Haiku

Low Blood Sugar Kitty Haiku

55 Comments

Sleeping peacefully,
While we were shoveling snow
Mo’s blood sugar dropped.

 

 

I had a very bad day. Jim and I shoveled snow for about 4 hours. We resolved to break down and buy a snow blower.

I came in, took off my jacket and went to check out my fat ‘mo only to find him having convulsive seizures!

I phoned our vet: closed.

The phone number for the emergency vet was either wrong, or the particular one my vet recommended hadn’t opened yet. Jim and I spent time trying to feed the cat corn syrup (the recommended treatment for low blood sugar.) Mo’s seizures got weaker and spaced out. But we couldn’t call what we were seeing recovered.

We worried about brain damage. We worried that maybe it wasn’t low blood sugar but high. We fretted.

Luckily, Jim’s brothers phoned from their Dad’s. (They were shoveling out the 94 year old guy’s driveway.) They learned about Mo and on the drive home took the route by one of the emergency vets in the area. That emergency vet was open!

Jim phoned, the vet said bring him right in. So, we suited up, wrapped Mo in a blanket and took him to the vet. The vet tech was standing at the door when we arrived. Evidently, Mo perked right up when the gave him Dextrose. But we left him in the ICU for observation to make sure his blood sugar doesn’t plunge again. They’ll keep him a minimum of 4 hours, but if he passes 2 of the hour checks in a row, he’ll get to come home.

We are hoping for a call in two hours so we can bring our fat boy home!

On the drive home, Jim commented that the budget now dictates we wait a while before buying a snow blower. For the time being, we’ll continue shoveling the low carbon footprint way.

Update
Zeke’s cats aren’t doing well either. Here’s a cute video of them:

55 thoughts on “Low Blood Sugar Kitty Haiku”

  1. Yeah that is unfortunate. We just got a new snowblower at my house and it rocks. I would have let you borrow it but I live in Pittsburgh.

  2. Where’s your tip jar? I have currency for snow blowers that are not denominated in quatloos…

  7. Sorry to hear about your kitty. But I am puzzled: doesn’t being, well.. extremely plump usually cause high blood sugar? Or are cats a lot different from people in that regard?
    .
    How much does a snow blower cost anyway? I suspect the tip jar could help finance it; I’d chip in. The cost of a snow blower is small compared to an injured back (or worse). I expect most readers would rather have you blog than slog (through the snow) anyway.

  10. Sorry to hear that. And I can understand the budget thing with the emergency vet.

    We had a beagle with a ruptured disc in the middle of the night…

  11. SteveF–
    I don’t know if the plumpness causes the diabetes in cats or not. But this cat is very plump and got diabetes.

    Shub–Well.. intensive care unit, for cats. I’m not sure exactly whats involved, but they need to monitor blood sugar and give him dextrose intravenously.

  12. Zeke, Chess, and Ice Bear,
    The cat contingent chez nous,
    Send their best regards.
    ===============

  13. Lucia,

    Best wishes for the cat. We had one patterned like that, until last June. (We have been catless since then.)

  14. Lucia,

    Seems cats and humans are not so different WRT diabetes and weight:
    “Obesity in cats is very common and can predispose the cat to diabetes, Hepatic Lipidosis and arthritis. Overweight and actually obese cats outnumber cats of normal weigh and are being seen more and more commonly by veterinarians for various disorders. ”
    From http://www.thepetcenter.com/article.aspx?id=3401
    .
    Treatment:
    http://www.felinediabetes.com/dummies.htm
    Wow. No wonder you are not buying a snow blower.

  16. I had a diabetic cat once – I had to give him an insulin shot ever day in the skin behind his neck. I quickly learned to feed him first, then give him his shot. As cats will do, sometimes he turned up his nose at the food, and if I had already given him his shot, he became hypo a few minutes later. Then convulsions, blanket wrap (for my protection), quick trip to the vet. I found that I could tell when he was about to go hypo just by watching him, and also that a squeeze bottle filled with milk and a lot of sugar could stop the hypo before the convulsions set in. I’d just sit him up, poke the nozzle of the squeeze bottle (a plastic ketchup or mustard bottle) into his mouth, and give it several good squeezes. That usually got some of the sugared milk down him, and he came out of it. He lived 2 years after he became diabetic, and died at the ripe old age of 17. Really a great cat, a big orange tabby, like Morris. Friendly almost like a dog.

  18. Joes77–
    I usually just move mo into the room with me all day. The problem is we were shoveling. Normally, I probably would have monitored food and suggested a snack!

  19. Oddly enough, Jim and I are beginning to suspect there is a cat out in the yard hoping to break in!

    The night before the storm, or grey cat started howling. There was a dark kitty just outside the cat door. I moved the grey kitty away from the cat door, but they the other cat got scared. Jim put food out under the picnic table.

    Then… today… more howling. I’m seeing regions that look like a cat plowed through, all coming and going from under the covered picnic table.

    I put out more food!

    (BTW: The grey cat adopted us by breaking in during an ice storm. We’ve been adopted by two cats. For some reason, people around here get tired of their cats, or move and leave them behind. Very sad!)

  20. Cats often choose their owners. We have had several cats that used to belong to neighbors but they: didn’t like the cat chow, were afraid of the dog, too many cats in the other house, couldn’t sleep inside, liked our house. One we fed them and let them in… they moved in. I guess we just know how to do cats. We are currently catless but the last one “Tigger” made it to 19.

    Prayers sent for a speedy recovery for Mo.

  21. can a cat survive a night (like tonight) outside? I see your temps are around -5 tonight, which is about the same for us here in northern New Mexico. My (very short haired) Weimaraner won’t even go outside tonight! Makes me cringe to think of smallish domestic animals trying to survive a full night outside with this weather.

  22. S. Geiger–
    I don’t know. It’s already 8F right now. I haven’t seen the cat tonight. I just heard my cat howling at the window like he did two days ago and I saw tracks to the snow. I’ll post a photo to show where the cat may have been holing up. (I don’t think it’s there now. Bringing food my have scared it off. If so.. sigh…)

  23. S. Geiger–
    Do you see the grey tarp over something? Jim put four wooden little end tables on top of a wooden picnic table. Six chairs are tucked in. Then, we covered it with the trap and anchored that down.

    The way this is organized, a cat might do ok under the tarp…. for a while. But 8F? 0F like the predict tonight?

    But at least the cat wouldn’t be on brick pavers and he’d be out of the wind. Plus, as a believer in “back radiation”, I’d note that the ash tree branches over the table will partially block the view to the 0K universe. The cat could either huddle under a little end table so that would insulate or he could huddle on a chair below the picnic table and below the end tables.

    Two trails that might be due to a cat emerge from this table. One is on the east and one on the west. The one on the west went back and forth from a tree. Our cat was looking that way and howling.

    The one on the east side wasn’t there until after I went out there and left food. So, the cat might have gotten frighted off. That would be too bad because that picnic table might be the best place possible if she’s caught outside. (Actually, there is one better place. that’s under the bump out from my kitchen. The kitchen sort of overhangs the yard and there is a little 6′ wide, 3ft deep overhang right next to the house. We’ve tried to insulate well… but we know that the insulation is imperfect there, and the heat lost from the house could save a cat — if she found the spot. (We can’t be confident she would though.)

  25. Love and healing thoughts to Moe!
    The outside cat should be named Popsicle if it survives. 😉

    “Shoveling snow the low carbon footprint way!”
    Silly shout heard round the country this week.

  26. “Shoveling snow the low carbon footprint way!”
    Silly shout heard round the country this week.

    liza,

    If only lucia’s carbon footprint had been smaller. The blizzard would have never happened.

    Andrew

  27. Lucia,
    Sorry to read about your cat. He is a lucky cat to have you as his owner.
    Your casual remarks about shoveling snow sure puts our ‘major winter storm’ here in SE Texas into perspective, lol.
    Best wishes to your kitty’s full recovery and to your surely aching muscles.

  28. LICIA IS IT NOT BECOMING APPARENT TO YOU THAT YOU HAVE BEEN MASSIVELY CONNED INTO THE agw SCAM BY NOW? EXCUSE CAPS NOT DONE ON PURPOSE

  29. Josh,
    “Oh, am I allowed to light a candle?”
    Heck no! Way too much CO2 per lumen. Light a $50 LED replacement bulb instead of a $0.20 incandescent that you run 30 hours a year; the government says you must.

  30. Re: lucia (Comment#67905)

    Our orange tabby, before we took him in, survived the Great Ice Storm of ’09 on its own. Storm drains seem to be effective shelters for these little prowlers. I think your stray will be OK, although I certainly wouldn’t want to spend the night out there myself!

  32. Julio–
    Jim shoveled off the cat stairs. The grey kitty went out for about 10 minutes. It was sort of funny to watch him sinking and deciding he’d rather be in!

  33. “stephan (Comment#67922)
    February 3rd, 2011 at 9:03 am
    LICIA IS IT NOT BECOMING APPARENT TO YOU THAT YOU HAVE BEEN MASSIVELY CONNED INTO THE agw SCAM BY NOW? EXCUSE CAPS NOT DONE ON PURPOSE”

    Stephan,

    Assigning anything but positive motives to anyone who supports AGW is frowned upon at the Blackboard – FYI.

    Andrew

  37. I showed Mo’s picture to Missy, our 20 lb pure bred alley cat. She said “eh” then jumped down and went to the food area, sniffed the Fancy Feast, then walked over to the bowl of cheap Friskies dry and ate for a few minutes.

  39. Lucia,

    I can imagine you going out and firing that thing up and throwing the snow onto the neighbor’s driveway. 😉

    Andrew

  40. Lucia,

    So your cats are allowed outside? How do you keep them from leaving the yard?

    The first cat we took in was a mostly outdoors type. He would only agree to sleep inside on the coldest winter nights, and even then he would get restless around 5 am and insist on going out, whether there was snow on the ground or not. He was usually back for breakfast, though.

    BTW, the adopted grey kitty is adorable.

  41. Oddly enough, we brought our fat cat into the vet yesterday because he wasn’t moving from the couch and was acting rather sick. Apparently he had a temperature of 106 and an elevated white blood cell count. A chest x-ray showed nodules in his lungs that are either pneumonia or cancer. We are hoping for (and treating) the first via antibiotics, and we have him on an IV drip to keep him hydrated…

    We never thought of getting health insurance for the cats, but the entire thing set us back about $2 thousand. Thankfully the fat one seems to be feeling a bit better today.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cegTSR8x7Yk

  42. The cats are allowed to go out.

    Mo never, ever, ever, ever goes out voluntarily. Before he had diabetes we discussed his fatness with the vet. Normally, the vet tells people not to let them out, but she thought he might benefit from supervised out time. He won’t go out. If we take him out, he slinks around fearfully, runs to the door and asks to be let in. We might be able to get him to stay out if we dose him with catnip and both sit near him.

    Griz-puss cannot be kept in. That’s why he’s ours now. He used to belong to a family who could not keep him in. He would wander, and one night 11 pm during a freezing rain storm “poop”, in came Griz! He sauntered into the kitchen and started to eat. That’s when I noticed him. He was very happy to be petted instead of being chased out. He stayed about 15 minutes, went out 30 minutes, came back for a while. The next morning he was gone.

    The next evening he arrived at 10 pm.

    The next day Jim came back from travel, I went to Florida to bring Dad from Fl to Il. I told jim to watch for the griz– who appeared at 10 pm every evening.

    He kept coming back regularly, staying longer and picking “favorite” spots. (Somehow a cardbox got lined with blankets. How did that happen? But he also liked the sink, the basement etc.) In January, he decided to stay here 23 hours out of 24 for 2 weeks. So, we finally took him to the vet, who found he was chipped. We found that family (who hadn’t noticed he was missing), discussed his proclivities, and decided that since he’s basically decided he wants to live with us (and our cat door) he’s now ours.

    I supposed we could try to keep Griz in, but it would be very difficult. He’s an escape artist. That’s why he ended up here in the first place! We don’t try to keep him in the yard.

    Of course the “stray” who is now causing Griz and me some concern may be just like Griz– has a real family, but “escapes”. Still, when it’s -8F, if she’s shivering, I’d prefer if she broke in!

  43. Lucia, I have a smaller Toro snow blower that passed the ultimate test yesterday. It was blowing snow (and a good distance at that) when being almost buried in the snow. I purchased the blower a couple of years back for, for 400 dollars, when I thought I had a back problem from shoveling. The problem was from my posture at the computer, but the snow blower has become as much a toy as a tool. I used to attempt to “beat” the younger lads and ladies in the neighborhood with shoveling versus blowing. I have found that the correct strategies in shoveling or blowing can make the job much easier.

    Yesterday I saw more ladies than ever before manning snow blowers. I think a lady across the street has “toyed” up to her blower. The guy across the street has a snow blower as big or bigger than the one you depicted on this thread and being a hard working executive with a day off went crazy clearing all the drives and walks that needed clearing in the near proximity to his house. He was even in the street blowing snow before the city plow made its first pass.

    My carbon foot print was ridiculous as I used 2 1/2 tanks of gas to clear my drive and walks. I’ll probably have to plant a couple of trees or at least consult with Al Gore on how to handle my great guilt.

    My experience with cats have been a singular one with a Siamese that I adopted from my son when he left home. Sam and I became very close and that was big surprise to me as I only had dogs as a younger person. Sam was the most friendly cat I had ever been around. I would talk to new people in the neighborhood and they would soon make the connection that ” you then must be Sam’s owner”. When my wife and I went to the vets and had to put Sam down (he was 19) we cried like babies and they had us leave by the back door so we would not upset the people in the waiting room. That was not an unusual occurrence at all we learned later. My Dad never liked cats and I think Sam knew that as I would watch him zero in on my Dad for leg rubs and other means of getting his attention. My Dad would stiffen up and that was supposed to be a clue for my Mom and other siblings to remove whatever was bothering my Dad. That was not my reaction so I just let the Sam and Dad game play out.

    Here’s hoping your Mo has a full and quick recovery. By the way, being around someone close who has a seizure, for the first time particularly, can be a very scary situation. You know that to be of immediate assistance you cannot panic but it is a time of high anxiety.

    PS My first recollection of what I paid for the snow blower was a lot less than what I found I actually paid for it. That happens a lot with me with my toys.

  47. Lucia,

    Griz sounds just like our first cat. He also used to “belong” to somebody else.

    These days we occasionally talk about “getting” one, but having lost two in just 5 years I think we do not really feel like actively looking for that kind of trouble. Of course, if it should come to us again, I’m pretty sure we would take it anyway. 🙂

  48. Some friends of mine had a cat, Chester, whose kidneys failed and wasn’t expected to live for more than a few days. Somehow he survived the crisis and lived for at least two more years. He required subcutaneous administration of a substantial amount of isotonic saline twice/day as a form of dialysis, but tolerated the process very well. He was then always referred to as Chester the Miracle Cat.

    My (adopted stray) kitty had to have half her thyroid gland removed to keep from wasting away from hyperthyroidism. She used to be very much an outdoor cat. In fact when she broke one of her rear legs and was in a cast, she would occasionally manage to get past us and out the door. She always came back in a day or two. Now that she’s older, 18 or so, she stays indoors most of the time. I think she’s getting senile dementia, though. She forgets she’s been fed. Perhaps it’s mercury poisoning from too much canned tuna.

  49. We are raising a set of littermates, a brother named Paloosa and a sister named Gigi.
    Paloosa is a large bodied white siamese mix with red tips on ears and very light orange/red banding in the haunches and tail. His eyes are silver white. He is laid back and always watches what is going on.
    Gigi is a petite British shorthair with tortoiseshell orange on a gray coat and hazel eyes. Gigi is sneaky, constantly looking for ways to get out.
    They are about seven months old.
    They play together incessantly, and love when I bring plants in from the cold. It gives them great new toys to shred!
    We keep them strictly indoors, due to the many feral and abandonded cats in the neighborhood and our desire to preserve as much of the native wildlife as possible.

  50. “He required subcutaneous administration of a substantial amount of isotonic saline twice/day as a form of dialysis, but tolerated the process very well. He was then always referred to as Chester the Miracle Cat.”

    I once had a coworker who had three cats and when I asked him about his cats he told me that the youngest was 18, the next oldest was something like 22 and the oldest was 26. Two of those cats had the same kidney problem that you mentioned above and the coworker administered the same treatment. As I recall the coworker had these same three cats when I lost track of him a year or two later.

  51. “He kept coming back regularly, staying longer and picking “favorite” spots. (Somehow a cardbox got lined with blankets. How did that happen? But he also liked the sink, the basement etc.) In January, he decided to stay here 23 hours out of 24 for 2 weeks. So, we finally took him to the vet, who found he was chipped. We found that family (who hadn’t noticed he was missing), discussed his proclivities, and decided that since he’s basically decided he wants to live with us (and our cat door) he’s now ours.”

    That sounds something like how my daughter-in-law got her third cat. It seems they had a neighbor who was single and did not come home for a few days at a time and his cat was left outside to provide for itself or maybe to invoke the pity of people like my daughter-in-law to take care of it. Anyway she finally took the cat in on a permanent basis and was waiting for his owner to come by so she could rip him a new one. I would ask her occasionally whether she still had her “borrowed” cat. She told me that she talks to the neighbor now and that he is OK with the adoption, but she says he insists (too much) how much he liked the cat and took good care of it. Sounds an awful lot like a guilty conscience to me.

  52. Thank you all for the wishes of good health for JT Snow – Im happy to say he is perking up a bit today and his temperature is down which points to it being Pneumonia.
    Unfortunately cats have this weird thing where they can just start to show symptoms of really advanced diseases. They have a remarkable ability to hide all of their symptoms until its too late.
    We are at least lucky that our fat one does not have diabetes or he would be in much worse shape.

  53. Best wishes to both Mo and JT snow for speedy recoveries. Deciding how far to go with medical treatment for pets can be very difficult.

    We just were adopted by a stray within the last couple of months. Finally let her in to meet our Bengal cat a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, there was no armageddon and they appear to be tolerating each other. In fact, it seems to have improved the bengal’s behaviour, who had a bit of a problem deciding to use the cat box and can be skittish as all get out.

    Lucia, get the snow blower – Doesn’t have to be a 27″ behometh, but it does make some things much easier, like clearing the huge ridge of snow/ice the snowplow pushes in front of your driveway. Alas, the carberator on my old beast died last week during the big mid-week east coast storm. Fortunately, we only got an inch or two and a buch of ice out of the big storm that hit you.

  54. Our new cat, “tubby” looks like a candidate for this sort of trouble in the future.

    Best wishes for a speedy recovery and some warming.

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