Judge thyself not…

Sometimes, it’s really hard to avoid taking Isabella’s blood glucose numbers personally. Really, really hard.

As I’ve blogged before, when Isabella was first diagnosed as diabetic I naively assumed that it would be a simple matter of insulin in, blood sugar down. Higher number, more insulin; lower number, less insulin.

But it’s not like that at all. Well, it is sort of like that – insulin does cause blood sugar to go down...most of the time. And higher numbers do warrant more insulin...except when they signal a need for less insulin. But never -- never -- can I absolutely rely upon a linear dose response. I can’t plug 1.7 units of PZI into my cat and know that it will knock her blood sugar down 150 points, with the nadir coming at 8 hours after the dose. “Predictable” and “diabetes” have nothing in common.

It’s taken me a while to truly understand that though. Isabella got her first insulin seven months ago. The very day of her diagnosis, I discovered the Feline Diabetes Message Board, a marvelous community of diabetic cat owners. I learned more from the folks on the board than I ever will from the vet. These people are living it, day after day. There’s always someone online who knows what you’re going through. It’s a fantastic place of shared knowledge and camaraderie.

It’s also a place where the success stories are front and center. Tales of cats needing insulin for only a couple weeks before becoming diet controlled abound. It’s a very encouraging thing for the newbies to talk to folks whose cats are happily eating low carb and off insulin for months or years. It’s easy to assume that your cat will be the same. Then as the weeks slog by and the glucometer keeps spitting out ugly numbers like 372, it’s even easier to assume that you are a failure.

I have hit the wall of failure many, many times in my travels in the land of feline diabetes. I have seen those ugly numbers on the meter and crumpled into a little pile of self-loathing. For months I was certain that each change in Isabella’s dose would be the magic change. Her numbers would drop! She would be regulated! Or, maybe, she would go off insulin altogether!

But test after test would reveal that no, her numbers are still all over the map, she’s not regulated and she probably never will be regulated. I was a mess. Every high reading was another black mark. I would enter those horrid numbers into a spreadsheet and plot the graph of failure. I was ashamed to go to the vet.

Two things have helped me to gradually let go of that shame. The first was the vet, who pointed out more than once that Isabella really looks good. Her weight is stable. Her fur is silky and shiny. She’s eating a normal amount, peeing a normal amount, and is not sucking water from the bottom of the bathtub. “Look at the whole cat, not just the numbers.” This is very, very good advice.

The second was that I realized that among all the folks on the message board who have fabulous success treating their cats, there are many more who quietly plod along, day after day, struggling with stubborn highs, freak lows, and infuriating variability, just like I do. My cat is not the only one. I am not the only one. I am not a failure. We are all doing the best we can.

Now, when I see a good number (which, for me, is anything in the 100s) I’m happy that Isabella is probably feeling pretty good that day. When she’s in the 300s, I give her extra chin scratches and let her sleep. A number is just a number. Not a judgment.