Orange and White in the Night

While Renn suffers from arthritis and is heading toward a dental procedure, and Neville grapples with his diabetes, there are other beasts to talk about. In particular, this time, it’s Arliss, one of my newer outsider-cats.

Arliss was extremely shy when I first began seeing him; he would remain a distance even from the glass doors to my concrete ditch, and run if, when eating from my food-bowl, he saw me watching him. Slowly, he appears to be accustomising himself to my presence. Hopefully, he understands that I am the human providing the food that he periodically eats.

Arliss, like Sable and, well, pretty much every outsider-cat, is an animal I would like to trap and socialise. But I know little about him. As may be seen from the pictures I took, he does not seem to be starving. Since he comes to Café Cosy only rarely, he must have other sources of food. Indeed, he may actually be an owned cat, whose owners let him wander about outside, and is timid only of strangers. For this reason, capturing him is not feasible.

His pattern of fur is unusual, I think. Orange and white, the former colour appears restricted to large patches on his back, head and face. In one photograph, his ears look grey, though in another, their backs, at least, are orange. Lighting at night is not dependable for accuracy in these matters.

As time goes by, I hope that he will become more used to me. Sable knows me and knows my voice. Once, when she was trotting away from another human, she halted when I called her, and came over to wait for some food. Yet she still won’t come within my reach. Arliss may be the same, especially since he and Sable know each other. But I hope some day, he will be more trusting. Until then, he knows where he can have decent food and clean water whenever he needs it. Perhaps the moment will arrive when he comes for the company, too.

Neville Unbothered

Neville’s visit to the veterinary hospital was, I would rate, a success, though the Nevsky himself might disagree. The blood-glucose sensor was installed on his back, and he was given a little shirt to wear, so that it would stay in place, and he would have little chance of disturbing it.

After we had come home, it was clear that Neville did not like the shirt. He did not fuss about it, or try to remove it, but he was restless, changing locations four times in as many minutes. Also, he wore a heavy expression, as if weighed down. He was not trying to get at the sensor and, furthermore, I would have to remove the shirt to give him his insulin, though I could put it back on afterward. I took off the garment and found that Nev seemed bothered by the sensor not at all. As of writing, it has been six hours since our return to the Cosy Apartment, and he seems not even to notice the device. The shirt has remained off.

This success is complemented by the working of the sensor and monitor. I could not confirm at the veterinary hospital that the monitor, which I was able to borrow from another member of the PAW Society rescue group, would be compatible with the sensor; I suspected that there would be no difficulty, but I wanted to make sure, as I didn’t wish to wait until Monday to have any problem corrected. It turns out that the sensor had to adjust to Neville’s body temperature for an hour before it would start transmitting. I took the monitor’s compatibility on faith, then, and was rewarded when it gave me a reading sixty or so minutes later, at home.

Neville’s blood-sugar numbers are far too high but that is immaterial to the working of the sensor and monitor. His numbers, whether good or bad, are what we need to read to devise a better programme to treat his diabetes. Nonetheless, I can see a curve form much more clearly, and with many more readings along its descent and ascent, than I could with the standard method, poking the poor cat’s ears every two hours. This easy reading will continue for as long as the sensor remains attached to Neville’s skin, which, it is hoped, will be about two weeks. That will give us a wealth of information with which to work.

And it will give the Former Thin Man a much needed respite from blood-letting.

 

We of the Middle Ages

I mentioned in my blog on Wednesday that Neville was going to the veterinary ‘tomorrow’; that is, Thursday. I was incorrect. He is going on Friday; Renn had the appointment today. I was lucky I sorted it out before I took the wrong cat to the wrong doctor on the wrong day, or any permutation thereof.

Neville will still be having the blood-glucose sensor implanted tomorrow, but today was about my big boy. I had decided to take him for an appointment because I noticed that he was having trouble jumping up onto furniture. He was using the stairs to ascend to the bed, and would sometimes struggle to leap up to the couch. He also had not been for a general examination for a couple of years.

It turns out that Renn has arthritis. He has suffered some loss of muscle mass in his hind quarters. I have some tablets to give him that the doctor says should help; the tablets are more like treats than medicine, and my big boy eats them readily enough. When they run out (they are, of course, expensive), I will resort to the joint-medicine that I had given Josie for a time, and see how Renn takes it.

He has also been coughing a great deal, as if trying to bring up a hairball. None ever comes out, however, and the doctor theorised that this could be the beginnings of asthma. I am to watch for my cat having to work to breath after such episodes.

Last but not least expensive is Renn’s need for a dental. He has some bad gingivitis. This will be seen to in the next couple of weeks.

Blood and urine samples were taken for a full set of tests; I likely will not have the results until Monday, though I don’t expect anything bad to be revealed. Even so, I think the examinations are a wise precaution, and, as he will be having dental work soon, the tests would need to be performed anyway.

After the appointment, during which my big boy behaved very well, his tail almost up while in the examination room, he came home, had a good meal and a rapidly-paced play session. He is now snoozing the evening away on my bed. We have passed our days and nights together now for ten years; I’ve felt new aches and pains just as he has; I’ve found it harder to get up in the mornings, as I know he has. He doesn’t seem even middle-aged to me. Perhaps he is kind enough to think the same of me.

Neville's Experiment

Matters have now been organised in regard to Neville’s experiment with the new diabetes sensor.

I have purchased a sensor, and this will be attached to Neville by the veterinary tomorrow. I will be able to borrow a monitor to read the signals the sensor transmits. I want to have this verified at the hospital, though, before I leave there. I don’t want to be stuck over the weekend with the frustration of trying to read something that won’t be read.

Thereafter, it will be up to the Nevsky; if the implant does not bother him much, the rest should be easy going. I will be able to read his levels over a course of two weeks, or for however long it remains attached to him.

Having the top half of his body shaved when he first came to stay with me did not trouble him a great deal, so I hope that he will find a small patch cleared of fur, with an equally small attachment, to be tolerable. We will find out by the end of tomorrow…

A New Plan for Neville

There is an interesting development in Neville’s campaign against diabetes. The Eastside Cats reminded me that Tucker had undergone an experiment with a blood-glucose sensor that was implanted in his skin; the blood-sugar amounts were then read electronically by a monitor that could be passed over the sensor as frequently as every quarter-hour. I had found that device extremely efficacious. The Eastside cats wondered if the same device could be used for Neville.

Neville is my foster-cat, not strictly a perma-cat, and so goes to a different veterinary than do my other beasts. But I inquired of that veterinary about the senor. She said that one could be arranged. The Nevsky has an appointment with the doctor to fit the implant on Friday.

There is some confusion over the matter, possibly occasioned by different terms used for the sensor (which is placed in the skin) and the monitor (which reads the numbers). I was told originally that the monitor could be rented from any pharmacy. As I had discovered when Tucker underwent the experiment, this was not the case then, and nor is it now. Then, I was told by a veterinary technician that I would have to buy the monitor. This was followed by a telephone call (which I could not take but was recorded) explaining that I could borrow the veterinary hospital’s monitor. It was also stated that there is a way of using a smart-phone to read the numbers. This last would be most useful but probably involves downloading an application. As well, the hospital’s monitor won’t be available for a couple of weeks; if so, then I may need to re-schedule the Former Thin Man’s appointment, as there is no sense in implanting the sensor if the monitor will be unavailable for a week thereafter.

All of this will be cleared up, I hope, by a telephone call tomorrow.

The important thing is that, sooner or later, I may have a means, albeit temporarily, of reading Neville’s blood-sugar without subjecting him to eight or nine ear-pokes for a curve. This is significant, since I am discussing with his doctor the feasibility of changing the insulin used. It will be a great relief to Nev not to have to suffer pin-pricks every couple of hours for a day. He hates them, and I hate inflicting them.

I will keep readers apprised of developments. If this plan carries as I hope it will, 2021 will have a good start to it, at least for my Neville.