Wednesday, July 23, 2008

It’s Day One All Over Again


I’ve finally done it. I’ve finally made the switch from PZI insulin to Lantus for Isabella’s diabetes.

I had been all set to talk to the vet about changing when Isabella’s cancer came back. That really threw me – all of a sudden I wasn’t sure I should bother trying to learn a new insulin if she was just going to die anyway. So I hesitated. I procrastinated. I stopped caring about her numbers.

Then someone on the Feline Diabetes Message Board said something that really hit home:
Don’t bury your cat until it’s dead.

The comment wasn’t directed at me, it was in someone else’s discussion. But I realized that I had done exactly that. I had given up on Isabella’s day-to-day disease because of something that might not be a problem for months and months. I had, in effect, buried her already.

Talk about a wake up call.

So I called the vet and got a prescription for Lantus. Today Isabella got her first taste of this spendy, recombinant DNA human insulin analog. In humans, Lantus is intended for once-a-day dosing. Cats, being the metabolic overachievers that they are, still need it twice a day. But only twice a day – unlike PZI and some other insulins, which cats can use up and spit out in a handful of hours. So Lantus will suit my inherent laziness very well indeed.

Hopefully it will suit Isabella too. I’d like to see her blood glucose numbers come down and for her to feel better. It would be good to see her put on some weight too (though that might be an uphill battle, what with the cancer and all).

Regardless, Isabella is now getting the Cadillac of insulins for her diabetes, and I’m a newbie all over again.

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