Angelwings, Big Head Todd

March 26, 2013--With great sadness, Big Head's foster family had to help him to pass to the vastness today. His body simply could not continue to fight the assaults form his heart, kidneys, and pancreas. He leaves behind a deeply grieving Mom and Dad, and many many friends who will miss this funny, highly spirited kitty. Thankfully, he lived his last three months with love. What a blessing he takes to the bridge. ~Venita

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March 13, 2013--Big Head Todd has stolen more hearts than mine. I have had requests for updates on him.

The medications seem to be getting his heart condition under control. It's been two weeks since he's been to an emergency vet. Now it's time to focus on his hyperglycemia. To minimize his stress, his foster Mom has mostly been testing his urine glucose, which has always been at the highest reading on the stick. Thankfully, no ketones. On occasion she will take a blood glucose reading, and if it's not "HI" it's usually in the upper 500s. Those high levels continue despite that he is now up to 4U of Lantus BID.

Starting yesterday, we decided to get serious about the glucose levels and introduce "Regular" insulin into the mix. But not yet having any Regular insulin, his foster Mom gave him a third shot of Lantus yesterday, and she was rewarded with a 329 preshot this morning. To be careful, she dropped his Lantus to 3.5U and added .25U of R. At +2 he was 129, +4 178, and +6 321. At +6, she gave him another .25U of R. These numbers are cause for celebration. Since his diagnosis with diabetes, the 100s have only been a dream. The reality has been a nightmare.

Foster Mom will continue to give Bigs "beads" of R as needed and try to get his system accustomed to lower numbers and accepting the Lantus insulin. Foster Mom and I are working together on this project, and we both have great hopes for Bigs. For a backyard stray, he is now just the dearest house cat and he  sat with me on the couch this afternoon, purring and loving his Kentucky Fried Chicken. (I got some too, for tonight's dinner, thanks to foster Mom.)

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February 24, 2013--Last week, folks from the FDMB introduced me to Big Head Todd, a diabetic kitty in my neighborhood with a foster Mom who needed some hands-on help with hometesting. I contacted her and headed over with hometesting supplies and other goodies.

Big Head Todd is a neighborhood Tom (maybe 3 YO) that decided to come inside the day after Christmas 2012. His foster family got him cleaned up and altered (goodbye boy bits), but as they continued to care for him, they found that he is not in good physical shape. He is FIV+, diabetic, and last week he almost died from congestive heart failure. A few thousand veterinary dollars later, Big Head is recuperating comfortably at his foster home.

I wrote about the heart failure event on our Facebook page. It was very scary to be driving a cat to the vet and to partway there have it panting at 200 respirations/minute. There is no breath to be had with that kind of hyperventilation. Thankfully the techs at my vet's office kicked our butts out the door toward the closest emergency veterinary facility. With good emergency care, a cardiac consultation, and proper medication and oxygen therapy, Big Head lived through the event.

Besides the goodie bag I took for Big Head, DCIN also paid $300 of the emergency vet bill. I hope that we are able to raise some of that money through the YouCaring pitch-in I have set up.

This fundraiser is being done through YouCaring because Chip-in has closed up shop. Unless you choose to opt out, YouCaring charges you a "voluntary fee" to make a donation. As you make a donation, please read the screens carefully so that you can making a knowing choice about paying the voluntary fee to YouCaring.com.

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Big Head may in the future be available for adoption. We will let you know if that decision is made. For the time being, he and his foster family are happy that he survived this heart crisis and that he is very comfortable at the home where he chose to knock on the door. ~Venita