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Sharkey

This story, unlike most here has a happy ending. It is about my cat, Sharkey. He is one of 3 cats, the other two are close to my wife. Sharkey is the only one that is at all close to me. Some months back my wife, Candy noticed that he was drinking a lot of water, which of course meant a lot of extra urine in the litterbox. I took him to the vet and found out that he was diabetic. We started him on insulin, giving him a shot with 3 units each morning and evening. He seemed to be doing well, then in January I injured my leg and was out of action for a month or so. One Saturday morning he vomited before his breakfast. I thought that was odd, how could he have food in his stomach after 12 hours? I gave him his shot and fed him, but for the first time in his life he wasn’t hungry. I finally coaxed him into eating a little. All weekend he wouldn’t eat, so I didn’t give him any insulin, fearing that he might go into a diabetic coma.
Monday morning I took him to the vet and he had bad news for me. Sharkey’s sugar was VERY high, he was dehydrated and worst of all, he had a lot of ketones in his blood. This was very dangerous. Without critical care around the clock care he probably wouldn’t survive. The place that does that charges about $200 per day and it would take 2 or 3 days to restore his blood sugar, ketones and electrolytes to normal.It was a very difficult process, using a short acting insulin and several blood tests per day to monitor his progress.

Having been without a paycheck, there was no way that I could afford that. The vet said I should consult with my family about putting him down.
The vet suggested giving him fluids under his skin and trying to see how he did at home, but didn’t give much hope that it would work.
I took him home and started giving him 4.5 units of insulin. His appetite returned as soon as we got home. The next day I took him back in and while his blood sugar was still very high, the ketones were down significantly. He gave Sharkey more fluids and we adjusted his insulin up a little more.
Well, he is doing much better now,the ketones are gone and his sugar is returning to normal. I’m SO happy that I didn’t give up on him and that Sharkey didn’t give up on life.
The photo is Sharkey cleaning Haley’s ear.

Darwin from IN

sharkey