Not again

So I get home last night after work and Nicki gives me her normal ” I haven’t seen you in 10 years” excited greeting.  I take her out to do her bathroom run and come back in and give her a treat.  I walk back into the bedroom and immediately smell something.  I see two small pieces of shit in the bathroom, one on the rug and one on the tile floor.  It didn’t make sense to me why Nicki would drop little pieces like this but I immediately spun around and told her she was naughty!  The tone in my voice instantly dropped her ears and she went and laid down on her dog bed of shame.  I hadn’t even taken notice of Buttons who was sitting by the doorway to the bathroom.  I glance down and give her the normal, “Hi Buds…” greeting and then do a double take.  Buttons has her mouth wide open, tongue hanging out and is panting like mad.  There is a long disgusting string of mucus hanging from her jaw.  Soon I realized that it was cat shit that I just picked up.  Yep Buttons was once again in the midst of insulin shock. 

Before I left for work that morning, Buttons threw up in the living room.  It was a big pile.  She literally has about 3 teeth left in her mouth.  As a result she basically swallows her dry food whole.  This lends itself to vomiting apparently.  This was a BIG pile of vomit considering it was from a cat.  You could see the intact pieces of food very clearly.  Well I gave her her insulin shot in the morning just as I always do, giving no thought to it.  I assumed she would go back and eat during the day.  Well for whatever reason, she mustn’t have remembered to eat.  As a result when the insulin kicked in it sucked her blood sugar way down which turns her into a blind, drooling mess that can’t even walk.

Since I had seen insulin shock several times before (I think this is her 4th or 5th episode)  I was not panicked.  In fact I was more annoyed than anything, knowing what the night was going to hold for me.  I got changed, went to the bathroom and looked at the mail before I addressed the Buttons situation.  I scooped her up and put her in the bathtub.  She smelled like roadkill, it was disgusting.  I called Ali whom was still at work and told her the news.  Ali asked me what I wanted do.  I replied “Well I would like to hit her over the head with a shovel…”  which instantly horrified Ali, no I didn’t mean it.  Ali said she would leave work asap.

So I take the emergency container of honey that we keep on hand for these situations.  Along with the panting and drooling, Buttons was meowing loudly, she was obviously scared and being temporarily blind is certainly no fun.  I grab her head and shove the nozzle of the honey container in her mouth and start squeezing.  The cat winds up wearing most of the honey but she took some as well.  I also had the bright idea of wetting her down to hopefully disperse some of the smell.  All that did was scare her more and make her a smelly wet cat.  I brought in a towel to wrap around her.  While Ali was in transit I gave Buttons several more doses of honey.  Her condition wasn’t improving, she was still panting uncontrollably and drooling like a mental patient.  I would take a break and do some things in between honey shots.  I knew from past experience you just have to ride it out and wait for the sugar in her system to come back up.

So Ali gets home and takes over the care.  She mixes up some sugar water to give the cat out of a syringe.  that would get absorbed even faster than the honey.  Ali got upset as she watched Buttons struggling to stand up.  She had no control over her muscles and was still blind.  Ali said she couldn’t believe I said I wanted to hit her with a shovel.  I reiterated that I didn’t mean it.  Again and again we would give the cat sugar via water or honey form.  It was around 8pm and there was still not a major improvement.

I told Ali that we just need to give her some time.  I told her that Buttons at least seemed slightly better than when I got home.  We sat down and watched Survivor with a few small breaks to check on her.  By the time the show was over the cat seemed to be turning the corner.  The constant panting had stopped and she seemed more alert.  She still had little motor skills and was probably exhausted from the ordeal that could have lasted many hours. (who knows when it started)  The cat actually responded to Ali rubbing her with purring.

So Ali asked what I wanted to do now.  I said we should give her a quick bath to get the stench off.  Buttons wasn’t thrilled with getting showered down but she at least wasn’t crying out like she was earlier whenever you touched her.  I toweled her off and then carried her over to the utility room where Ali had made a makeshift recovery bed by folding up a bunch of towels on the floor.  We sat a bowl of water near her and set up a nightlight.   I was exhausted and took a shower and went to bed.  Ali evidently stayed up later as I saw there was a note on the counter that Buttons ate about a third of  a can of a food last night.  When I opened the utility room door I wasn’t quite sure what I would see.  Would the cat be there stiff as a board with her legs up in the air or would she be back to normal begging me for food?  Well it was sort of in between.  She was sitting on the mat in front of her food and water bowl, facing me.  When I opened the door she simply looked at me and meowed.  She looked ok although obviously she still was unable to get around much on her own.  This too we have seen before.  Normally after these episodes she takes some time until she is able to move normally.

So once again at least so far, Buttons continues to carry on.  I’d be lying if I didn’t say that there was a part of me that wished it all would have ended last night.  Although at the same time I feel bad for the cat, it’s impossible not to.  We’ll see where it leads from here.   

This weekend will be Christmas decoration time.  I am not going to go overboard with the lights this year.  The fact that we are going to be gone 5 days leading up to Christmas makes me feel that it is sort of a waste to decorate as much as normal.