Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The cat has diabetes

Well, the fat cat was just diagnosed with diabetes. She is to be put on a twice daily insulin injection and blood sugar monitoring. I am to report to the vet at noon for a demonstration on "the shop cat" wherafter I head to Costco for our first fatcat insulin prescription. It is expected to cost around $80 and last 1-3 months depending on how much insulin is required to regulate our cat.

I have considered doing dietary changes only and letting her decline slowly and then die young. OK, there will be cat people out there who are appalled but frankly I do not have a huge amount of sympathy for the advanced treatment of (most) pets. BUT we have decided to try this out and see how much and how complex is the treatment.

While at the vet I sat next to a dog undergoing chemo. He has a monthly CBC before his monthly chemo. I have no words.

Frost is concerned that kitty is sick. Wren was very worried that we had to go to the kitty doctor and much preferred when I used the word "vet". I used the word "ethical" with Frost in reference to the question of what amount of money to spend on a pet's health versus donation of money to a human or other cause. He took a while thinking about it and had some good questions. His solution was to spend half your spare money on the pet and half on your own needs or in the case of helping starving people elsewhere versus computer games he felt that he could have half the number of games and help half the people.

I told Wren he had to have a bath after his late nap / vet visit / gardening and he said "Why bath?" [weeping]
I told him he needed a bath to get clean. He asked "why need I clean it?"

It is a good question too.

The cat is hiding because it senses my murderous intent.

No comments: