Feline Diabetes and Pancreatitis and Lost Diaries

One of the good things about blogging is I have documentation of my life; it’s almost like keeping a diary of when stuff happened so I can look it up — like when Pica, our cat began insulin shots. I lost my diary that I kept since 1974, and I don’t know where it ended up. The last time I remember updating that diary was in the early 1990s. I imagine some ex-boyfriend or jilted fiance stole it and then burned it with glee in a bonfire.

At one point, somewhere in the late 1980s, I began storing my diary on my computer and diligently transferred the data file from one system to another. From my early IBM with 5-inch floppy disks, to my Compaq portable to finally Mac Powerbooks in the early 1990s. I found some old disks and bought a reader but could not find my diary on any of it. It’s coded under some name that I thought was clever at the time and now I can’t recall the file name at all. I even sent off a ZIP 100 to be converted into a CD, but the diary wasn’t on it either.

It’s a big disappointment for me because that was something I thought I would keep into my old age to recall my youth, and it’s gone.

After I’m dead, I imagine my husband won’t keep my website alive either, so I’ll probably have to sell the business to another Sacramento REALTOR before that happens so my website will always remain online. Or at least for another 50 years.

This morning, after taking care of a few real estate issues for my clients, we’re heading off over the Causeway to Davis to take Pica back to the vet. Since November, we’ve increased his insulin dosage in steps from 1 unit, to 2 units, to 3 units and now we’re on 4 units. His blood glucose curves are not behaving the way the doctor feels they should move and are still too high. New blood tests done earlier this week have resulted in an additional diagnosis of pancreatitis. They don’t know, apparently, if feline diabetes causes pancreatitis or if pancreatitis leads to feline diabetes, according to our vet.

This means we have to start SubQ fluids every other day, along with giving Pica a 1/2 tab of SAM-E daily. He’s lost so much weight (more than 3 pounds) that his hipbones are sticking out. He eats like a cow and urinates like a Sacramento rainstorm. I’m lucky to have a partner in life, so there are two of us to care for Pica. Can’t focus on the past when we have the present in which to live.