Morris has diabetes, meet the new Diabetes Counselling Online Mascot

Morris is nearly 11 years old and has not been himself for a while now. He had a sore which has not been healing for months. Lately he has started to drink a lot more, wee a lot more, and lose weight. In the past few weeks he has had some vomiting and loose bowels. He is often sleeping. He seems ok in himself but something is not quite right.

Sound familiar?

If so, you would be right in assuming a diagnosis of diabetes. But this is not a human child, this is my cat Morris! So how weird is the world. Not only do I live with type 1 diabetes, work in diabetes and study diabetes, but now my CAT has diabetes. Yep I am the QUEEN of diabetes……surrounded by it!

Last week I took him to the Vet, yet again (he has had some ongoing issues with a sore that would not heal and dry skin), as I was worried about all of these symptoms and secretly suspected diabetes. Imagine my shock when I was walking into an event for my Interiors work, to see Amity Dry winner of The Block All Stars launch her Interior Design career, with a call from the Vet to tell me, “your cat has diabetes”! Great timing.

So today I have dropped him at the Vet. They are taking his blood glucose and giving an injection of Lantus (at least he can share my old back up Lantus I keep for pump emergencies!) and then checking his levels all day to make sure he does not go low. Then he comes home on a set dose for two weeks. They then test all of that again to make sure the dose is right.

Cats apparently sit on 0.5-4 units of insulin and do not act like dogs when hypo, seeking food, but will just curl up somewhere, so it is important to get the dose right and err on the side of being a tad high. Apparently they are never as stable as we can get either. I do not want to see my already slightly eccentric cat hypo! Stay tuned as we share our journey with him and he joins us as a Diabetes Counselling Online Mascot!

Helen

xx

Helen Edwards