BGC

Until a few days ago I had no idea that the letters BGC stood for anything particular in the medical community. You don’t hear them bantered about in everday discussion, and you never see a medical commercial on television with women walking around in flowing robes while dancing porpoises sing songs about BGC (then again, those ads for different medications never really seem to be about anything…). But that all changed two weeks ago when diabetes entered my life.

Oh, not me. I’m fine, thanks. My cat, Cecil, though…not so much. He’s diabetic.

I didn’t even know that cats could be diabetic. Again, no commercials or anything. But now I know that they are, and now I know that diabetes is a serious and confusing illness for felines.

Let’s go back a little bit.

A couple of weeks ago I took Cecil, a long-haired gray kitty, to the vet because he had been losing weight and was ravenously hungry all the time. I thought that he might have a stomach issue, or maybe even a problem with his thyroid, both of which I’ve had recent experience with thanks to another cat in the house. So, the vet ran the bloodwork and the results came back as diabetic.

This surprised the vet, as she said that he didn’t show any of the normal problems that led to diabetes in cats, namely being overweight and eating a dry-food diet. Cecil has always been reasonably trim and prefers to eat wet (also known as canned) food. Which is why they ran the test twice, and it came back with the same results both times.

So, I have a diabetic cat. “What’s next?” I asked the vet. Well, the answer was exactly what you would expect: he has to be given insulin injections. But there’s more…

It seems that cats don’t like to be diabetic. And, as cats are as independent as any animal in nature, they also hate to follow rules. So, the rules of diabetes are things that don’t sit well with cats, to the point where they will sometimes just spontaneously stop being diabetic. That’s right: they can cure themselves of diabetes.

I’m not done with Cecil, though. After his diagnosis, we had to take him in for his first blood glucose curve to determine what kind, what amounts, and what frequency he would get insulin. So far, so good.

It didn’t go well. Cecil’s body didn’t seem to like insulin. And he reacted poorly. His blood sugar went way out of whack and we had to take him to the Cobb Emergency Clinic, where he sat for almost five full days, the first four of which were on an insulin drip to get his blood under control. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the reason he had to go was due to the fact that he developed ketoacedosis, a malady that causes the body to start consuming muscle mass for sustenance. In other words, his body was eating itself to stay alive.

(I want to take a moment here to send out a huge thanks to both Bell’s Ferry Animal Hospital and the Cobb County Emergency Veterinary Clinic. Bell’s Ferry, and specifically Dr.’s Webb and Temple, took care of Cecil with amazing care to the point where they recognized that he needed care beyond what they could provide there, putting the welfare of the animal first; a wonderful thing to see. And then at the Cobb County Clinic, Cecil was given amazing care to the point that they encouraged us to come in to visit with him every day and to call at any time just to check on him. He looked a little like a science experiment with the tubes that were running in and out of him for a couple of days, but they let us back into the intensive care area where he was, and we sat outside his cage while they dealt with other sick animals. And what’s more, during that entire time, the folks at this very high-pressure Vet office kept a good attitude and a smile on their faces. Both facilities deserve all the praise they can be given.)

Once they got the ketone levels under control, and then got his blood sugar to respond properly to the insulin, they released him to come home. He looked horrible. He had lost so much weight and muscle mass that he literally looked like a cat skeleton with a furry skin pulled tight over it. He had no energy and could barely open his eyes.

I was concerned, to say the least.

But he has spirit, I think. He likes to be home, and he is eating like a champ again, and has put some of his weight back on. Last night he even jumped up and caught a moth that had flown into the room. It was a beautiful thing to see.

So, every day Cecil gets an insulin shot at 8:00 in the morning and 8:00 in the evening. It puts a bit of a strain on what she and I are able to do, seeing as how we have to be awake and at home at both of those times every day, but y’know what? We don’t mind. He’s worth it.

What does the future hold? Who knows. I expect Cecil to throw us a few more curves, but that's what we are expecting, and cats hate that, so it might be smooth sailing. Like I said: who knows? I do know that he will be back at Bell's Ferry next week for another Blood Glucose Curve to see how his body is taking to the insulin. Just looking at him, I know that it is better than the first time they checked.

And that whole BGC thing? It stands for Blood Glucose Concentration. It’s what the docs use to tell how out of whack is his blood sugar. The more you know…