Relief

It looks like my cat is not diabetic. I felt relief after the meter counted down and displayed 83. Of course I don't want my cat to be "sick," but I was also overwhelmed after reading about feline diabetes. Some people manage it a bit like I manage my own. I admit to not being able to picture finding more time in my day to do this. J.'s already qualified, too, but he subscribes to the less daily management school already. My husband is already very busy, and while he knows a lot, he doesn't have the "feel" for it. Obviously we'd do it if we had to, though. Let's just say that it was enough trying to get enough blood from him. I watched the videos and read the instructions that said how easy it was and that they do it once or twice daily. It wasn't easy, and it took almost an hour! Luckily it didn't seem to hurt him; he just didn't like the noise in his ear. I'm still puzzled as to why our kitty is drinking so much water every 15 minutes, though. It doesn't seem particularly dry in here, and we came from such a dry climate. It might be time for that vet once we find a place and can unpack our things.

I am reminded of the...precariousness of things after I tried to refill my syringes at the pharmacy last Thursday. Surely I can't be the only one who uses them! But even in Seattle, they have to be special-ordered. They're still not in and I'm in danger of running out now. I know I can reuse them, and I will if I have to, but I hate to do it. Injections are already painful for me (because of a nerve condition), so I'd rather not make it worse. Anyway, here's a diabetic moment from a couple weeks ago:

Last night we went to a restaurant that was far away from home and when we got out of the car, J. discovered that his insulin had fallen out of his bag earlier. Before we would have had to drive home and look for it. Instead he just used mine.*

At the restaurant there was this high school kid sitting by himself, just staring at us. This went on for about 30 minutes. I figured he must have seen the syringes or something. After he left, I saw a pile of empty Equal packets sitting on the table. Aha.

* this only works because I haven't reused syringes since before I opened this bottle since I can afford to buy them out of pocket now.