18 months. And then I took Cynthia on a short drive in the country....came home with a puppy. Those were the happiest days of my life, the cats were all young and in perfect health and our mortgage was almost half paid off already. I'd give anything to live just one more day like that.

 

I'm a newbie too, but not so new that I haven't yet forgot to give Jack his shot one morning. I made the mistake of writing it down before I actually gave it, so that made me think that I gave it and I forgot. Later in the day, while I was trying to get some mid-cycle testing done, it occurred to me that I never actually gave it to him.
I do have a story of a mistake made with one of my little calico girls. She has a total fascination with ice cubes, and always runs to the kitchen as soon as the freezer door is opened. Shortly after we got her, she climbed into the freezer and I didn't know she was there, so I shut the door. We had a freezer/ refrigerator that was side-by-side. Maybe 10 minutes after I went to bed, my daughter opened my bedroom door and told me that she went to get Ice cubes and Dede walked out of the freezer! I was horrified! Only a matter of days after that happened, I was walking around my house trying to figure out where Dede was crying from. Can you guess? She climbed in the freezer again, and I shut the door on her again! We no longer have a freezer and refrigerator side by side, so I don't have to be afraid of doing that one anymore.

 

The freezer! What a horrible person. That's like setting a cat on fire! Wait a minute, that was me. Sorry!
The previously mentioned Elmo was a real character when he was a kitten and was always jumping in the freezer, kind of new and not yet full. I figured I'd teach him a lesson and leave him in there for 20 seconds. I open the door and he just looks at me, "I'm having a moment, shut the door".
Look closely at my avatar. The ketchup and wine are cropped out but that sure looks like a vegetable crisper behind Noah. I'd open the door and in he'd go. I wanted a different avatar and this is what I end up with?

 

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

 

One time I went through the entire prep, test, shoot, feed, record, pack up ritual. Only to realize that I had forgotten the crucial step of drawing insulin into the syringe. Well, I was pretty sure I hadn't. Thought some more and decided, yes, I am 95% sure I spaced this out. So I gave him a second shot, with insulin in the syringe. But monitored extra careful that night.

Then I almost did the same thing again, but this time I managed to stop myself just before I plunged an empty syringe into my Thos.

 

Oh I want to play too!!

When China and I were new to all this, the first time she dropped too low I knew I had to get her numbers up, but wasn't real clear about how to do it. I had syrup bottles in every room in the house (can't be too careful, right?) and knew that I could use that to get her numbers up.....so I dumped about a cup full into a bowl and gave it to her (I was shocked that she liked it!) and she lapped up quite a bit.

Later on, I found out I was supposed to add a drop or two to her food, not give her half the bottle!!

Oh well....we live and learn, right??

 

Bama used to love to climb inside the extra refrigerator we kept in the garage as soon as I opened the door. Because it was a spare, it was not usually packed to the gills so he would climb up on the bottom shelf above the crispers. I started referring to that shelf as "Bama's shelf". It was hard to get him out. I was known to have closed him up in there more than once as an inducement to get him out. But that didn't work. He seemed to like the cold darkness.

 

My biggest oops was when I had two diabetics at the same time on different insulins. I gave the wrong insulin and dose to the wrong cat. It was much higher than her normal dose. Of course it happened just before I was about to leave for a meeting I needed to be at. Since I would be gone for a few hours and worried about her being hypo, I put her in the crate and took her with me. Fortunately the meeting was at a friend's house and they had no issues with her being there .

 

Duquessa was a stray that followed me into the house . Surprisingly none of my cats tried to chase her out. I found out later when I took her to the vet that she was pregnant.

In the middle of the night when she started to have her kittens I put her in my office where I already had a crate set up for her. I stayed with her till the first one was born, saw that she started caring for it and was going to go back to bed. She saw that I was leaving and started to follow me. I had to stay with her until all 5 kittens were born. I still have not figured out how she had 5 kittens in her since she is a very small cat. My number of cats jumped from 8 to 13.

 

I was new to my vet back when Zoe got knocked up by her brother. She still gets a chuckle remembering me in a panic with Zoe, "Is it a tumor? What's happening? Why has God done this to me?" She's pregnant you idiot! Nigel, Noah, Andrew and Simon were born 20 feet from where I'm sitting.
In a previous post I said "Mistakes I almost made". What I meant was for a nanosecond we considering adopting out these kittens because we wanted to make sure we had enough love, and money, to give them a forever home. I'm not making this up. One Saturday morning before we even gave them permanent names they all climbed up on our bed, meow! The deal was sealed right then and there.

 

I understand. Mine were kept in the family. Two of my kittens were adopted by my brother and another by my sister . I still have 2 and their mom. The 2 my brother had before he passed away are with my dad. We he is gone, they are coming back to me.

 

So as not to get too attached to the kittens we gave them stupid names, can't remember them all but Andrew had a diagonal stripe on his face so he was Stripe. Nigel was Spud. We did get one adoption offer from a woman CJ worked with who backed over her cat in the driveway. You're disqualified lady.
Not really a mistake, let's call it an error in judgment or just tactless. Clumping cat litter was discovered by accident in 1984. Prior to that I lived in a rented hippie house with four cats and a dozen deadbeats. There was a gap between the fence and the garage where the litter pile got fairly high. The landlord never saw it.