Sammie's blood sugar was 36 yesterday morning, so I took her to the VCA. She's still there, and she'll be there until tomorrow. This visit is going to cost me close to $7,000, total, and I just don't have it. So I started a crowdfunding campaign to help me pay for the expense.



(If you can't see the widget, you can click here to go to the campaign.)

I've raised one-tenth of one percent of what I need so far. Please help! Thank you.

This morning, Sammie was sleeping next to my head. When I woke up, she "Enh"ed at me (which is the semi-voiced meow she does when she wants food) and sat on my chest. When she did this before, it was annoying. When she did it today, I was almost crying with joy.

I got up and fed her, and she ate nearly all of it, so I gave her a little bit of kibble to munch on throughout the day (as the doctor told me to do so she can put on some of the weight she's lost). She fought me giving her pills, but did swallow them eventually. Her blood sugar was elevated, but not stratospheric, so I gave her one unit of insulin.

If she continues like this, I expect that tomorrow she'll be knocking things over and chewing paper again to wake me up. :)

I'm at VCA, and they're getting Sammie ready for me to take her home. I've got a new treatment plan and a lot of drugs for her, but I feel a lot better about her future than I did on Sunday night.

The ultrasound revealed that Sammie's pancreas has some nodules on it that they say are likely scar tissue from previous bouts of pancreatic inflammation. This scar tissue, they said, is probably contributing to the glucose spikes she's been having. I'm going to talk to their feline diabetes specialist this afternoon to work out a plan for controlling her glucose better so that her pancreas doesn't get this badly inflamed again. Then I'll be taking her home and watching her very closely for a while.

But they also say that she's been doing much, much better since I brought her in. Her appetite is back in full force, and she's drinking and urinating normally again. Also, not vomiting! Yay!

I left the VCA last night around 1am. At that time, the vet on duty said that she was dehydrated, her pancreas was inflamed, and her glucose was still very high, but they were going to put her on IV fluids and give her insulin and anti-inflammatory drugs. About 3am, he called me to say that she was responding to abdominal palpation as if it hurt her, so they wanted to do an ultrasound, and they were going to give her pain medication and an antibiotic just in case the inflamed pancreas was a bacterial infection. He said someone would call me some time this morning to let me know how she was doing.

I ended up calling them about 10am (a little over 20 minutes ago as I write this). She responded very well to the pain meds and the fluids, and her appetite came back. However, her glucose numbers were all over the place, so they said that they want to keep her for another day. They hadn't yet done the ultrasound, either.

So bottom line: Good news is that she's eating again, she's apparently not in pain (though that's probably the drugs), her glucose isn't consistently through the roof anymore, and she's stopped vomiting. Bad news is that her glucose is now fluctuating, her pancreas is still inflamed, and they still don't know if there's something else that may be causing both of these things (which the ultrasound could help determine).

Also bad news: this whole thing is going to set me back about five grand. Sammie is worth it, but ... ouch.

I'm at the VCA emergency veterinary hospital in Mission Valley. Sammie is not doing very well. She was vomiting about once every hour this evening, was extremely listless, and her blood glucose level was sky high. I gave her her insulin and watched her for a while, but she didn't seem to get any better, so I decided to bring her here.

I spoke with the doctor on call about a half hour ago, and he wants to keep her here overnight for observation. I'm waiting for them to do some tests and so they can decide on a course of treatment and give me an estimate.

I have a bad feeling, though...

This isn't the first time I've done an alphabet meme, but I think it's the first time I've done this particular one. Many thanks to Keith R.A. kradical DeCandido, from whom I took this. (He, in turn, took it from a friend of his on Facebook, and she probably got it from another friend, etc. I guess that's how memes work, huh?)

Twenty-Six Things About Me:

A. Age: 47
Curious fact: While looking up the spelling of Keith's last name, I discovered that he is exactly one month older than I am.

B. Biggest fear: Varies, but usually heights.
I am, in fact, so scared of heights that I can't watch certain scenes in movies or play certain levels of video games without curling up into a little ball and hyperventilating a little.

C. Current time: 10:31a.m. PDT (UTC – 07:00)

D. Drink you last had: Water.
I know. I'm boring.

E. Every day starts with: Appeasing the elder goddess of the house.
Or, in more mundane terms, feeding the cat.

F. Favorite song: Wildly variable, but right now I'm digging on "Come With Me Now" by Kongos.

G. Ghosts; are they real?: Only in our memories.
Of course, this is not to say that they aren't just as dangerous as real ones would be. . . .

H. Hometown: I'm actually not sure how to answer this. I was born in Paoli, IN; I lived the first four years of my life in Indianapolis, IN; I pretty much grew up in Los Angeles; but San Diego has been my home for over 25 years.

I. In love with: My sweetie, of course. :)

J. Jealous of: Way too many people for way too many things. It's one of the reasons I started doing meditation and trying to follow more Buddhist practice in my day-to-day life. I'll never be a perfect Buddhist, or even a very good one, but keeping some of its ideas in my mind has really helped me to not be as much of a reactionary asshole as I once was.

K. Killed anyone?: No.
Never have, never will, never will support or condone anyone else doing so. Period.

L. Last time you cried: While watching the Pixar short "Lava"

M. Middle name: Brooks
My performing name, Eben Brooks, is just my first and middle names. I drop the legal last name because I already have one unusual name; I don't need people fumbling over two.

N. Number of siblings: One brother.

O. One wish: To learn to be less attached to stuff.

P. Person you last called: neo_tanuki, last night, about gaming.

Q. Question you are always asked: "How are you today?"
It's how my sweetie greets me every morning when we IM.

R. Reason to smile: Many of the things on this list, including D, F, I, N, and P.

S. Song last sang: "25 or 6 to 4" while grocery shopping last night.

T. Time you woke up: Too damn late.
I.e., 8:45a.m. PDT

U. Underwear color: That's a bit bloody personal, ennit?
Okay, fine. White.

V. Vacation destination: I don't do vacations, I do conventions.
I seriously haven't had a real vacation since I went to London in 2004 (with neo_tanuki, as it happens).

W. Worst habit: Video games.
Once I start, I can't put them down. It's a known problem that I really don't have any serious interest in solving. ;-)

X. X-rays you've had: Yeesh, where do I start? Left foot, repeatedly. Teeth, at dentist's office, every couple of years. Torso, several times. Head, a few times. Hands, a few times each. I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot more.

Y. Your favorite food: Come on, this is a cop-out. This should be F. A proper Y question would be "Yankees or Red Sox?" or something like that.
That being said, I don't really have a favorite food. I like to diversify.

Z. Zodiac sign: Western, Taurus. Eastern, Rooster.
This is why I refer to Cock & Bull Ginger Beer as "My ginger beer".

Last night, I bought the glucose meter and a 50-day supply of test strips. Combined, it was $100. $80 of that was the strips--yeah, I was wrong about the price on those; they're not forty cents each, they're eighty cents each. And those were the cheap ones! So after I got home, I fell into a pretty bad depression.

Fortunately, this morning I woke up feeling better. My mood was further elevated by the fact that Sammie's glucose was only 118, so I didn't have to give her any insulin. I hope this continues to be the case.

Unfortunately, Sammie seems to be much hungrier and has taken to chewing on paper and cardboard, which is both annoying and unhealthy for her. She tends to vomit it back up. So I guess I have to figure out how much food I can give her to balance the glucose and her hunger.

Still, she's definitely feeling better, which is very good. I hope she stays that way.

No, not me, my cat. Yes, my lovely, but old, Sammie-girl is diabetic. During the investigation into why she was acting so lethargic, being occasionally very stumbly and wobbly on her feet, and randomly meowing as if in pain, the veterinarian discovered that her blood sugar was in the high 200's. Not catastrophic, but definitely high. So we* tried giving her insulin for a week, and it seems to have helped.

But the glucometer we were using isn't ours, and now we have to return it. I tried to find another one of the same kind (Alpha 2, if I'm remembering correctly), but I couldn't. So now I have to decide which one to get. Do any of you have any suggestions or recommendations? It would be nice if I could find one where the strips don't cost forty cents EACH.

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* My brother and I. We live together right now.

My brother bought a burger for me when he went out to get himself lunch a little while ago. I asked for a double cheeseburger with no onions, because I'm very sensitive to the sulfur compounds in raw onions—they cause my sinuses great distress.

I got the double cheeseburger all right, but not only were there onions, there was so much onion that I could barely taste anything else. Even after scraping all of the onion off, the residual smell and flavor were too much—and now I've got the beginnings of what is promising to be a doozy of a sinus headache.

I don't blame my brother; I trust him when he says he ordered it without onions. He knows I won't bite his head off for making a mistake. No, I blame the idiot at the fast food place. Hey, dumb-ass! When someone says "no onions", they mean it!

... dumb-ass ...

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*Since I am a militant agnostic ("I don't know, and you don't either!"), I've decided that, when I feel the social or rhetorical need to invoke a supernatural power, I'm most comfortable invoking Ceiling Cat, since he a) is obviously imaginary, even to those who have faith in other supposed deities, and b) mostly doesn't make religious folk go "OMG! EEEEEVILLLLLL!!!"