cimorene

waxjism noticed that Snookums had lost some weight and was drinking a ton and suspected he might have diabetes, and I had a complete meltdown over the idea of anything being wrong with him or anything endangering his health in any way because he's my baby. I had to take a benzo to get to sleep after she presented the idea to me earlier this week.

And Snookums could've probably used one in the last 24 hrs, but he remained straightedge for the whole of his 12 hrs' fasting, his trip to the vet via the bus inside a cat carrier (-8 today), and his blood testing ordeal. He was a very good and incredibly easy to handle boy, whose charming face and Longcatness were remarked on by the vet and technicians, as well as his enterprising decision to investigate under the desk and in the sink in case they offered any hiding places (they didn't). I've never seen him so anxious, though.

Unsurprisingly Wax was right, and then she said something about the blood glucose testing device we used to have in the closet and it turns out the now dearly departed Crazy (that is, Tea), who shuffled off this mortal coil in 2014, had diabetes for a while first and because that was the middle of my late dog Perry's illness, I had managed to completely forget about it until now. "That's why I recognized the symptoms!" said Wax. "Haha, you thought I just magically knew what was wrong with him because I'm so smart."

Unfortunately: 1. the best way to control kitty blood sugar is eliminating all carbs as much as possible, 2. this is more difficult while feeding dry food, and 3. the cats have already foiled one past attempt to transition them to a raw diet. We'll see.

Fun fact! Because Finnish doesn't have gendered 3rd person singular pronouns, Finns have trouble remembering the difference between the he/hims and the she/hers. Today (not for the first time) they all defaulted to "she/her" (and continued in English even though I told them they could speak Finnish: also standard).