I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

The Christmas tree is still standing!  The novelty of playing in and around the tree has finally worn off.  The cats are ignoring it.

Dot, Dash and Cody

We still have our three little foster kittens.  They are now out and about the house all day long.  They are getting used to sharing the house with people, cats and a big dog.

We put the kittens in “their room” to sleep at night.  It’s more for us than for them.  We’re sure we wouldn’t get much sleep since they like our bedroom now.  In the mornings when we open the door to go in and feed them, they pile out of the room.  Because they are hungry though, it isn’t hard to get them back in the room to eat.  When they are finished, I open the door and down the stairs they run to start a new day.

It’s really been fun having these kittens in our house.  We’ve watched them grow and learn not to be so afraid of everything.  They still have that “flight first” reflex, but we can see that they are starting to re-evaluate the situation before running to hide in the “woodpile”. 

We’re still advertising and looking for homes for the kittens though.  As much as we love them, we know they would be better in a home where they would get more attention.  The person who wanted Cody, the tabby, just had knee surgery and needs a couple of weeks more before she can take her.     

We noticed that Mr. Creme seemed to be losing weight, not much, but enough that we could see.  He’s never been overweight, but he has weighed up to 15 pounds.  He had his last senior blood panel last January.  Since that was almost a year ago and we had some concerns, we took him in on Tuesday for his blood work.

Mr. Creme outside the patio door--Jonesie and Rhody inside

Mr. Creme is 11 years old and will be 12 in March.  He and Lexi are siblings.  Of course, a few weeks ago Lexi was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and started her daily medication.  It is easy to give twice a day by rubbing a pre-measured amount of Tapazole gel in her ear.  Back in 2000 or so, when Calvin was being treated for this thyroid condition, he was on Tapazole pills and the dosage was hard to regulate.  But, Lexi is doing fine right now.  We would not be surprised if Mr. Creme had the same condition since another sibling, Pinto, also was diagnosed with it not long ago.

Lexi, trying to relax

The vet called yesterday with the blood results.  The good news was, Mr. Creme did not have a thyroid problem.  But, he does have diabetes.  That was not what we wanted to hear at all.  We also had a cat, Rowdy, who had diabetes diagnosed in the late ‘90's.  Feline diabetes was pretty new to vets then and treatment was not the best.  Some vets were not really much up on what to do.  I don’t think we ever got Rowdy on the right track.

But, things have changed, thank goodness.  Vets now see hyperthyroid and diabetes in cats and dogs more and more, and medicine has come a long way.  They know more about how to do the testing which will make it possible to regulate dosages of insulin.

Charlie and I made an appointment to see our vet and we took Mr. Creme with us so we could get him started on insulin.  The vet came in and showed us the ProZinc Insulin Kit which contained a bottle of insulin and 100 syringes.  When the syringe is used, you put it in the little tray and turn the knob, it drops into an enclosed reservoir.  When it’s full, we take the empty syringes to Walgreens or any drugstore for disposal.

Back in the day, with Rowdy, his vet gave me a prescription for insulin and I had to go to Walgreens and buy the box of syringes and the bottle of insulin.  Then we started him at a certain dosage and took him back for testing.  It was very erratic and not fun to watch the roller coaster of Rowdy not eating or throwing up everything he ate.  I worried constantly if we were giving him the right amount of insulin.  We tried special diets, but he hated everything.  It was not a good life for him or us and we said we’d never put another cat through that.  That’s easy enough to say, so soon after going through it.

But, with Mr. Creme, we have confidence that we can provide him with a good quality of life and he should be able to keep his normal day to day activities.  He’ll go back in three weeks for a fructosamone test which will give us his blood sugar reading and how the insulin is working.  We will keep him on his current diet for now, but may have to change to a prescription diet.  That will be hard because Mr. Creme is one of those cats who will simply stop eating if he doesn’t get what he wants.

I will join a feline diabetes support group online and try to get on top of what we can expect with Mr. Creme from now on.  If I had it to do over, I would have joined the feline lymphoma support group when Taz was first diagnosed with lymphoma last year.  All of the supporters had or were going through it with their cat and they were so helpful.  I didn’t join until Taz was well into his chemo treatments.  I have learned a lot after he died too. 

While we were waiting for the vet yesterday, a lady came in with her cat, “Cynnamon”.  She had adopted her from the animal shelter three weeks ago.  We were talking to her and she showed interest in getting another cat to keep Cynnamon company.  Of course, the girl at the front counter was also giving her theory that it was better to have two cats, so they could play together.

 

                   Dash                                                          Dot

Anyway, we “mentioned” that we had two little white kittens at home and if she was interested in another kitten, to please call us.  We gave her our number and she said she’d follow up on it.  Apparently she had to check with her daughter because she wasn’t sure that she would go for two cats.  We may not hear from her, but we are certainly trying to get the word out about the kittens.

Also there was a young, college-age girl with her black cat in the waiting room.  She said the cat didn’t have a name yet and she was a stray.  The day before, she had brought the cat in for examination and to set up a date to spay her.  The cat had worms and it was discovered that she was also pregnant.  Surprise....not!  So the girl went ahead and scheduled a spaying.  When she took the cat home and told her mom about the pregnancy, her mom said no, they would not spay.  They would let her have her kittens and find a home for them. 

We were happy to hear that.  She was there to get a worm treatment shot for the cat and she wanted to make sure that the shot would be okay for a pregnant cat.  When the technician came to get the cat to take her back for the shot, the girl said “It’s just for a shot, right?”  She was being pretty protective of that little cat. 

The girl is already in contact with some of the local animal rescue services, so I think she will do what’s best for the kittens. 

Sheila went to the groomer today and just got back.  She smells very nice.  I think they put an extra shot of perfume on her this time.  We’ll let her wear her pretty Christmas bandana through the rest of the holidays.  It’s nice to have a clean dog in the house.

More later............