Living with a diabetic cat...

Thursday 8 January 2009

Visiting day!

Hurray!   At last, a visiting order (plus lesson in giving injections).  I've been completely rubbish this week in checking up on the fluffy princess.

Day 1: Called surgery after work at 6.30pm to find they'd shut at 6pm.
Day 2: Checked opening times, Tuesdays open till 7, so planned to call straight after work at 6.30pm.  Realised time at 7.15pm... 45mins unpaid overtime, d'oh!
Day 3: Determined! Open till 6pm. Must. Call. Before. 6pm.  Just needed to find 5 mins to myself at work.... realised time at 6.20pm....d'oh!

Felt guilty and ashamed, but ultimately know she's okay as if there was any trouble they'd contact me.  No matter, today I'd set myself as a half day to get there on time for 5pm to practise insulin injections.   Despite leaving work an hour and a half later than my "half day", it still left lots of time, so we got there about 20mins early and sat chatting in the waiting room.  Dr O passed by on his way to drop a letter in the postbox, and then kindly granted us "visiting rights" to sit in the examination room with Cleo.  Poor little girl!  Looked all small and slightly disheveled, her skin having gone a bit dry and flaky as it does when she's a bit stressed and hangs around with central heating too much.   Took a couple of mins but she did react to us and rubbed her face against hands and lay down on my arm - with her eagle eyes and ears trained on all the strange noises around.  You could almost see her planning "The Great Escape" with each glance towards the door to the exit.  That's my girl...!

Dr O then explained that her blood sugar levels were much improved from before Christmas, so the food she'd been on had done some good, but was still requiring the insulin injections daily.  We decided that morning injections would probably be better than evening ones, so we could regulate them to be around the same time each day.  That way if I was late home it wouldn't be an issue, with Dad being a bit iffy with needles and needing more than a couple of practise shots with purified water.

The Doc then explained how to handle the insulin (carefully), to keep it refridgerated, invert it gently a few times before use, and how to hold the needle and inject.   It all went very smoothly, despite being very calm about all this in a strangely detatched sort of way I half thought I'd feel a bit weird with the actual injecting of my own actual kitty (as opposed to when I'd done work experience in a vet and was shown how to do things), but it all went calmly, Cleo didn't even flinch or react.  She's always been good with meds, since we got her and her bro (now deceased) as cat flu ridden kittens from the RSPCA Rehoming Centre.   Quickly adapted to knowing that the uncomfortable med moments makes you better, so all was calm with her now.

Very pleased with her reaction to the insulin so far, the Doc even said that there's a possibity that her diabetes could end up being temporary, never to reappear, or to come back occasionally, or that it might stay for life, only time will tell.  That's okay, we have plenty of time, and regardless of cost or whatever Cleo comes first, and as long as neither Cleo nor me are unhappy with the insulin injections each day then it's all good so far.

Wow, that's actually a positive side to life.  Glad I'm writing this down, I doubt I'd believe myself as having said that.

Anyway, we eventually said bye to both Dr O and Cleo and were sent on our way with a sharps bin under one arm, and a box of syringes.  The cat and the insulin would follow tomorrow. :)

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