7 out of 9

Shown here modeling the latest in kitty couture.

Apparently in a past life I was a professional kicker of cats or something along those lines, because that's the only explanation I can come up with regarding my spate of terrible cat issues recently. The latest chapter in my book of cat woes is quite the doozy, but fortunately there appears to be a happy ending. Part of my job entails working at the various antique shows that the gallery where I work participates in; now that Tricia is a diabetic, I couldn't just set up her timer feeders and leave her to her own devices like I have in the past when I've gone out of town. So I decided to employ a pet sitter, mostly to keep Trish comfortable and happy in her own home rather than boarding her at the veterinarian's (and believe me, this cat can hold a grudge).

Well, long story short, Trish got a hefty overdose of insulin...twice in as many days. She's supposed to get 1 1/2 units twice a day, but due to confusion on my part and the cat sitter's, Trish wound up on the receiving end of 1 1/2 syringes full of insulin; and fyi, a syringe holds 20 units. Do the math and, well, that's quite the overdose. On Thursday evening, when the sitter went over to check on Trish for the second time that day, she found Trish hiding under the sideboard in the dining room, passed out and twitching, and immediately called me. Once I heard how much insulin Trish had received and her symptoms, I knew at once that she was in hypoglycemic shock and possibly on her way into a coma. I told the pet sitter to rush Trish to my vet's and that they would know what to do. About an hour later, I get another phone call, this time telling me that due to the nature of Trish's situation, she would have to be transferred to a 24 hour emergency animal hospital where they could monitor her blood glucose levels through the night, something that my vet's office is not equipped to do.

Ok, I know I promised to make it short, so I'll sum up: Trish wound up spending two and a half days in the hospital until she stabilized enough to be transferred back to my vet's to be boarded for the remainder of my time out of town. Remarkably, she seems to have made a full recovery and shows no signs of neurological injury, or as my vet put it, no drain bamage at all. Apparently, Dr. Neff was pretty astounded that Trish has survived the ordeal unscathed, as he's seen many other cats receive much smaller overdoses of insulin and not make it. He does feel that she's probably down to seven out of nine lives after this incident, though. I'll take seven over zero any day!