One Sick Kitty

Willin, back home in the kitchen

Over the past couple of months our wonderful cat Willin seemed to become an incredibly fussy eater. We tried changing food many times, as recommended by our vet, but nothing kept his interest for long and he started losing weight.

Last week it became clear that this had to be more than just a fussy eater, and we took him back to the vet - who took some X-rays and bloodwork and sent us home with an appetite stimulant. A few hours later Willin's situation seemed desperate, and we took him to the MSPCA's Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston. The vet there (Ryan Gershenson, DVM) took more bloodwork and ran through a list of possible diagnoses - including diabetes. We brought Willin back home for the night, and in the morning returned to our local vet in desperation.

We talked through possible diagnoses, and I brought up diabetes. For some reason this seemingly hadn't occurred to our vet as a possibility, even though Willin's blood sugar was somewhat elevated. We left Willin with the vet for a night of hydration, insulin and monitoring.

This morning he was much better, and this afternoon I left work early and picked up Willin and brought him home - along with a box of syringes, a bottle of insulin and the newly-acquired skill of injecting insulin into a cat. He seems a lot happier than he was a few days ago; notably, he's eating. He also seems a little annoyed at the poodle trim on his right leg (where an IV line was attached overnight).



We'll see how he does over the next few days, but hopefully we're out of the woods - at least for now.

Willin's X-rays were emailed to me; they're pretty interesting.