This is not a post on Gardening or wildlife. It's about one of my cats. I'm putting this up for Friends and Family. So feel free to skip down to a previous post to look at pictures of plants.
Two weeks ago I took Cricket to the vet. She wasn't eating well and looked, well, bloated. The vet found she had some digestive issues, treated her and she went back to eating. Last weekend she again began leaving most of her food in her bowl at feeding times. So I took her back to the vet. I thought I might be overreacting. Nope.
The vet asked to do an x-ray. It showed abnormalities in the kidneys and the bladder looked wrong. So she did blood work and a urinalysis. Cricket was in a diabetic crisis. This is very unusual since she's a small female (large males are at the highest risk but even they get diabetes at a rate of 1 in 400), the sudden presentation of symptoms is unusual, and that I noticed the problem so early in the crisis.
She had to go home with the vet that night. The vet worked hard to get her stabilized. Her blood values were all wonky (that's an official medical term - wonky).
I spent the next morning beating myself up for not noticing earlier, or not taking her to the vet sooner.
We were finally able to pick her up at 4 pm. The vet then praised my powers of observation and said that the fact that I noticed and brought her in saved Cricket's life. Apparently this type of diabetes onset is not usually caught so early and many cats don't survive the initial crisis.
So now Cricket is home. She's on a special diet and We (that would be the Royal We meaning I) have to give her an insulin injection once a day. She'll go back to the vet to be rechecked this week and frequently after that but her prognosis is now good.
It's been a scary week for us. We almost lost one of our family. The best sound in the world was when I came downstairs and she started asking for breakfast.
Poor kitty! :( You're taking great care of her. Don't beat yourself up.
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