His blood sugar was extremely high at the time, though a lot of that can be attributed to the stress of the visit. And there was plenty. He screamed and hissed at them enough that now, days later, his meow is still squeaky. They can determine via another test what his levels were over time, and it wasn't elevated in the days leading up. There's no pancreatitis, and x-rays didn't reveal anything. They couldn't figure out what happened. But he's doing great!
One of the first questions the vet asked was if I'd be willing to do the testing and insulin injections if it turned out he was diabetic, and of course I said yes. But I'm so glad he's not. The recommendation was to put him on prescription food anyway, since he's an older cat and a likely candidate to turn diabetic in the next couple of years. I was worried Sam wouldn't like the food, but he loves it. He's never been a picky eater, though. It's a bit of a pain to feed Sam and Steve different foods, but since I don't have to administer injections, I won't complain much.
My credit card groaned as I pulled it out of my wallet. I spent lots of money during our trip to Oregon, then bought a new, expensive mattress when we got back. So in the space of a week or so, my balance doubled, and then went to triple the original amount. It was nuts. What would be terrible would be to pay for the whole thing out of pocket. We have both cats insured through PetPlan, and I'm so glad for that. We moved money from our joint savings account to pay me back immediately, then Garrett filed a claim. There's no saying until we hear back how much they'll reimburse us, but it should be a pretty hefty chunk of the total.
If people don't want to insure their pets and always pay out of pocket, that's fine. But I think you can make better decisions about pet care when financial hardship isn't as much of a factor. And in recent years, people have gotten so comfortable with crowdfunding that they don't see pet insurance as necessary, but there's some fatigue there, for sure.
Anyway, I'm glad Sam's doing so well. He's also now taking Cosequin in case age-related pain was a factor, and other than his weird meows, he seems pretty much like his old self.
