Penny’s Journey to Her First Remission from Feline Diabetes

For more about our introduction to feline diabetes, read here … Our Introduction to Feline Diabetes .

The first thing I learned was that it was TOO dangerous to blindly shoot insulin into my cat without home testing.

FINALLY we were seeing the food changes and insulin take effect!

The second thing I learned is that there is more effective and SAFER insulin for cats in the US & Canada than Vetsulin.

The third thing I learned was that a FOOD CHANGE to LOW CARBOHYDRATE food was our ONLY chance at regulation and remission. There are a few diabetic “prescription” foods out there for diabetic cats. BUT, they are all high carb and full of JUNK ingredients.

Feeding high-carbohydrate foods to a diabetic cat, or a diabetic human, for that matter, is like putting fuel on a fire and hoping it extinguishes the fire.

Does that make sense?

I was told to feed low-carb wet food, such as Fancy Feast Classics or Friskies Pates. But, I have a kibble addict on my hands. I’ll be honest and admit I didn’t try very hard to switch her over to an all-wet food diet because she tends to have loose stools, diarrhea, and hairball problems (she IS a Maine Coon who doesn’t like to be brushed, after all lol) when she eats only wet food. She does much better overall on half-wet, half-dry.

So I decided to try this ultra low carb dry food that’s touted to help diabetic cats achieve remission called Young Again Zero (carb). It’s available online-only, so in the meantime, while I was waiting for her new food to arrive, I worked on learning how to home test Penny and talking her vet into switching her to Lantus, which is considered a much safer and more effective insulin for cats than Vetsulin.

When I called her vet that Monday morning after she had the strong reaction to Vetsulin, I called armed with everything I learned from Feline Diabetes Message Board and also what the AAFP (American Association of Feline Practitioners) recommends as a first course of treatment for feline diabetes.

Lucky for us and my vet, Dr Moreno is not an egomaniac, is open-minded and willing to listen as he knew I was smart and did my research, So he gave me a prescription for Lantus pens and the U100 syringes to draw out the insulin (often cats need half-unit or quarter-unit doses so the needles that come with the pens are useless for a cat) and agreed to try a diet change for just a short while before re-starting insulin until we learn to home test.

I went to Walmart and got her testing supplies. They can be expensive when you’re paying cash, but everybody I talked to over the weekend told me to get the Relion Confirm meter and strips, which are MUCH less expensive than most human testing supplies.

Then, we had to learn to home test.

And I was terrified and not really sure we would be able to do this.

But I didn’t want Penny to go into insulin shock and die or become debilitated, either.

However, this is a cat that I cannot even BRUSH without her swatting at me.

And I’m gonna poke her ears several times a day to “play vampire”? lol

WITHOUT ending up in the hospital??!!

But all my new friends online ASSURED me that we could do this!

Penny “working out” with me! You see who’s getting all of the exercise, right?

My friend Kay sent me this thing she wrote up about ear testing. She had a semi-feral cat and she learned to condition HIM. This really helped me to form a plan on how I was going to “train” Penny for home testing. Read Kay’s Ear Testing Psychology.

What I know about Penny is that BRIBERY will get me EVERYWHERE with her and I can condition her to do just about ANYTHING so long as there’s raw chicken waiting for her! So that’s what I used to condition her to home test.

Here are two videos I made on training Penny to test her blood glucose.

How I Conditioned My Cat for Home Blood Glucose Testing

Home Testing a Diabetic Cat’s Blood Glucose

I did my first successful home test while she was sleeping… lol. But, awake? It took about seven days of conditioning her like my videos show you before we were testing.

By then, the new kibble was here and thank God both cats LOVED it! And they tolerated the abrupt food change very well!

The change in Penny’s energy once I got her on the Young Again food was REMARKABLE! She was a NEW cat and we hadn’t even gotten her diabetes regulated yet!

So, we started Penny on .5 units of Lantus twice per day, were home testing, and she was a CHAMP about the testing and the shots, as long as I shot her insulin WHILE she was eating. I learned VERY quickly that I cannot give this cat a needle unless she’s eating something scrumptious! Then, the house can crash down around her and she won’t even NOTICE!

We set up a spreadsheet on Google Docs that FDMB had created a template for…that way my vet could just pop in and see her blood glucose numbers at any time. Here’s Penny’s spreadsheet. Click on the 2013-2015 tab to see how it looked in the beginning. Penny’s Blood Glucose Numbers

And we followed something called Start Low Go Slow Method since I was still REALLY new to all of this and was afraid she would go into insulin shock at some point.

Things were going really well until about three weeks in, when all of a sudden, Penny started being really difficult with her shots…like, she would JUMP a mile when I attempted to give her a shot. It was becoming IMPOSSIBLE to get insulin into this cat! I should mention that she had also started acting a little crazy and had started howling in the wee hours of the morning.

So I went back to the Message Board and the Feline Diabetes FB page and posted questions and started researching Lantus just a little bit more.

Turns out a small fraction of cats, and OF COURSE my Penny, are very sensitive to the sting on injection with Lantus because Lantus is VERY acidic. Everybody said with the little bit she was getting that she “shouldn’t be” feeling it, but she WAS.

AND HOW!

Lantus can also make SOME cats, but not many, just a little crazy. Apparently, Penny likes to be the exception and not the rule!

So, my friend Gayle strongly suggested we switch her from Lantus to Levemir, which is another slow-acting insulin with “flat curves”…which is what you want for a cat. When their “curves” are flatter, there’s better control overall and less risk of insulin shock or a “hypo” (hypoglycemia).

So BACK to Dr Moreno for ANOTHER prescription! Again, thank God he’s a pretty easygoing vet and I suspect he lets me have my way (within reason) so that he can shut me up! lol

Obviously, Levemir is “the” insulin for Penny because within a month of switching to Levemir, Penny’s OTJ Trial had begun!

“OTJ” means “Off The Juice” or off insulin. The trial is done for 14 days and if your cat can maintain blood glucose numbers mostly in the “normal” range (generally 50-150, depending on who you ask) in that trial period, they are considered “in remission” or “diet controlled”.

I was a NERVOUS FREAKING WRECK during that two-week trial. I would SHAKE when I tested her blood glucose because she was STILL giving me trouble with shots and I wanted SO BADLY for her to pass this trial!

Penny & Weeny a couple of days after Penny went into diabetic remission!

And on November 15, 2013, Penny PASSED her OTJ Trial and was OFFICIALLY in remission!!

But, it wouldn’t last….

Because NOTHING is ever typical or easy with Penny!

More to come!

A Facebook Friend is Giving Away Kittens…Yet Again

Mar21

And I am FUMING!

Chatty (now Cosmo) when he first came to me in 2015… scared, sick, and ass kicked.

As I have four backyard cats who probably had homes at one point and are now “feral”…

I see pets on death row everyday on my Facebook news feed …

I see rescues and volunteers knocking themselves the hell out and facing daily heartbreak. These heroes are overextended mentally, emotionally, and financially…often paying out of their OWN pocket trying to save lives …

Chatty (now Cosmo), top, in his forever home with his new bonded brother, Winston (also a ‘feral’ rescue) six months after I rescued him.

And I look at my five indoor cats…even though I really should only have two for my size house, time and finances. But their mama, who was probably dumped off in the woods one day, showed up here already pregnant and I didn’t even know it til I saw her 1-month-old kittens … and because I rescued these kittens when Weeny died, it meant another rescue or shelter cat did NOT get a home …

I really don’t think people REALIZE the impact their negligence has on shelter cats, feral cats, and the people who see their heartbreak on a DAILY basis.

I’ve spent $500 out of pocket in the past 18 months neutering any cat who even LOOKS at my property….never mind what I spend to FEED them because SOMEBODY has to give a shit …

With all the low cost spay/neuter programs making it cheaper to spay or neuter your pet than it is to go out to dinner….

I just wonder…

Why the HELL are there people out there STILL not spaying and neutering their pets??

I honestly think those people who are irresponsible pet owners should be forced to do volunteer work at a shelter, or go watch “feral” cats (often just pet cats who once had a home and were DUMPED) get rounded up and euthanized, or should spend the time so many of my friends spend trapping these poor babies for TNR (often we pay for this out of our OWN pockets, by the way), or watch all the shelter pets suffer their heartbreak, illness and despair … just get put to sleep to “make room” …

Trouble, after he got hurt in a cat fight while defending his territory.

Or even for my “lucky” ones..my backyard cats, who had to get their asses kicked repeatedly and kick ass repeatedly to establish their “turf” here. And the ones who lost that Turf War, like one of my original feral cats, Hitler? I believe he’s eating down the street at another feeder’s house but did try to come back here a couple of months ago after being MIA for a year and Trouble ran him right out. The heartbreaking thing is that when he saw me bringing him food, he meowed at me for the first time EVER. And because he’s too feral to be handled or rescued, I couldn’t do a damn thing for him but hope that I would see him again. And I haven’t yet…

Hitler, one of my first feral cats … who was chased away when Trouble set up “home” here.

Poor Tiggy, Shadow and Domino, my three ferals who have to sneak in and grab their food while my Core Four resident ferals aren’t watching and hopefully they get to finish their meal before they are “caught”.

Or Junior, who scrapped with Trouble and scrapped with Trouble repeatedly, almost every day, for six months, before he finally calmed down enough to become friendly to humans and we could adopt him out to my aunt.

But both boys have the permanent scars on their faces and ears to show for it.

I. JUST. CAN’T…. sit back and freaking watch people be so irresponsible with their pets and keep my mouth shut ANY longer!

There is absolutely NO good excuse why a pet parent cannot spay or neuter their pet, barring a heart condition or some other illness that makes anesthesia too risky. But at least don’t let them outside to procreate then!

Please spread the word. Share this post if you think it will help! It’s ‘Kitten Season’ in rescue world. And SO many rescues and shelters are already overloaded! These people work TIRELESSLY saving lives. So many of these kittens won’t make it and they and their mothers will suffer this season. A lucky few, like my four “kits”, will survive. But they were VERY lucky their mama found me when she was pregnant.

Two of the LUCKY ones, my rescue kits Rascal (top) and Mischief (foot in mouth, bottom).

Most won’t fare so well.

Our Introduction to Feline Diabetes

Mar20

Penny, 2014, in all her scruffy splendor!

One of the main reasons why I decided to start this blog was to help raise awareness about Feline Diabetes. Because I hear my aunt saying she feeds her cat potato chips and ice cream. And if I see ONE MORE video of a cat eating something completely species-inappropriate and carb-laden on Facebook, I’m going to gouge my eyeballs out. Because I’m SICK of seeing Diabetic Cats in Need pulling yet another diabetic cat from a kill shelter at the LAST HOUR because an owner fed their cat high carb dry food, maybe even made the cat obese, and then dumped that poor baby off at the shelter…or worse yet, euthanized them on diagnosis because feline diabetes is “too hard” or too expensive for a pet parent to handle.

As I sit and type with “Smelly Penelly” cleaning herself next to me right now, she is in her TENTH MONTH of her SECOND remission. Her blood glucose reading yesterday, WITHOUT insulin, was 58 about an hour post-meal. Which is an excellent number for a diet-controlled diabetic cat. “Diet-controlled” meaning that with the right low-carb food, her blood glucose is able to stay in the “normal” range without insulin. Penny eats Young Again Zero (Carb) and Fancy Feast Classics Pate wet food.

I’m not sure WHERE I’m going with this post yet, but this will likely be the beginning of an entire category on this blog with Penny’s journey with both feline diabetes and feline chronic kidney disease, with a little bit of spinal arthritis and dental issues thrown in for fun.

I remember when I first adopted Penny from Jersey State Animal Rescue on May 2, 2012. And the director told me to buy one of two different types of food. One was an internet-only food that for the life of me I cannot remember the name of, and the other was Solid Gold Indigo Moon. Solid Gold was one of those “premium” pet foods and back in 2012 it was relatively low carb for a cat kibble. They have since changed the formula and it’s much higher now. And I remember thinking, because I know some things about HUMAN nutrition, “but cats needs carbs for energy!” So I added in Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover’s Soul adult dry food and mixed the two. And she also got four wet mini meals throughout the day.

Getting that high carb Chicken Soup food was a BIG BIG mistake…

Summer of 2013, I KNEW well before I took her to the vet and she was diagnosed. I come from a LONG line of diabetics, including my dad, and knew what the symptoms were because they are about the same in cats. Frequent urination, incessantly thirsty, constantly hungry. She hadn’t experienced weight loss yet but I acted somewhat quickly once I could no longer justify why I was seeing LAKES in their litter boxes.

On September 5, 2013, with an in-office blood glucose reading of 516 (normal is 50-150 depending on the meter), Penny was diagnosed with Feline Diabetes. And at the time, DEVASTATED was NOT even CLOSE to describing how we felt at the vet’s office. I knew a little about the treatment of feline diabetes because I had come across the Feline Diabetes Message Board online a couple of years earlier when I researching constipation issues for my late cat, Tabby.

And I didn’t want to put Penny through getting needles twice per day, home testing her blood glucose, glucose curves and all this other stuff that seemed just SO complicated at the time and I remember thinking, “That is NO quality of life for cats!”

Until I was faced with her diagnosis when she was only FIVE years old and knowing full well it was either treat or put to sleep. I remember freaking out, bawling, and telling the vet that I didn’t have time for home testing and all that jazz and how was I gonna give her insulin injections when she was so difficult to handle that I couldn’t even brush her?

The very first day that I managed to get Penny’s blood glucose down below “renal threshold”…which is a very good thing!!

He assured me that I could successfully give her injections while she was eating, had a vet tech come in to show me how and let me do a practice shot with an insulin syringe full of water. He told me that home testing was not necessary and that we could bring her back in for a fructosamine test (think kind of like a human H A1c test) in about a week and he would adjust her insulin from there. He didn’t think a dietary change was a good idea until we had gotten her insulin requirement down pat and got her blood glucose in a safer range.

I must say at this point that I did ask him how often they’ve had cats go into insulin shock or hypoglycemia and he did allow that it HAS happened to patients of their practice before and that it was often enough that I was NOT comfortable with his answer.

He gave me a rather affordable insulin called Vetsulin, some syringes to go with it, and assured me that we could do this.

Now, before I go further, I will say that all of the above is NOT how I got her into remission and was NOT how I got her into remission SAFELY. More on what I DID do to come! But it was enough at the time that I didn’t feel as hopeless and thought that MAYYYYBE we could handle this.

We got home that night and I figured I’d TRY to get that insulin shot into her. I didn’t want to give her the shot while she was eating and ruin her meal time. I should mention that at this point I had NEVER given a cat an injection before, or ANYBODY, for that matter. And I was a SHAKING, nervous wreck!

So, that night, I spent a half hour chasing her around with a loaded insulin needle, grabbing her, torturing her, and making her go hide from me. I had broken the trust that took me 18 months of being her mommy to establish to begin with. And I was a freaking WRECK. I remember flipping out and going outside while yelling that we were just going to have to put her to sleep then.

And I was HEARTBROKEN.

The next morning, I tried again while she was eating her breakfast. And I was PRETTY SURE I got the insulin IN her! She’s a Maine Coon, after all, and when you’re inexperienced and she has ALL that LOOONG hair, there’s the possibility for error.

But then something happened. She was lethargic ALL DAY. Slept in the top of the cat condo and was OUT of it. She did get up to eat when it was meal time but then would go crap RIGHT back out. I hadn’t made any food changes yet, so she was eating higher carb foods.

Knowing what I know now, I’m willing to bet everything I’ve ever worked for that she had a mild hypoglycemic episode. And because she was still on high carb kibble and low carb wet food, it’s probably what saved her life that day.

BECAUSE I BLINDLY SHOT INSULIN WITHOUT HOME TESTING OR EVEN KNOWING HOW TO HOME TEST HER FIRST.

So, for the rest of that weekend, I did not give her more insulin. And I spent the ENTIRE weekend, except for sleeping, GLUED to the computer learning EVERYTHING I could. I joined the message board and corresponding Facebook group. They gave me a shopping list, told me the best insulin to use, that I could home test and that it would be no big deal once we got used to it.

I read the stories. One I will share with you in a future post from my friend Susan, who’s cat DID, in fact, “hypo” (meaning went into insulin shock) and was never the same again. His name was Baxter. And even though Baxter lived clear across the country, I love that cat. Because his story saved Penny’s life. He will forever have a place in my heart!

My friend Susan’s cat, Baxter, learning how to walk again as he started to recover from insulin shock.

I will also share with you what we did, how we did it, how I trained her for all of this so that it was no big deal and even trained her to look forward to testing her blood glucose with a little bit of bribery!

I really felt like it was the end of the world when Penny was diagnosed with feline diabetes. I didn’t know HOW I was going to handle it all. I was so freaking overwhelmed that first week or so that I had the case of the “F it…she’s going to die!” MANY times. I woke up in the morning and my heart would SINK when I realized that this wasn’t just a nightmare. This was our life now.

And I HAD to fight for her. I couldn’t look into those big, round green eyes and let her down. The rescue allowed me to adopt her because they KNEW I would do right by her. NO FREAKING WAY could I let Penny down.

Penny the day she achieved her second remission from diabetes. OTJ means “off the juice” or off insulin. She was NOT letting me stick her party hat on her head! lol

And that’s what got me through in the beginning.

I can honestly say, 3 1/2 years later, that all the stuff we had to learn to do…the testing, the shots, “tight regulation”, remission, relapse, remission again, blood glucose curves…all the stuff that I didn’t even understand at first…is just now an intrinsic part of my thinking and just the routine of the day. I can do this stuff without even thinking about it now!

And so can Penny!

My hope is that my posts about Penny’s journey with diabetes will keep another diabetic cat from being dumped off at a shelter. My hope is that Baxter’s story will keep another diabetic cat from going into insulin shock. If we help just ONE cat with our stories, our job is WELL DONE!

Stay tuned!

And please SHARE if you know anybody who has a diabetic cat! Please encourage them to get in touch with me on this blog or on our Facebook “like” page. I will be MORE than willing to help them help their furkid!

Why I Haven’t “Rescued” All of my Feral Cats

Mar16

This can be a touchy and controversial subject. I’ll do my best to share with you MY reasoning without taking away from somebody else’s decision to rescue.

Rascal, about 2 months before I rescued him and one of his suspected daddies, Hitler

Let me start with my cat Smidgen, who I had growing up. We adopted her when I was in 9th grade from a pet store (I know, I know…this was the 80s and we didn’t know any better!) at the mall. And she was RIGHT at home when we got her here. After my previous two cats had been hit by cars, I made my mom PROMISE not to let Smidgen out.

But, my mom, being the bull-headed Taurus Italian “I know best” mother that she is, started letting Smidgen out when I wasn’t home one day. She felt bad because Smidge was a little wild and got bored with playtime easily. I was a teenager doing my own thing, and Mom didn’t really know what else to do to entertain her.

And we got very lucky with Smidge. Even though she had never been vaccinated past her kitten shots, even though she was FIV+, and even though she was an indoor/outdoor kitty, she lived a very healthy 14+ years before she passed and never had a health issue until the end.

When I moved out at age 23 (Smidge was 9), I knew that she would NEVER be happy in a one-bedroom apartment after being the Master of her 3-acre domain for almost 10 years, so I made the very unselfish and difficult decision to leave her home. She was also very bonded with my dad but we never lost our bond, either.

To this VERY day, even though I’m a FIRM advocate for keeping pet cats INDOORS, I still stand by my decision. Smidgen wasn’t happy being an indoor-only cat and I couldn’t have imagined her life any differently than the way SHE chose to live it.

So, back to my feral cats. People see my videos of them on Facebook…two can be pet, one sings with me and rubs all over me like I’m her property, and one of the two who can be pet can also be pilled and syringed liquid medication. You can meet them in the “About” section of our site!

Fluffy (top left), Oreo and Trouble enjoying a Spring-ish day.

But they weren’t always that way! It took me almost three years of feeding Oreo before he would allow me to pet him. And I actually let HIM pet me first! Trouble would head-butt my hand while feeding him, but he was such a loose cannon before he got neutered that he even sent me to the ER on St Patty’s Day in 2016! I was afraid of him for a LONG time!

But as they both calmed down after their neuters, they definitely became more sociable and more like pet cats than feral cats. Fluffy still swats at me when I put treats down for her and I can ONLY pet her about five swipes on her back WHILE she’s eating before she literally turns on me. And I cannot even walk towards Orange without him running away.

Yet, they are out there to greet me everyday and they enjoy my company, as I enjoy THEIR company. And I adore them with all my heart and worry about them EVERY day! Especially with the way cars FLY down my street!

So why don’t I rescue them? Because they are friendly to ME in THEIR turf. Oreo and Trouble are JUST starting to make friends with my mom and they are cool with my neighbors so long as the neighbors stay “over there”. It can go either way if I take them out of their turf. And I could “try” to tame them..hell, we are already halfway there, but I know how bonded cats can get to their territory.

So what if I brought Trouble in and it didn’t work out? As far as adopting him out, he’s FIV+ and anybody who has worked in rescue will tell you how DIFFICULT it is to adopt out an FIV+ cat because of the stigma attached to “Feline AIDS”. I REALLY wish vets would stop using that terminology! So what if it doesn’t work out and he loses his territory that he fought SO hard to establish (same with Oreo). Then what will happen to him? A shelter? We know feral cats who are out of their element do not have successful outcomes at shelters and, most likely, he would not leave the shelter system alive.

So why would I uproot him like that from what he considers HOME just to satisfy my need to rescue him? I live in a town that is TNR friendly, in a county that just passed a TNR-friendly ordinance, in the first state that passed a declaw ban statewide and is making leaps and bounds toward animal rights every day.

So WHY would I break his heart like that? He has secure shelter in our shed, his heating pad, heated pet bowls, his favorite box, regular feedings, vet care, and me to feed, cuddle and play with him every day. We have 3 acres of land and my house backs to woods. Yes, I worry ALL THE TIME about predators and the cars speeding by my house.

Fluffy enjoying her heating pad.

On the flip side, I did rescue my kits at 4 months old. Rascal was about the only one who really was friendly out there. I could barely touch Mischief when I rescued him and if it weren’t for him being so bonded to his brother, I don’t think he would have adjusted so well. But, he does have issues. And 18 months later, we STILL don’t have him FULLY integrated into the household. And he had to start Prozac last Summer because I was at the point that it either had to work or he would have to be re-homed with his VERY bonded brother, Rascal, to a home without cats or euthanized. And I couldn’t stand the thought of either.

As for Patchy and Spunky… poor Spunky spent the first six months of her indoor life spending over 80% of her time down in our unfinished basement. And Patchy would intermittently hide in a storage box on the highest ledge possible down in that basement. They FINALLY adjusted with some confidence-building exercises, feline facial pheromones, and a WHOLE lot of love and patience on our part!

Yes, they are TOTALLY worth the effort! And if my feral cats didn’t have it SO good, a couple of them would have been rescued by now. I HAVE adopted out two of my former ferals already…the two who I KNEW, without a DOUBT, would be better off indoors than out there.

But I cannot and will not subject my current feral cats, who I know better than anybody, to a life that does not serve them. And if my patient neighbors move or the laws change in my township, county or state, I most certainly will do what I can to save each and every one of my feral cats..even the more “feral” feral cats!

But, in the meantime…

Like Red says about Andy Dufresne in Shawshenk Redemption…”some birds aren’t meant to be caged.”

Trouble enjoying the sunshine and schmoozing for treats!

Meet Big Orange

Mar14

Big Orange was originally named “OJ”. But, after a couple of weeks, I could no longer stand having a cat sharing the same name as OJ Simpson. So, I started calling him the big orange cat, and because of my lack of creativity and imagination, the name ended up sticking.

Big Orange came out of the woods and joined our family one day shortly after the Blizzard of 2016 and decided this was his home.

He would sit under the camper at my neighbor’s and wait for me to do the dusk feeding, sneak in, get his food, and leave.

Orange perches on the trailer hitch of the neighbor’s camper watching me put out food.

A timid guy, he was constantly being bullied by Trouble and a sometime feral who was trying to break in here last Spring before Trouble and Oreo chased him out once and for all. I found out later that this same cat was bullying Big Orange about 1/4 mile away at another feeder’s house.

Orange quickly took over the heating pad and feeding station out front of the house that was left vacant by Blacky when Blacky became sick and his mom was holding him inside until he was better. When Blacky was allowed to come out again, his mom had it set up so that he could come and go as he pleases, so he gets to sleep at home and mooch over here now! More on Blacky to come…

But, Orange is definitely a feral. He quickly moved over to Blacky’s second vacant station under our back steps because he would get scared and run off whenever Mom would go out front to smoke. It’s been about a year now and he still runs away from me but is social enough to come out to greet me and you can actually see him trying to work up the nerve to rub against my legs but he hasn’t quite gotten there yet!

One of many pics I took of Orange when he first came around to try to see if he was already ear-tipped.

Orange didn’t act like all the other Toms out here. I assumed he was a Tom because female orange tabbies are rare-ish and he just was NOT acting like an intact Tom. He was NICE! lol I’ll never forget the first day he got close enough for me to see, for sure. I was out by that back feeding station at the far end of my yard putting out food and he got the nerve up to come closer to me. And guess what? I was RIGHT! He was already ear-tipped!! Which is the BEST kind of new feral cat a girl can have!! So when I saw I had an ear-tipped feral on my hands, I remember saying to him, “Welcome to the family, Orange!!”

He’s been living under my back steps for about a year now. And, like I said, he’s trying REALLY hard to trust me. He will dance in front of me at a distance as if he wants to rub against my legs and he does come out to greet me with a squeak at feeding times. He sounds just like my Spunky. He’s also trying to break into the Shed Clique (Fluffy, Oreo, and Trouble). Trouble terrorized him for their first six months here and Orange would run back under the steps screaming like a little girl. (Knock wood) they have gotten better recently. Trouble now “lets” him hang out in the yard. He will come hang out with Oreo when Trouble is not around. Fluffy sometimes chases him back to his area but in the past couple of weeks she’s growing more tolerant of him, as well.

Orange, just trying SO hard to trust me!

He’s scared of us humans but craves feline companionship. I’m not sure if he’s related to my kittens at all, but whenever he’s at the glass sliding door in the kitchen and I say really loud “Hi Mr Orange!!”, Mischief and Rascal will drop whatever they are doing to come say “hi”. I would LOVE to talk to an animal communicator and see if the kits knew Orange when they were living outside!

Mischief and Orange during one of their daily love fests.

My hope one day is that when there is an “opening” that he can come inside. But, he has to get used to me first. The last thing I want is a former feral who will be terrified of us and of living indoors.

But, until then, he lives a pretty happy life under my steps with Trouble and Oreo protecting the property. I recently figured out that Orange is a “lookout” for Trouble and Oreo. Maybe that’s why Trouble “lets” Orange live here now!

NICKNAMES: Mr. Orange, Captain Pumpkin, Pumpkin Face, Squeaks

Feline Diabetes or Any Other Condition-Beware of Bad Advice from Unexperienced and Unqualified Crackpots

Mar12

This is a rant.

Some of you who know me on Facebook know that I when I feel STRONGLY about something, I RANT.

Meet Jersey Robyn… lol

Penny and her blood glucose reading that marked her “official” second remission from Feline Diabetes on May 23, 2016!

Today is the start of Daylight Savings Time and one of my Facebook friends, who has five diabetic cats, was posting that she was all confused from the time change. When you have a diabetic cat who gets insulin injections twice per day, 12 hours apart, time changes can get confusing.

It can give a diabetic pet parent a REAL headache.

So somebody chimes in on her thread that he has a “solution” for cat diabetes and attaches a link for some herbal supplement company.

The supplements are marketed to humans.

So I IMMEDIATELY jumped all over this guy and hijacked my friend’s thread. Because there is no such thing that has been clinically proven to “solve” Feline Diabetes. I’m very well entrenched in the feline diabetes community and stay very up to date. If there was some miracle herb out there to “solve” it (yes…notice the snotty quotation marks), I would KNOW about it.

I asked him where the clinical trials were or what his qualifications were.

His response? “u have no idea, REALLY, how this stuff works. I took their turmeric cucomin for several days and was able to stop taking morphine after 14 yrs. they have their own way to push into the bloodstream which makes it immediate, and i will bet one of the 31 disaease it cures is cat diabetes, cause it works on humans.”

Yes, I even kept his typos in…lol

So THIS is what qualifies him to offer a “SOLUTION” to Feline Diabetes??!! That he’s “WILLING TO BET” it would cure cat diabetes because of his own experience with a COMPLETELY UNRELATED CONDITION??!!

So I asked again about clinical trials specific to cats with Feline Diabetes.

And he replied by yelling at me to check with the company. Like, Facebook yelling. You know, like TYPING IN ALL CAPS!!

This concerns me because what if I didn’t know any better and withheld much-needed medical treatment, PROVEN treatment, for my diabetic cat because I didn’t know any better based on this guy’s “solution”?

Because when Penny was first diagnosed, and I was BESIDE myself wondering how the hell I was gonna give my, ah, “diva” insulin injections twice per day without ending up in the hospital myself, I may have been willing to try this “miracle cure” out of fear and overwhelm!

Let me be clear. If there is a natural solution out there to put a BIG ASS dent in Big Pharma’s pockets, I’m ALL OVER IT. Some of my OWN medical conditions have been solved by natural products and super foods. I’m not debating the efficacy of natural vs Big Pharma and the medical community.

And you will find after getting to know me and as I delve into the wonderful world of Feline Diabetes, Feline Chronic Kidney Disease, Fatty Liver disease, and a few other things on this blog, that I always STRONGLY recommend that you do your research and talk to lay people, when possible, rather than blindly listening to a vet’s advice.

Because bad advice from several vets, and one vet office who accidentally dispensed a medication that Penny shouldn’t have had, would have killed Penny YEARS ago if I wasn’t smart enough to do my own research and talk to lay people who have BEEN there! And even then, I took their recommendations to my vet and discussed with him before starting ANY treatment regimen.

But, WORSE advice from some person on Facebook who doesn’t have the first shittin’ clue what he’s talking about is even MORE DANGEROUS!

And, my promise is that you will ALWAYS see a medical disclaimer on the bottom of any post where I discuss any treatments for my cats and their various ailments! Because I am responsible and not a know-it-all.

Feline Diabetes is a complex disease with several potential different causes. We will get into what I’ve done with MY cat to get her into remission not once, but twice, in future posts.

But I cannot even possibly stress in text, so imagine me standing from a rooftop of a high rise with a megaphone with my LOUD Italian voice, screaming at the top of my lungs…

PLEASE DO NOT BLINDLY TAKE ADVICE FROM SOME DUDE (OR DUDETTE) ON FACEBOOK WHEN TREATING ANY DISEASE OR CONDITION THAT YOUR CAT HAS!! Or from any company or network marketing distributor. Especially a network marketing distributor who is not otherwise qualified to give medical or veterinary advice! (I’m in the field and I can say this! lol)

Penny enjoying her new bed Santa brought her for Christmas.

Our babies’ lives DEPEND on us! They are our kids, after all!

All treatments mentioned in this blog are based on my own research, experience and done with my vet’s knowledge and consent. Consult with your vet as necessary.

Checkers-The Cat Who Broke Our Hearts

Mar9

I didn’t want to write this today.

But he came up in my Facebook memories.

And I want to honor him today as today is his Gotcha Day.

Checky, March 9, 2015

The first time I saw Checky, he was in my back window and I thought he was my old guy, Oreo. But, back then, Oreo wasn’t as social as he is now. And this cat was awfully thin to be Oreo. We had just gotten out of one of the coldest February’s on record and it was raining this particular evening. I usually don’t feed my feral cats after dark but I went out there to feed him.

As soon as I went outside, I KNEW it wasn’t Oreo. He was all over me like stink on poo and VERY VERY hungry. I fed him and tried to coax him to stay on the heating pad in the shed, but he just followed me to the back door. I snapped this pic to post on social media in case somebody local had lost their cat.

But, I live in the woods. So I know what happened. This poor baby was dumped. His ass was kicked. He was rail thin and sicker than ANY cat I had ever seen.

I found out the next day that he had been staying in neighbor’s garage and living on their covered porch. But they were feeding him table scraps and didn’t vet him or anything. As kind as they were to him, I knew he needed more.

So I SCRAMBLED… contacting the local rescues and NO luck. I finally got Linda at Jersey State Animal Rescue to agree to help him. She is the ONLY rescue in our area who stepped up! So we set up an emergency vet appointment for the next day and I set out to trap him.

The neighbor called me when they saw he was on the porch the following morning, so I went over and got him to take him to his NEW life.

We took him to the initial vet appointment. By the time we got him there, he was covered in diarrhea. He was Snap tested… everything negative…initially looked okay but just malnourished and everybody chalked up the diarrhea to worms or a parasite, so he was given all the meds for those problems. I took him over to the rescue. When Linda put him in that cage, he looked ABSOLUTELY heartbroken. He didn’t want me to leave. I wasn’t sure what to do because we didn’t know what was wrong with him, and I had Penny, who was diabetic and therefore immune compromised, and Weeny, who had MAJOR “cat issues”.

But I couldn’t get his heartbroken little face out of my mind and heart that night.

When Linda called me two days later to tell me that she couldn’t keep him, he was just too sick and she was going away and didn’t want to put his care in a volunteer’s hands, I knew I just HAD to take him. He trusted me and I couldn’t let him down.

So Checky became our pet that day. He just didn’t know it yet. And I was excited. I couldn’t wait for that moment that I would return to the rescue and pick him up to bring him home later that week!

Checky sleeping in his favorite spot in Mom’s laundry basket.

She agreed to care for him for a few more days to try and get him stable before he came home. She was making little progress. No matter what she did, she could NOT slow down his diarrhea. She bathed him multiple times, which was hard because he was so bony and frail, and she would go check on him in the morning just to find him covered again.

So we took him to the emergency vet. And spent $500 to find out that nothing was wrong in his blood work. We even got him 2nd and a 3rd opinion.

Poor Checky had had FIVE vet visits in four weeks.

I did manage to slow down his diarrhea but we could not get him hydrated or gaining weight (and I used Young Again Zero, Nature’s Variety Instinct, Fancy Feast…anything high protein/low carb/high quality that he would eat). Then he started peeing over 12 times per day. Yet, his kidney values and blood glucose were fine. No matter WHAT I did, I just could NOT get him stable.

And then I made a decision. I could not torture this poor cat any longer with vet visits and medications. I’m not a big fan of over-medicating cats. Enough was enough. I stopped all meds except for the B12 injections and probiotics to try to slow his diarrhea down, kept him well-fed and well-hydrated … the rest was between him and God.

He was camped out in Mom’s room because we didn’t want to bring him out with Penny and Weeny until we were sure he didn’t have something contagious. He snuggled Mom every night…ALL night. He would go up to her while she was sleeping multiple times and just tap her arm so she would pet him. Every time he saw us he would start “making biscuits”. And he had this sweet little meow that reminded me SO much of my late Tabby.

Then he stopped eating. He wasn’t able to eat because of a mass or infection in his mouth. We spent his last days spoon feeding him baby food, bone broth … I even made him homemade pureed chicken with bone broth. It would take the poor little guy a half hour to finish maybe 1/4 cup of cat food.

I knew he would not survive a dental. No way. Not in the condition he was in. My vet agreed. To this very day I don’t know if it was oral cancer or just an abscess, but since he had had several courses of antibiotics, including two courses of Convenia that was still in his system, I knew it probably wasn’t an abscess.

So we made The Decision. And it was the hardest one for me to make. I feel he had been cheated out of the life this sweet little guy SO rightfully deserved. He deserved better than being dumped, getting his ass kicked, finding us… only to die. That’s why today is SUCH a difficult day for me.

So, on April 13th I called the vet to come out and help him cross. While we were waiting for the vet appointment, I went into his room to spend some time with him and let him know just how loved he was. We had a radio playing country music (that was the only station we could get on the radio).

And while I was spending time with him, “Bless the Broken Road” by Rascal Flatts came on. I’m not a Country music fan but I think the entire world knows this song. And I just cried and held him and told him how much I loved him. I know God sent him to us to know love and comfort and good eats before he died. And I’m grateful God chose us to love him and make him a member of our family, if only for a short time.

Checky passed peacefully, surrounded by love. Even our vet cried when he gave him the injection. Hundreds of people on Facebook, who had been following Checky’s story, cried along with us.

This little cat doesn’t even know the impact he made on this world in his short time in our family.

He’s buried in our backyard with all of our other family pets. We promised him that this was his forever home. And that’s exactly what it became.

Fly free, Checky. You will never, ever be forgotten. We love you!

Checky, as he realized this was his forever home.

Checky’s Official Song: “Bless the Broken Road” – Rascal Flatts

Nicknames: Johnny (he was initially going to be named after my late dad and the Rescue Director’s late dad), Checky.

Penny & The Kits

All About Being Owned by Cats! #catsrulehere

Penny’s Journey to Her First Remission from Feline Diabetes

A Facebook Friend is Giving Away Kittens…Yet Again

Our Introduction to Feline Diabetes

Why I Haven’t “Rescued” All of my Feral Cats

Meet Big Orange

Feline Diabetes or Any Other Condition-Beware of Bad Advice from Unexperienced and Unqualified Crackpots

All treatments mentioned in this blog are based on my own research, experience and done with my vet’s knowledge and consent. Consult with your vet as necessary.

Checkers-The Cat Who Broke Our Hearts

**All treatments mentioned in this blog are based on my own research, experience and done with my vet’s knowledge and consent. Consult with your vet as necessary.**

All treatments mentioned in this blog are based on my own research, experience and done with my vet’s knowledge and consent. Consult with your vet as necessary.