Skin Cancer

I haven't posted before about my cat Merry's skin cancer.  It started at the beginning of the year. Around April. I noticed a scratch on his nose.  About 6 weeks later it wouldn't heal and was becoming circular. I took him into the vet.  The vet gave me some meds to put on it but said it's probably skin cancer. The way we would know is if the medicine didn't get rid of the cut then it was for sure skin cancer.  He said really there is no reason to take a sample and send it in since I had already decided that I wasn't going to do chemo or radiation.  I also refuse to have Merry's nose removed.  Those are the only options if a cat has skin cancer on their nose. I have no idea why he got skin cancer.  He's not an outdoor cat so there hasn't been that much sun exposure on his nose. When we went to the new vet she felt the same way.  Merry is now 16 years old. Here are pictures from when we first discovered it:

Now that it is November it has progressed a lot since this then.  Most of the year it has only been a superficial wound.  Meaning it was really just eating away the top layer.  I think that now it is finally actually eating through the skin.  Now we must make the painful decision when to call it.  He is walking very slow with a pronounced limp.  Honestly I'm not sure if he will make it past the end of the year. But we'll see.  I try to look at him and see if he still has quality of life.

Pippin my other cat is actually doing pretty fantastic health wise.  We had a scare about a month ago though.  One morning we gave the cats double shots.  It was a scary day.  I got up and gave the cats shots and then my husband got up and gave them shots again.  We had to take a lot of glucose curves that day. The lowest reading Merry had was 54.  After that though his glucose went up.  Just goes to show communication is very important.  The many years we have been giving these cats shots that was only the first time for that mix up to happen.

We will be taking care of another cat come January.  My sister is unfortunately going through a terrible divorce.  Her husband has left here with nothing.  Of course she will fight for child support but she has asked me to take her little kitty.  Toast is about 9 years old. I am of course going to help my sister out and bring Toast to my house.  I am going to do everything in my power to make sure Toast doesn't get diabetes.

Well.... hope all your fur babies are doing amazing

Glipizide Trial & Pancreatitis

Well.. we are trying a new technique with Merry.  He is now on 8 units of Prozinc and his glucose readings are about 300-400 still.  So the vet has us trying out Glipizide in the liquid form along with the 8 units.  This weekend he will be on it about 3 weeks and so we will do a curve on Saturday and see how his numbers are.  If they aren't any lower still then we're going to switch him to a different insulin.

Pippin is now on 2 units of Prozinc and his numbers are perfect.  Today they were 203.  But then all last week he has been doing some EPIC pukes.  It's straight bile.  This happened to him in 2010 and we went to a different vet then who took xrays to see if anything was blocking his intestines and discovered he was constipated . That vet just sent us home with an enema and had us do it ourselves at home.  Well today we went to the new vet that we love with Pippin and told them about what is going on.  This vet not only took an xray but also took blood to check the pancreas.  Pippin does have Pancreatitis which she said is common in cats that have diabetes.  He is also very constipated (like last time). The vet I take them to now actually did the enema for me this time which was nice! It turns out when a cat is diabetic you can't give them medicine that is given to cats normally for diabetes.  Sooooooo (my cats always have drama) we have to give him pain meds because pancreatitis is very painful, he gets NSAIDS to help with the inflammation of the pancreas instead of steroids that are normally given. My vet posted a picture on facebook of Pippin getting the enema!  Yea... so I'm going to post it here too!

So in a month we go back and check Pippin's pancreas numbers and see if they have gone back to normal.  Also we must make sure he doesn't puke because the vet said that this is very bad for a cat's pancreas.  Diabetic cats are drama!

Update on 5/1/2013  The Glipizide is working.  Merry's glucose is perfect.  He is on Glipizide and 8 units of insulin and everything is perfect!