A few days ago, my cat Poupée was diagnosed with feline diabetes. To me, this was a relief. Her symptoms could have been caused by kidney failure, and I'd already lost a cat to kidney failure two years ago. Having another cat with kidney failure would be devastating.
She had the usual signs: drinking a lot (three bowls of water a day), peeing a lot, being sleepy all the time. So the vet told me to start giving her injections of Lantus. I was surprised, but relieved, that I didn't have to give her a particular cat-specific type of insulin. I don't have a job right now, and the government program that pays for part of the cost of my prescription drugs wouldn't pay for medication for a cat.
I can give Poupée my own Lantus. I can even use my own insulin pen. I'm actually much more comfortable with pens these days than I am with syringes. I tried using a syringe on Poupée, and she squirmed away from me. So the next day I used my pen, and she seemed to be more comfortable with that. So as long as she's taking an even number of units of Lantus, I can use my pen. (The pen only goes in increments of two.)
Diabetic kitties should have their blood sugar tested, but so far I have failed at this. You're supposed to use your lancing device (the one you would use to poke your fingers as a human diabetic) to poke the kitty's ear. Well, I've tried, and Poupée has been amazingly tolerant of my efforts to get blood from her ear, but so far I haven't succeeded. I'd really like to know what her blood sugar is like and how her insulin is affecting her. At least she's not drinking nearly as much water as she was before she went on insulin.
Poupée also has to go on a low-carb diet, which means all the cats in my household have to go on a low-carb diet. She's eating Purina diet cat food. The vet calls it the "catkins" diet.
I think for many people it's a big deal when their cat is diagnosed with diabetes. Maybe because I've had diabetes for almost my entire life, it's not such a big deal for me. Granted, it cost me a lot of money to get her diagnosis in the first place, but at least I can share my own diabetes supplies with Poupée so they won't cost me any extra. Sure, I would prefer it if my kitty didn't have diabetes, just like I'd prefer not to have diabetes myself. But at least it can be treated, for both of us.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Explaining diabetes to non-diabetics
Something I often wonder about is how to explain what it's like to have diabetes to someone who doesn't have it. There are people who freak out at the mere mention of the fact that I have to "take needles" four times a day and say that they would die if they had to do that. Then there are people who ask me why diabetes is "such a big deal."
How do I explain what hypoglycemia feels like? I could say that it's unpleasantly like being drunk, but I remember Arthur Dent in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy asking, "What's unpleasant about being drunk?" (Ford Prefect's reply is, "Ask a glass of water.")
How do I explain what hyperglycemia feels like? "You're thirsty all the time. You keep having to pee. You're tired and grouchy." All of these are true, but they barely begin to cover it.
Then, of course, there are the misconceptions. "You can't eat sugar." Wrong. Sugar is not the big bad that people make it out to be. Carbohydrates are the real culprit. And they don't have to be eliminated entirely, just taken in moderation. But I still have people trying to hide the candy dish when I'm around or telling me, "You can't eat that!"
Of course, people laugh at me when I order a burger, fries and a Diet Coke. "Oh right, like the Diet Coke is going to cancel out the calories from the burger and fries!" Actually, I'm not concerned about calories. I'm concerned about carbohydrates. I'm drinking a Diet Coke because I don't want to add a couple of dozen more grams of carbohydrate to my meal. If I explain that I have diabetes, then I'll have the same people saying, "But a diabetic shouldn't be eating that!" Argh!
How do I explain what hypoglycemia feels like? I could say that it's unpleasantly like being drunk, but I remember Arthur Dent in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy asking, "What's unpleasant about being drunk?" (Ford Prefect's reply is, "Ask a glass of water.")
How do I explain what hyperglycemia feels like? "You're thirsty all the time. You keep having to pee. You're tired and grouchy." All of these are true, but they barely begin to cover it.
Then, of course, there are the misconceptions. "You can't eat sugar." Wrong. Sugar is not the big bad that people make it out to be. Carbohydrates are the real culprit. And they don't have to be eliminated entirely, just taken in moderation. But I still have people trying to hide the candy dish when I'm around or telling me, "You can't eat that!"
Of course, people laugh at me when I order a burger, fries and a Diet Coke. "Oh right, like the Diet Coke is going to cancel out the calories from the burger and fries!" Actually, I'm not concerned about calories. I'm concerned about carbohydrates. I'm drinking a Diet Coke because I don't want to add a couple of dozen more grams of carbohydrate to my meal. If I explain that I have diabetes, then I'll have the same people saying, "But a diabetic shouldn't be eating that!" Argh!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Diabetes on TV
I must admit, most portrayals of diabetes on TV bug the hell out of me. About 99 percent of shows that deal with diabetes have a simple plot of "separate the diabetic from his/her insulin and watch him/her go into a coma instantly!" I watched an episode of "Adam-12" in which a young boy ran away from the hospital a few hours after being diagnosed with juvenile diabetes.
The doctors pronounced gravely, "If we don't find him within four hours, he will go into a coma!" I'm thinking: go into a coma from what? If he's due for an insulin shot in four hours and doesn't get it, then he'll develop high blood sugar and it will be nasty and unpleasant, but he won't go into a coma as soon as he hits the four-hour mark. If four hours is the time his insulin peaks and he hasn't had anything to eat, then he might get low blood sugar and might pass out not long after he hits that four-hour mark, but he probably wouldn't go into a coma.
There was an episode of "Touched by an Angel" that dealt with a teenage girl being diagnosed with diabetes. In this episode, the girl's mother would go into her bedroom in the middle of the night, check her blood sugar (while the girl was still sleeping!) and give her an insulin injection. Every night. I'm going: "Huh?" The girl is about 18 years old, so I'm sure she is perfectly capable of testing her own blood sugar, and I can't see any purpose for giving her an injection in the middle of the night, every night. If it happens that her blood sugar is exceptionally high one night, then I can see taking an injection (which she should be capable of doing on her own) on that occasion, but not every single night. It is simply not practical and not realistic.
The climax of the episode has the girl having a fight with her boyfriend in the school gym, because he doesn't want her anymore due to her diabetes. She is trying to demonstrate to him that diabetes is not such a big deal. To prove this, she injects herself with what I can only guess is a massive amount of insulin, since it took effect so quickly, and promptly collapses from an insulin overdose. What that was supposed to prove to her boyfriend, I'm not exactly sure. Maybe it was supposed to make him feel sorry for her.
One show from the '70s that I enjoy watching on DVD is "Emergency!" They don't spend a lot of time dealing with diabetes, but for the most part they portray diabetes cases fairly realistically. The paramedics are called to deal with a man who is acting strangely; everyone thinks he's on drugs, but it turns out he's a diabetic whose blood sugar is dangerously low. A mother calls the paramedics because her son, who has been unwell for a while, won't wake up from his nap. It turns out the son has gone into diabetic ketoacidosis. The firefighters rescue a child and a teenager from a house fire, and can't figure out why the teenager is unconscious while her younger sister is fine. They haven't inhaled too much smoke from the fire, so what is wrong? The younger one tells the firefighters that her sister "hasn't been taking her medication like she's supposed to." Turns out the older sister has diabetes and hasn't been taking her insulin!
Even one of my favourite TV shows, "Boston Legal", didn't handle diabetes very well. One of the characters filed a class-action suit against the manufacturer of a popular snack cake that was sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Why? Because eating the snack cake apparently caused people to get Type 2 diabetes. Another lawyer character represented a client with Type 2 diabetes who was suing after being dropped from the clinical trial of a new diabetes drug. The lawyer treated the diabetic client as if she had a terminal disease and was going to drop dead any moment -- because, apparently, she was going to die if she didn't get this experimental diabetes drug.
I wish that when TV shows dealt with diabetes, they would take the time to research it and find out what it's all about. I wish they would stop over-dramatizing it. A diabetic is not going to go into a coma if their insulin injection is delayed for a few minutes, nor is he/she going to drop dead. He/she is also not going to drop dead if he/she eats sugar. You don't need to treat a diabetic person as if he/she has a terminal illness. But I guess that's just not dramatic enough for TV.
The doctors pronounced gravely, "If we don't find him within four hours, he will go into a coma!" I'm thinking: go into a coma from what? If he's due for an insulin shot in four hours and doesn't get it, then he'll develop high blood sugar and it will be nasty and unpleasant, but he won't go into a coma as soon as he hits the four-hour mark. If four hours is the time his insulin peaks and he hasn't had anything to eat, then he might get low blood sugar and might pass out not long after he hits that four-hour mark, but he probably wouldn't go into a coma.
There was an episode of "Touched by an Angel" that dealt with a teenage girl being diagnosed with diabetes. In this episode, the girl's mother would go into her bedroom in the middle of the night, check her blood sugar (while the girl was still sleeping!) and give her an insulin injection. Every night. I'm going: "Huh?" The girl is about 18 years old, so I'm sure she is perfectly capable of testing her own blood sugar, and I can't see any purpose for giving her an injection in the middle of the night, every night. If it happens that her blood sugar is exceptionally high one night, then I can see taking an injection (which she should be capable of doing on her own) on that occasion, but not every single night. It is simply not practical and not realistic.
The climax of the episode has the girl having a fight with her boyfriend in the school gym, because he doesn't want her anymore due to her diabetes. She is trying to demonstrate to him that diabetes is not such a big deal. To prove this, she injects herself with what I can only guess is a massive amount of insulin, since it took effect so quickly, and promptly collapses from an insulin overdose. What that was supposed to prove to her boyfriend, I'm not exactly sure. Maybe it was supposed to make him feel sorry for her.
One show from the '70s that I enjoy watching on DVD is "Emergency!" They don't spend a lot of time dealing with diabetes, but for the most part they portray diabetes cases fairly realistically. The paramedics are called to deal with a man who is acting strangely; everyone thinks he's on drugs, but it turns out he's a diabetic whose blood sugar is dangerously low. A mother calls the paramedics because her son, who has been unwell for a while, won't wake up from his nap. It turns out the son has gone into diabetic ketoacidosis. The firefighters rescue a child and a teenager from a house fire, and can't figure out why the teenager is unconscious while her younger sister is fine. They haven't inhaled too much smoke from the fire, so what is wrong? The younger one tells the firefighters that her sister "hasn't been taking her medication like she's supposed to." Turns out the older sister has diabetes and hasn't been taking her insulin!
Even one of my favourite TV shows, "Boston Legal", didn't handle diabetes very well. One of the characters filed a class-action suit against the manufacturer of a popular snack cake that was sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Why? Because eating the snack cake apparently caused people to get Type 2 diabetes. Another lawyer character represented a client with Type 2 diabetes who was suing after being dropped from the clinical trial of a new diabetes drug. The lawyer treated the diabetic client as if she had a terminal disease and was going to drop dead any moment -- because, apparently, she was going to die if she didn't get this experimental diabetes drug.
I wish that when TV shows dealt with diabetes, they would take the time to research it and find out what it's all about. I wish they would stop over-dramatizing it. A diabetic is not going to go into a coma if their insulin injection is delayed for a few minutes, nor is he/she going to drop dead. He/she is also not going to drop dead if he/she eats sugar. You don't need to treat a diabetic person as if he/she has a terminal illness. But I guess that's just not dramatic enough for TV.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
You say it's your birthday....
My birthday is coming up on Friday. I'll be 41 years old. I count my number of years as a diabetic by how old I am, and I am pretty sure I was five years old when I was diagnosed, so this will make 36 years of having diabetes. (My older brother insists I was four years old, however, so it may actually be 37 years.)
My birthday and Christmas are the two times of year when I throw caution to the wind and eat anything and everything I want. Now, if you read my "why I don't low-carb" post, I said that I pretty much eat that way anyway. But actually, I try not overdo it most of the time. Except on my birthday and Christmas. And actually, I don't even do it that much at Christmas, because I generally don't enjoy parties, and if I don't go to Christmas parties, then there's no temptation.
I once went to a chocolate buffet for my birthday. It had been a very tough time for me that particular birthday; my beloved cat had just passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, and then a couple of days later I got yelled at by my landlord for having a messy apartment. So I figured I deserved a treat.
To my surprise, there was actually sugar free chocolate at the chocolate buffet! This helped me feel less guilty. Granted, I did wake up the next morning with a blood sugar somewhere around 17 (that would be around 300 for the Americans.)
I'd like to go to the chocolate buffet again this year, but I think I'll try to opt for a lower-fat supper (I had fish and chips for supper the night of the chocolate buffet, and the fat content prevented the chocolate from raising my blood sugar right away) and I might have to get up a few times during the night to check my blood sugar in order to prevent it from going up as high as it did the first time I went. And maybe I'll have more of the sugar-free chocolate this time.
I'm not recommending that any diabetic go to a chocolate buffet or go overboard on their birthday. Going overboard is definitely not healthy. But I think we all deserve a treat now and then, and what better time for a treat than your birthday?
My birthday and Christmas are the two times of year when I throw caution to the wind and eat anything and everything I want. Now, if you read my "why I don't low-carb" post, I said that I pretty much eat that way anyway. But actually, I try not overdo it most of the time. Except on my birthday and Christmas. And actually, I don't even do it that much at Christmas, because I generally don't enjoy parties, and if I don't go to Christmas parties, then there's no temptation.
I once went to a chocolate buffet for my birthday. It had been a very tough time for me that particular birthday; my beloved cat had just passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, and then a couple of days later I got yelled at by my landlord for having a messy apartment. So I figured I deserved a treat.
To my surprise, there was actually sugar free chocolate at the chocolate buffet! This helped me feel less guilty. Granted, I did wake up the next morning with a blood sugar somewhere around 17 (that would be around 300 for the Americans.)
I'd like to go to the chocolate buffet again this year, but I think I'll try to opt for a lower-fat supper (I had fish and chips for supper the night of the chocolate buffet, and the fat content prevented the chocolate from raising my blood sugar right away) and I might have to get up a few times during the night to check my blood sugar in order to prevent it from going up as high as it did the first time I went. And maybe I'll have more of the sugar-free chocolate this time.
I'm not recommending that any diabetic go to a chocolate buffet or go overboard on their birthday. Going overboard is definitely not healthy. But I think we all deserve a treat now and then, and what better time for a treat than your birthday?
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