Sable?

I have not seen Sable and her sister, Sablette, for a long time. These two all-black cats used to come rather frequently, if not regularly, to eat from the food-bowl I maintain for outsider-cats. When I would see them, I would feed them soft-food, as well, often enough for them to start asking for it when they came to visit. Then, they stopped coming. I feared something had happened to them.

Last night, a single black cat showed up at the edge of my ‘patio’, the concrete ditch beyond my outside door. She - I use the feminine pronoun for convenience - was skittish, but came to eat soft-food from a dish when I placed one on the ground. She was hungry: she ate half a three-ounce tin of Fancy Feast, then the rest of it. She cleaned her bowl but remained close at hand, so I emptied the remains of a tin of Merrick (about three more ounces) that no one inside had wanted. She was eating that when I went to bed, being already thirty minutes late for sleep. (Forgive the poor quality of the photo; it was taken in minimal light between courses served to my visitor.)

This morning, it had snowed, and a thick layer of precipitation lie on the ground. The bowl was covered in snow, but had been previously licked clean. Whoever she was, she had been hungry. There was no other sign of her.

Was she Sable? This one was less confident than I remember Sable, so it may have been Sablette, the more timid sister. But if Sable had lost her sister, or had suffered some other trauma since I had last seen her, who knows how she would now behave. Then again, it may have been a different cat all together. I will ask my neighbours if they have observed this cat, and who they may think she is. If she is Sable or Sablette, where has she been all this time, and what happened to her sibling? If not, who is she?

The most I can assert for sure is that she had a good meal, perhaps for the first time in a while.

Better and a Little Easier

My foster-cat Neville gave me some good news last night, though not initially. At six o’clock, I tested his blood-glucose and found it at 20.0. For a cat who lived with it between four and eight for the final third of 2019, that is very high. But I  injected him with one unit of glargine, the same insulin that Tucker receives, and by 10.30, his number was a more satisfactory 13.0. That is hardly what I want, but compared to the higher number, it is what I will take. And in fact, I suspect his nadir (the lowest the ‘curve’ of his blood-sugar will reach before it begins climbing again) is actually lower, but I had to get to bed at some point. Tucker’s nadir is usually four and a half hours after his injection, but most cats’ are later. Come the weekend, I will test Neville more toward midnight.

Also on the weekend, I will test his blood in the morning. If it is, as I suspect, high then too, I will consider a unit of insulin twice a day. And once the testing is over, he will have nothing more to dread from poking and prodding except the daily injections, which, considering where they are given and the thinness of the needles, are hardly to be felt. I will of course perform ‘curves’ on him, as I do with Tucker, but that is an ordeal only monthly.

I appreciate the good thoughts and hopes given Neville by the readers of this blog, and word of their experiences, too. Roberta’s message that her Jeremy went for four years without insulin before requiring it again, while undoubtedly disheartening for her and Jeremy, did show me that this phenomenon can occur, and that it is not isolated to my boy.

So Nev begins again. With the right dosage of insulin at the right times, he may yet free himself of the need for medicine. If not, he will have relief from the effects of diabetes for as long as he needs it.

Good But Not Easy

Well, my programme to start Neville on insulin again to lower his blood-sugar levels has hit a snag. The insulin isn’t working.

I measured his glucose level at six o’clock Sunday morning and found it to be 15.2. This is not dangerously high but of course it is too high for health. I wanted to give him his dose in the evening so that I could check his blood some hours later, to judge its effect. At six p.m., his number was 15.1. I administered a single unit of insulin and measured Nevsky’s blood at 10.30, close to my bed-time. It was 15.1.

I have been adept at counting for some years, so I immediately knew that this number was the same as the one four and a half hours earlier…

This was disappointing, and a little puzzling. The insulin should have had an effect, even a small amount such as one unit. However, I recalled that when I took Neville in, and was given a couple of insulin vials by his previous care-giver, she had said that one of the vials had been accidentally left out of the refrigerator for some hours. Insulin needs to be kept chilled to stay potent. Naturally, at the cost of insulin, one doesn’t want to throw any out, so I kept both vials, not sure whether the amount of time one had been left uncooled would have ruined it. I don’t think I have had to give Nev any insulin since his second arrival. (He came to stay with me for a week prior to when his long-term fostering began, and it was during that week that I had injected him with insulin, but at no time after.)

Now I think I know that the insulin left out of the refrigerator is ruined. That is the likeliest explanation for the complete lack of change after his injection. There is a chance that Neville has become insulin-resistant, though, since he hasn’t had any since September, that is improbable; from what I understand, such resistance comes after prolonged exposure to the drug.

I do have options. I have a second vial of the same kind of insulin (ProZinc). This is insulin made specifically for cats, and has been very successful in treating feline diabetes. It is also expensive, and the cheapest outlet is a town some distance away. While picking up the insulin there is practicable now, if I need to do it myself, I could have difficulties; even with someone else in the rescue-group collecting it, it is inconvenient at best. The insulin that Tucker uses, Glargine, works very well but is not specifically for cats; it is less expensive than ProZinc, and its source much more conveniently placed. Either way, I will try a different container of insulin and see how Neville’s numbers react to it.

The poor guy is still quite upset by having to give blood. The actual sampling is smooth: once he is in place, he remains still and poking him causes minimal movement. He nonetheless dislikes it. I was therefore hoping to reduce the number of times I had to stab him by achieving a good measure of the insulin’s effect. Now, that will have to be done again.

Even when life is good for a cat, it’s not always easy.

Reluctant Patient, Reluctant Doctor

The frustrating nature of diabetes has once again been brought to my attention. Neville came to stay with me on a foster-basis last September, and, though he received insulin for his diabetes, it was a short time before it went into remission. Random tests of his blood-sugar soon revealed numbers between four and eight, the perfect range.

Now, however, he is registering numbers in the teens. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that Nevsky was a little off his food, and was choosing spots in which to snooze that were out of the way. He was not hiding all the time, and continued to play. But I thought I should take a look at his blood-sugar again, as it may have been a higher number that was influencing his behaviour. Two tests, a couple of days apart, resulted in numbers between 14 and 15. Today, it was 17.1.

I cannot account for the rise in numbers. He is eating a new food, as he seemed to have become bored with his previous soft-food. This variety, however, has, according to my research, the proportion of carbohydrate low enough for a diabetic’s good health. (Any percentage under ten is acceptable.) There was also the fact that we have been suffering from very high winds for a long run of days; I thought that they may have been causing stress, and elevating Nev’s numbers. That hypothesis reflected, admittedly, an outside chance.

I have begun giving Neville a single unit of insulin once a day, in the evening. I started today; tomorrow I will test him again; it won’t be a full ‘curve’ of bi-hourly sampling, but I will poke his ears at six o’clock tomorrow morning, then at mid-day and, finally, just before his insulin – if it is needed – in the evening. I want to see a good curve. Perhaps after a few weeks of this, hopefully less, his system will re-adjust itself to what it was. In the meantime, the poor fellow will have to accustom himself to some daily jabs.

Neville is still a slender mancat, though no longer the Thin Man he once was. That would make injecting him by syringe easier, if his fur, now much longer than it was when I used to give him insulin, did not make finding his skin under it all difficult. In many ways, he can be impatient; in receiving injections, however, he is a good patient, and I am grateful for that.

I would be even more grateful if he need not be a patient at all.

The Loneliness of Distrust

Raleigh is making more progress all the time. Lately, I have found him in the bedroom, on the cat-tree next the window, late at night, after I have gone to bed. This is because I leave the window open, if only a  fraction of an inch, to have fresh air while I sleep. Peachy has discovered this and comes to smell the outside fragrances. The significance of this is that he was afraid to come into the bedroom while I was present, not so long ago.

He enjoys his chest-rubs. He probably likes them more than any other physical contact though, for a shy cat, he does enjoy being petted and stroked. I can give him a chest-rub any time, but he expects it after his snack in the evening. He will stop waiting for more food (demonstrating that he is full for the time being) and come over to me, talking. And the point of this, at least so far as this current entry is concerned, is that Raleigh will allow me to do anything while I am rubbing his chest.

I have cleaned his eyes and even cleaned his bum while rubbing his chest. It isn’t easy, but I’ve done it. (Just as it’s not easy taking a photograph while I am rubbing his chest…) Other times, he would not be content with me trying something like that. Indeed, to pick him up and cut his claws is still a chore - though not a difficult one - because of his dislike of being held.

It is interesting not just that he trusts me, but that he trusts me to do anything so long as I am doing a certain something else with him, which is itself a sign of trust. I am happy that he has arrived at this place in our relationship. I hope to see him on the bed at night in the future, though that may be a while yet.

When I think back to how he behaved when I first saw him outside, scared and hungry, and then, when I learned how much he wanted to belong to someone, I think that among the many kinds of loneliness, one of the worst must be the loneliness that comes from not being able to trust anyone, a loneliness reinforced by fear, even despair. Raleigh will never know that loneliness again. Perhaps one day, it will become a stranger to all homeless cats and dogs.

With the Wind My Rival

Southern Alberta is famous - or notorious - for its wind. It’s often a ‘chinook’, the name for the region’s föhn wind that, in winter, sweeps down the leeward side of the Rocky Mountains, raising the temperatures, melting the snow and drying the moisture. The wind can be very strong, sometimes blowing as fiercely as 100 kph (62 mph), though more often 50 to 60 kph (31 to 37 mph). This winter - in fact, even the late autumn - has been the windiest most people here can remember. In terms of the number of windy days, the number of consecutive windy days, and the strength of the wind, this season has been exceptional.

There are several spots on my bicycle route to and from my workplace that are prone to particularly strong blasts of wind. One is the bridge that crosses over railway tracks. I sometimes must lean against the wind which blows perpendicularly against me and threatens to knock me against the railings, or over the parapet all together.

Yesterday, I was riding along the bridge when a gust struck me. My front rain-fender was not, as they were when I was a child, a metal semi-circle bolted to the hub of the wheel, but a plastic shield snapped on to the under-side of the frame where it faces the front tire. I write that it was, because the wind caught it, pulled it off its snaps and threw it down the street. I halted and turned, not long enough even to get off my bicycle, never mind to retrieve the fender. I was, however, in time to see the wind scoop it up from the asphalt and throw it off the bridge. The last I saw of it, it was sixty feet away and thirty feet in the air, flying off eastward over the trains stopped under the bridge. I watched it until it was a spot in the early morning sun, and wished it a fair voyage.

Though we are accustomed to harsh wind here, it seems, like weather everywhere, different this year, more extreme. I’ve never seen it abduct a bicycle part before, and think it may be only a matter of time until it takes the whole machine, and the rider with it...

Words for a Cat

A person’s cat is the source of anxiety, frustration, revulsion, delight and joy, sometimes alternately, sometimes simultaneously.

Cammie is a good example. As some of those who have read this blog for a while know, my princess has a severe allergic reaction to almost any food; it causes her to throw up. It often happens late at night, long after she has eaten the offending food. I have been successful for some months in keeping her episodes at bay but they have occurred without her eating anything of which I am aware, so I am always fearful of hearing her wretch.

This she did; in fact, twice, at about the same time (approximately four o’clock a.m.) on two mornings, several days apart. Upon hearing the sound, I immediately woke and jumped from bed to see who was upchucking. It was Cammie, and my heart sank. I couldn’t return to sleep after that, for her episodes almost always include two instances of vomiting close together. Fortunately, nothing further occurred. I don’t know what caused the incidents - and twice, at that - but she ate well at breakfast, and her behaviour denoted no cause for alarm. (Anxiety)

Cammie has also taken to wetting in front of the litter-box that is placed in the library. I have two in the store-room and one in the library, in case the others are in use and someone needs to go right away. Cammie will usually amble into the storeroom and use the boxes there. She is not suffering an infection or obstruction; she just has her spot in front of the library litter-box. I had placed, even before she commenced this habit, a soaker pad in front of the box, if only to catch the grains of litter thrown out. She wets in the same spot on the soaker pad, the choice of which alternates among six that I have. (Frustration)

Late one night, I heard her get up from her heated bed. I knew where she was going, so I headed her off, directing her to the storeroom, and closing the door to the library. (I don’t do that all the time as it severely reduces the amount of space six cats have to avoid each other.) I heard her digging in the litter in the storeroom, so I returned to bed. The next morning, I found that she had indeed wet in the litter-box. And pooped on the rug outside the storeroom. (Revulsion)

Then there are the days when I am at my computer and she will decide she wants some time with me. She will sit on the edge of the bed, leaning toward where she knows I am sitting. She will periodically squawk and walk away, only to come back. This is my signal. I quit what I am doing and lie down on the bed. Cammie crawls onto my chest, bumps her head against my chin several times, lies flat and starts purring while I pet her and we talk. (Delight)

For all the problems that they give me, the financial worries, the messes that I must clean, the anger at endless choices of food disdained, the fatigue that comes from going to bed too late and waking too early because of their needs, I require only to think that some day they will all be gone, and I will be without them. That’s when my cats’ presence has the final word. (Joy)