Life with a Diabetic Cat

She was twelve years old when I realized something was wrong.

Dollbaby’s story begins in 1996 when my family went to a Humane Society animal fair looking for the cat the landlord finally said we could have. She was huddled at the back of the cage while April, the orange tabby that shared her space, pushed herself forward against the metal bars. However, my Dad saw something special in the shy gray and white kitten. We gathered around and then decided to take her home. She was the one. Unfortunately, her shyness is more complex and we realized that she had been abused. Even all these years later, she’s timid and can barely assert herself except when no one else is around.

She and I have a complicated relationship. I was in sixth grade the year we adopted her and very lonely. I took solace in Dollbaby having chosen me to be her preferred human. When I’d get home, she’s emerge from under my bed and we would cuddle as I did my homework, her white paw batting at my school books. During my parents’ divorce and then after the move, she got outside. For two miserable months, I waited to catch her. She was afraid to come too close. The divorce had been difficult on all of us. When I caught her, Dollbaby gave me a small scar to remember the struggle as I held her tight and rushed indoors. She has not moved towards an open outside door since.

The years have moved by so quickly and we were poor. I saw her weight fluctuate high and low till it moved to the point of knowing something was wrong. She was all bones, her vertebrae thrusting upwards with her skin hanging from that curtain rod of a spine. She was too weak to leave her solace in Dad’s room (we had adopted two more cats who chased her but loved me, so she moved to his room). However, Dad said she was just fine, leave her alone. I dawdled, knowing my income was sparse, but Dollbaby was taking a turn for the worse.

In June of 2008, Dollbaby was diagnosed as a diabetic that was six weeks from death. Hope and life came in the form of a tiny but expensive bottle of insulin to be administrated twice daily. The vet handed me the syringe and showed me how to fill it with insulin. That first pull back on the needle flooded my head and I struggled to stay conscious. Then I looked at Dollbaby on the table. She could not do this for herself, but I could. I filled the needle with the life-sustaining insulin then pinched Dollbaby’s skin. The needle requires a little push and then it’s in. She flinches but does not fight me. She can live now.

We go the vet every two months for blood work which sets me back about $80 each time. I order her needles online, $10 cheaper than what the vet charges. The whole order of my life was rearranged and refocused on this twice daily routine. Dollbaby can miss one shot occasionally, but other than that, I have to be home every twelve hours. If I want some time away, I have to make arrangements with my roommate to administer the shot. The cost of cat food went up in the household since I now feed two cans a day to my three cats. Dollbaby’s former diet of dry food only caused her diabetes since dry food is full of carbs and cats cannot digest it. Living with a diabetic cat has rearranged my priorities and taken the focus off me and put them on another living being.

Recently, a friend dismissed my efforts and said she couldn’t do it to herself and her cat and give the two daily shots. She would just have her cat put down. When I regaled another friend with the story, she told me it was “my choice” to be managing Dollbaby’s diabetes. These are ignorant statements on the nature of diabetes in cats. Yes, I have to maintain a schedule. Yes, diabetes management costs money. But no, there was no choice in the matter. You do not simply let someone die from diabetes. There is no cure but changes in diet, exercise, and sometimes supplementing the body with outside insulin will save a life. I am not torturing her by sustaining her life through the insulin. She is healthy and the vet expects she has another four years with me at this point.

Four years. If she lives till then or even beyond 2014, Dollbaby has already gone beyond any hope she had of living by the time August 2008 rolled around. Insulin saved her life. What would I do with the money I spend on her care otherwise? Is spending it on my own frivolities more important? I am blessed that I have the financial means to scrape together to pay the vet bills and buy the insulin. I am aware that not everyone can afford to do so. However, if your animal develops diabetes, know that it is not the end of the world nor is it a death sentence. They can be saved. You are not being cruel, they are not suffering by prolonging their life through the artificial introduction of insulin into their bodies. You are saving them. By allowing them to die the slow and agonizing coma then death of doing nothing at all, that is cruel.

Dollbaby will be fourteen this year. Her vision is slowly being blocked by cataracts from age and aggravated further by her diabetes. Yet she sleeps on my pillow next to my head and nuzzles my face for attention. It takes her longer to prepare herself for the jump from the floor to the bed. When she hops down she lands much heavier than her “sisters” who are half her age. In November 2009, she had to have all her teeth removed due to dental decay. Side note on that: it has not slowed down her eating one bit and the puffiness in her face went away. She looks a little funny without her teeth, but it does not hamper her lifestyle. She still snuggles with me when I read, rubbing her head on the edge of my grad school textbooks (a bit different than the novels I read in sixth grade). She lies still as I administer the insulin. There was no choice in taking care of her diabetes. She’s my best friend and I can’t imagine life without her.