The beginning of March 2002, I had noticed someone was drinking more water and peeing more, not drastically so, but it was more.

I have three cats so I really didn't know who was doing it. I was watching Precious walk from the bedroom, through the living room to the kitchen where she laid down to rest. I immediately knew something was wrong, a short walk shouldn't have required a rest.

I made the Vet appointment. When I was told it was diabetes, I thought, that's treatable, people live with it and so we have.  Precious gets two insulin injections a day.

Precious is pretty much back to her old self, only when she has a hairball does she seem to not feel well. I have started combing her and her lifelong companion TJ daily now, Precious grooms TJ and herself and I want to try to save her from eating some hair.

Home glucose testing hasn't gotten into the routine yet here, I'm still working on convincing Precious she can handle that too.

We use the ketodiastix sticks and hopefully, eventually, I can convince Precious home glucose testing won't be that big of a deal.

Update~~I have given up on trying to hometest her by ear or paw poking to get a drop of blood to check her blood glucose here at home. She gets so upset and I won't restraint her in order to do it. Instead we have been seeing the Vet almost monthly.

Precious is doing very well and is considered to be regulated. She is back to her old self, well she's 14 now so she isn't bouncing off walls like Copper does but I see she feels well, is drinking normal amounts now, is peeing normal amounts and is maintaining her weight. The Vet is pleased with her progress and I'm glad she feels better. From Day one, Precious has been such a good and cooperative girl about getting her injections, I think she knows they help her.

Postscript~ I needed a little time to pass before I could write this.
Shortly after Precious had her second anniversary I started noticing she was losing weight and eating less and getting weak. We went to the Vet and learned that she now had cardiomyopathy and her little heart was beating way too fast. We started her on aspirin therapy and the beta blocker Atenolol to no avail, her heart rate didn't slow, the weight kept coming off and she was getting weaker. Ironically, her diabetes stayed in good control.

On May 4th 2004 at 14 1/2 years old, my Precious went to Rainbow Bridge. TJ misses his life-long friend Precious and so do I.

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