Howard’s Glucose Rollercoaster

I’m still catching up with some things I meant to post about last year/earlier this year but haven’t gotten around to yet.   So, here’s the story of Howard’s glucose rollercoaster.  

The day after Duke died, I couldn’t find Howard when I got up, which was unusual.  Howard is generally very enthusiastic about breakfast and greets us when we get up most mornings.  If he doesn’t do that, there are a couple of places he likes to sleep, and he can usually be found in one of them.  Finding Howard isn’t usually difficult, so I knew something was wrong.

I found Howard in the cat room (where we keep their food, litter boxes, and lots of random things).  He was behind a laundry hamper, half in the closet, not moving.  He wasn’t exactly asleep, but he wasn’t fully awake either.  I picked him up, and he felt colder than he should have.

I gave him corn syrup, per Dr. D.’s instructions.  She told us from the beginning of Howard going on insulin to rub corn syrup on his gums if it ever seemed like his glucose was too low.  I wrapped him in a blanket, put him in a carrier, and called Dr. D.’s office to say we were on the way.  

Dr. D. was off that day, so Howard saw Dr. L.  They did a glucose test right away.  Howard’s was 20.  It should be between 120 and 300.  They also checked his temperature.  It was 98.  It should be between 101 and 102.  

Dr. L. started Howard on a glucose IV (one of the vet nurses used to be a paramedic, and she was able to get his IV in right away) and warm fluids.  They also used some type of warmer on Howard that blew warm air under his blankets.  

Howard perked up relatively quickly, and they offered him food, which he very enthusiastically ate.  Dr. D. came into the office in the meantime (she seems to come in most of the time when she’s supposed to be off).  Dr. D. and Dr. L. decided they wanted to keep Howard for the day so they could closely monitor his glucose.  He dropped (though never as low as 20) several times throughout the day, so they recommended that we transfer Howard to the 24-hour/emergency vet since their office isn’t staffed at night anyway, and with it being December 22nd, they weren’t going to be open much longer.  

So, I picked Howard up and took him straight to the 24-hour vet.  They were extremely busy, so by the time a vet came in to talk to me (nurses had been in and out checking on Howard), it was the night-shift vet, Dr. H.  We’ve seen Dr. H. before, and we really like him.  I’m always nervous at the 24-hour/emergency vet because we’ve had a few vets that really seemed like they went into the wrong line of work.  But Dr. H. has always been awesome.  I was so relieved to see him that I almost cried.  

Dr. D. and Dr. L. had apparently passed on that Duke had just died the day before because Dr. H. mentioned that right away.  I had told Dr. D. and Dr. L. that Howard had been eating a lot of Duke’s food over the past few weeks.  Duke wasn’t eating much and was losing a lot of weight, so we were trying a lot of things to get him to eat.  He liked chicken and rice, so we mixed chicken and rice with his food.  He still wasn’t eating all of it, and Howard was helping himself to Duke’s leftovers.  Most cats would have just eaten the chicken.  Howard isn’t like most cats.  He was eating the dog food, the chicken, and the rice.  Obviously, after Duke died, we didn’t set his dinner out, so Howard had no dog food or chicken and rice that night.  

Dr. H. said that normally stress and grief tend to raise glucose, but in some unusual cats, it can lower it.  Everyone agrees that Howard is an unusual cat!  Dr. H. said that in addition to the stress and grief of losing Duke, Howard was probably picking up on us being sad and stressed and the extra stress of Duke being sick right before and Nick having COVID.  All of that,  plus not eating dog food, chicken, and rice (which would tend to raise his glucose), probably led to the crash.  

Dr. H. suggested a FreeStyle Libre monitor for Howard.  If that sounds familiar to you, it’s the same one that’s used for humans.  It’s a continuous glucose monitor.  There’s a little sensor (we’re told people usually put it on their arm) and a monitor that scans and records it.  For pets, they like to put it on their back, near their shoulder blades; basically somewhere that they can’t mess with, and it’s not likely to get caught on anything.  They shave a little patch of fur and put it on.  

Here's a picture of Howard with his sensor when I got to visit him while he was in the hospital.  He didn’t seem bothered by it at all.

With the Freestyle Libre, they were able to check Howard’s glucose without doing an ear stick.  He was pretty sick of being stuck by then, and you really can’t blame him.  Most of the time, you can scan him without even waking him up.  They checked Howard’s glucose every hour for the first 24 hours.  Dr. H. had me bring in his food and insulin and let me bring in his blankets. 

The plan was to give Howard a very low dose of his insulin once his numbers stayed at a high enough level for long enough, then make sure he didn’t go too low again.  It took a few days to get there, but Howard came home on Christmas Day.  Definitely the best Christmas present we’ve ever gotten!  

Here’s a picture of Howard under the Christmas tree the day he came home.

Initially, they wanted us to scan Howard every two hours.  It worked out well that we were off/home for Christmas because that was rough.  Once Dr. D.’s office opened back up the day after Christmas, she took over managing Howard and had us email the numbers from the scanner every day.  For a while, he was getting one unit of insulin about every 36 hours, then 24 hours, then 12 hours.  We kept up every two hours of scanning for several days.  Dr. D. finally told us to stop before we wore ourselves out.  

The sensor lasts somewhere between ten days and two weeks, so Howard has had several sensors.  We all wanted to make sure he wasn’t headed for another crash.   Howard was the first kitty at Dr. D.’s office to have a sensor, but now she has lots of patients with them.  Howard, the trendsetter!  

Eventually, Howard started getting really agitated over having the sensors put on, so we all decided on a break.  He was running a little high, but Dr. D. thought that was better than risking another crash. 

Howard had his regular checkup in late June, and his glucose was high, so we opted for another round of Libre sensor monitoring. 

A few weeks ago, his glucose started fluctuating wildly.  It would drop down as low as 60, then within a few hours shoot up to over 400, then drop again.  

Dr. D. believes that Howard is experiencing Somogyi swings.  You can read about it here, but the short version (at least for cats) is that somehow, the insulin contributes to the body, causing itself to drastically raise and lower glucose levels.  So, we took Howard off of insulin, and his glucose has stayed much more stable.  Howard has diabetes and asthma.  The diabetes is likely caused, or at least contributed to, by all of the steroids to control his asthma.  But, since breathing is vital, we can only limit the steroids so much. We’ve also lowered his steroid dose a little more.  It may have to go back up in the fall (allergy season) and/or if he starts having breathing problems.  

During all of this, Howard also started experiencing severe gastrointestinal issues.  Dr. D. isn’t quite sure why, but thinks it may be due to an injection of a newer drug to help with arthritis.  The G.I. issues Howard was having are one of the rare side effects of the drug.  So, we’ve opted not to continue using that one.  He’s currently on some medicine for his stomach and has started talking probiotics.  Fortunately, all of the medications can go in Pill Pockets or be mixed with food, so Howard doesn’t mind taking them. 

Howard is also starting to have some kidney issues, likely caused by a combination of age and diabetes.  It’s not terrible yet, but we don’t know how long that will last.  He’s seventeen, and I know we’re lucky to have had him this long, but it still feels like being punched in the gut to think about his time being limited.  I feel like I don’t know how to exist in a world where I’m not Howard’s mom.  I had Howard before I met Nick.  Nick and I are coming up on sixteen years together in September, so Howard has been in his life for a long time, too.

Dr. D. offered us a referral to the specialist, but after talking with her, we’ve decided not to go that route.  Howard is very patient and good at the vet, but he seems to be reaching his limit for how much poking and prodding he’s willing to put up with.  And, in talking with Dr. D., there’s not a fix for the kidney issues that are coming.  There are only short term solutions that likely come at the cost of creating other problems to manage.  It really feels like we’d be doing it for us, to buy ourselves more time with Howard (which is so incredibly tempting) at the cost of his quality of life.  

Because of that, we’re not pursuing treatment of the kidney issues.  We’re managing the diabetes and asthma as best and least invasively as we can, and we’re honestly evaluating Howard’s happiness and quality of life.  Right now, he seems happy.  At seventeen, he’s not very active, but his behavior hasn’t changed.  One of the vet nurses described Howard as a watcher and said he likes to be in the middle of the room and watch everything that’s going on.  That’s very accurate.  He spends most of his time on the fluffy cat bed in the living room, keeping an eye on everyone’s comings and goings.  He cuddles with Frankie, and he’s very enthusiastic about his food.  He seems happy and doesn’t appear to be in pain.  He still wants us to pet him every time we walk by, which we’re more than happy to do.  

Howard’s quality of life seems good for now, so the plan is to keep his as happy and comfortable as possible for as long as possible, and love him as much as we can while we can. Howard still loves to cuddle with Frankie, is very enthusiastic about his food, and loves to be in the middle of everything.  

A Catch-Up Post

I thought a catch-up post was in order since it has been almost two months since I posted anything.

There hasn’t been anything especially interesting or exciting going on.  We’ve just been busy, mostly with work.  We’ve been stuck in a rut of not leaving work on time/taking work home with us (sometimes the whole “do more with less” gets really out of control), which hasn’t left time for much else. 

Most of this year has been that way, and it has felt like we’re stuck in a cycle of just trying to make it through the week only to arrive at the weekend exhausted and behind on all of the life stuff that got put off during the week.  When that happens, we seem to spend the entire weekend trying to catch up and getting ready for the next week of work. 

We both struggle a little bit with setting boundaries, so that’s something we’re making a real effort to work on.  We’re also trying to work on better time management.  I think better time management will follow if we get better at boundaries.  You can’t really manage time that you’ve allowed others to take control of. 

Hopefully, this means we’ll have a little more time for things we enjoy, which for me includes writing blog posts and visiting your blogs.

We both still have a long way to go when it comes to setting boundaries with work and leaving on time.  Hopefully, we’ll see some improvements soon.

We did finally make a plan and stick to it for this past weekend, though, and it was wonderful.  We bought tickets in advance for a Saturday afternoon showing of The Little Mermaid.  It’s one of my absolute favorite Disney cartoons, and I really wanted to see the live-action movie. 

It was so good!  It was just different enough from the cartoon not to be predictable but stayed true enough to the cartoon to be familiar.  There were some new songs that were great.  And I absolutely loved Melissa McCarthy as Ursula. 

In other catch-up news, I took a CPR class.  I took a compressions-only class years ago but never a full CPR class.  I had the chance to take one with Nick, so I went for it.  I’m always nervous in medical settings, so going through the class with Nick made me feel a lot better about it.  I did a lot better than I expected to with chest compressions, and I learned how to use a bag valve mask.  I still hope I never, ever have to do CPR on a person, but at least I know I can. 

It was neat to take the class with Nick, too, because even though he wasn’t teaching it (he’s not a CPR instructor, but has plenty of CPR experience after spending over 20 years in the fire department), he was helping people who were struggling during the practice and practicals.  It was neat to watch him teach other people and, in some cases, just help people find the confidence to do it. 

So, what about you?  What have you been up to for the past couple of months?  Are you good at maintaining a good work/life balance?  How do you do it?  Have you seen the new version of The Little Mermaid? 

Thursday 13: A Chemo and Senior Angels Update

 It looks like it has been almost two years since I did any kind of Chemo or Senior Angels update, so I think it’s definitely time for one. In the interest of not letting it get too long, I thought a Thursday 13 would be a good format for it.

If you’re not familiar with Chemo Angels and Senior Angels, you can read my long post about them here. The very short version is that they’re programs that match volunteers (known as card angels or chemo angels) with patients or seniors (known as buddies), and the volunteer sends cards/letters to the patient/senior. I volunteer as a card angel with both programs.

As usual, with this kind of post, the photos are just a random assortment.

 

Now, on to the update.

1. I’m still writing to my original senior buddy. I’ve been writing to her since November 2019, shortly after I started with the program. She has written me back a few times and is doing well overall.

2. Her daughter manages her check-ins and is great about mentioning specific things that she enjoys hearing about or pictures she really likes, which makes it much easier to write to her.

3. My chemo buddy from last time (the one who sent me the sweet gift at the beginning of 2021) finished with the program. Unfortunately, she’ll most likely be back for more chemo at some point, but she was getting an extended break and leaving the program for that.

4. The chemo buddy who became my regular buddy after I was substitute card angel for a while also finished with the program during an extended chemo break. We’ve exchanged a few emails since then, and she sent me a Christmas card last year. It sounds like she’s doing fairly well, which makes me very happy.

5. My first-ever teenage buddy, the one I called Anna in my last update, finished her chemo and is cancer free. Her mom has posted a few updates on the Facebook page she set up during Anna’s chemo. Anna’s hair has grown back and was beautiful in her prom pictures. She will start college in the fall and is living life to the full. I love those updates, and I’m delighted at how well she’s doing after everything she went through.

6. I had another teenage buddy for most of last year. We’ll call her Kate for purposes of the update. Kate finished her chemo earlier this year and is now cancer free. Kate’s mom wasn’t as detailed in her check-ins as Anna’s mom was, so it was a little harder to gauge what she did or didn’t like. I’m delighted that she’s finished and cancer free.

7. Last summer, I substituted for a 10-year-old girl for about a month while her regular card angel took a break. We’ll call her Denise for purposes of the update. Denise loves to draw, and at the end of my time writing to her, she sent me some pictures she drew of my cats. (Yes, I always share pictures of my cats with my buddies.) Because I was only her substitute, I didn’t get updates about Denise and her progress. I truly hope she’s healthy and happy now.

8. That’s the only bad thing about being a substitute; that you don’t find out when they finish their treatment or how they’re doing.

9. Once my assignment with Kate ended, I got back on the list for another buddy. I was matched to my newest buddy last month. We’ll call her Jane for update purposes.

10. It’s too soon to have heard anything from a check-in of Jane’s, and her information sheet was a little sparse. So, right now, I’m mostly guessing about what to write to her about. I’m hoping that she’ll provide a little more information in some of her check-ins. She does like to read, though, so talking about books is always an option.

11. Recently, Chemo Angels has asked for volunteers willing to write to male patients (adults and/or teenagers). Apparently, some volunteers are only comfortable writing to women or young childreb, and there’s a shortage of volunteers willing to take on male buddies. If you’re interested in volunteering and willing to have a male buddy, this is a great time to sign up. If you’re on the fence about volunteering with Chemo/Senior Angels, I highly encourage you to give it a try. It’s not very time-consuming at all, and it’s an incredibly rewarding experience. So many of the volunteers in the Facebook group talk about feeling like we get more from it than our buddies do, and I really feel like that’s true sometimes.

12. I’ve volunteered to take a male buddy if there’s someone with some interests in common with me. Now that I’ve had a couple of teenage buddies, I’m fine with having a younger buddy (though I’m still not up for taking on a very young child). And I work in a very male-dominated field, so I’m perfectly fine with having a male buddy.

13. I’m still so grateful to Bijoux and Betty for sharing their experiences with Chemo Angels. I don’t think I would have heard of the program otherwise, and I love being a card angel.

 

I truly believe that we all have a responsibility to do something, however small, to help others if we’re able. At times, I’ve had a hard time finding that something for myself, but Chemo Angels/Senior Angels has been a really good fit for me. I know it’s a very, very small thing in the grand scheme of things, but I’m okay with that. I like small, behind-the-scenes things, and I’m very much okay with sending cards that hopefully brighten someone’s day a little bit.

Crochet Cat Couch

I think I’m a very, very slow crocheter.  Back in September, I decided I was going to make my sister, Gabby, a crocheted cat couch.  She first asked for it in 2020.  In 2021, I told her it was beyond my skill level.  In 2022, when The Crochet Crowd released a left-handed tutorial, I decided to give it a try.

My original plan was to give it to her when we had our early Christmas celebration in November.  That didn’t work out.  My next plan was to give it to her at Christmas since we were planning to go to her house.  That didn’t work out either. 

We finally made plans to go stay with Gabby and Amy this past weekend, so I got to work on the cat couch in earnest. 

I had done the gauge swatch back in November. 

I also made the dust ruffle and got started on the couch. 

The pattern was largely a repeat of single crochet, double crochet.  It sounds simple, right?  For some reason, I couldn’t manage to remember the stitch and count the stitches.  I pulled out a few rows, then started relying very heavily on stitch markers. 

It was VERY slow going.   It took me days to finish one side of one cushion.  I also learned that I HATE slip stitching, which the pattern has a decent amount of.  I’m convinced it’s called slip stitching because of how often the hook slips out of the yarn when you do it. 

I’m in a few crochet groups on Facebook, and quite a few people who make the couch say they’ll never make another one.

I looked on Etsy to price them.  They’re all over $100.00, and some are close to $200.00.  I understand why!  I did notice, though, that some seemed to be based on a different pattern.  So, I started looking for more tutorials.  I found this one that I liked.

I finally decided to cobble together my own pattern based on these two tutorials and started over on the couch.  I kept the dust ruffle, though.

I didn’t tell Gabby I was working on it.  I wasn’t sure I’d succeed in making it. 

Fortunately, it worked.  I’m sure you can tell that there are a lot of mistakes.  I have ideas on how to fix most of them, and I think the next couch will look a lot better. 

I was running out of time and energy, so I didn’t make any throw pillows.  And I went really simple for the blanket.  It’s just a continuous granny square based on this tutorial.  I think it might have been a little neater if I’d used a smaller hook.  Next time!

When we got to Gabby and Amy’s. Gabby was cooking dinner, so Amy helped us carry stuff in.  Actually, she helped Nick carry most of the stuff in while I was in the kitchen with Gabby.  As soon as they brought the cat couch in, Amy told Gabby she had to come see what Nick had just brought in. 

Gabby was very excited!  She said she didn’t think I’d ever make it since I had told her it was beyond my skill level.  She and Amy both say it looks nice and looks like something they’d be willing to pay for from a store.  I’m not sure about that.  It’s definitely cute, but there are mistakes and things I could have done better.  But, I’m very glad they like it.   And, honestly, I’m still kind of proud of it, even though it’s not perfect.  It’s the biggest crochet project I’ve done thus far. 

More importantly, their cats like it.

Dobby is their most adventurous cat and he was on it within a few minutes.

I also need to make one for our cats.  Caroline was very interested in it.  She was even on it while I was sewing on the dust ruffle.

Gabby sent me this picture today of another one of their cats, Flitwick, on the couch.  It’s definitely cat approved!

Thirteen, But Not Thursday

I keep planning to do a Thursday 13 to catch up, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.  So, here are thirteen things anyway. 

First, though, thank you for your kind words when I wrote about Duke.  I love how much people who never met him loved him. 

Now, on to some catch-up things.

1. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We took the meal to the hospice house for lunch, as usual.  As always, everyone was incredibly nice.  We hosted our Thanksgiving later that night and had a full house.  Everyone ate way too much, then sat around and talked and played games. 

 

2. Once again, I got too busy and forgot to take pictures of all of the food.  I took pictures of the desserts and some of the potato and sweet potato prep but then didn’t take any more pictures.

 

3. Our new fridge is a little bit smaller than the old one, which normally isn’t a problem, but it was somewhat problematic around Thanksgiving.  Fortunately, the fridge in the breakroom at work was mostly empty, and several people have mini fridges in their offices and were nice enough to let me store things.  I made a few early morning shopping trips before work and had a list on my office bulletin board of where everything was to make sure I didn’t leave anything when I left Tuesday. 

 

4. I crocheted a Grinch scarf using this tutorial.  Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.  Can you spot where I messed up joining the red and white on one of the feet?  Everyone says it’s not very noticeable.

 

5. I used Howard and Frankie to model my Grinch scarf for me.  Howard was a much more cooperative and enthusiastic model than Frankie. 

 

Howard, the enthusiastic model.

Frankie, the reluctant model.

6. We got the cats a little gingerbread scratch house at Christmas.  They seem to love it.  And we’ve discovered that scratch houses with peaked roofs hold up better than ones with a flat top (like the taco truck) since they can’t really get on top of them to crush them. 

Caroline

 

7. We did a very early Christmas with Nick’s mom, stepdad (Susan and Alan), and grandfather, and my sister and her girlfriend (Gabby and Amy).  Because of scheduling, we had it in mid-November (even before Thanksgiving), and it worked out really well.  We’re talking about doing that again this year. 

 

8. My Christmas gift from Susan and Alan was tickets to see the show Cats and dinner at The Melting Pot.  I had seen Cats once before when I was 10 or 11 and loved it.  At the end of 2019, Susan came up with the idea of gifting experiences for Christmas and/or birthday presents.  That was how we saw Les Misérables right before COVID.  Obviously, COVID kind of put the brakes on experience-type gifts for a little while, but for Christmas of 2022, I was gifted the Cats tickets. 

 

9. Another advantage, besides not having to dust it, find a place to keep it, etc., about experience gifts is that they don’t necessarily happen at Christmas.  Our Cats tickets were for April 8^th.  It was really nice to have something fun on the calendar for so long.  We don’t see a lot of shows like that, and we don’t tend to go out for fancy dinners or get dressed up a lot, but it’s nice to do sometimes.  We had a great time!  Dinner was amazing, and the show was incredible. 

 

10. Jennyanydots is still my favorite character.  She reminds me of my childhood cat, Sassy, and I love the tap dance routine.

 

11. My birthday was earlier this month, and my coworkers surprised me with donuts and a card, which was really nice.  One of my coworkers and I were in my office working on something, and someone else came to get us and said there was a short meeting in the breakroom.  The “meeting” turned out to be everyone in the breakroom with donuts and a card and singing happy birthday. 

 

12. And one of my coworkers gave me this mug, which I think perfectly explains why the meeting story worked so well. 

My office is still pink.

    13. Since 2022 was not a good year for us, we decided to burn calendars on New Year’s           Eve.  It felt so good to throw the pages in and watch them go up in flames!  

 

So, what have you been up to lately?