Posted on 06/19/2014 5:48:04 PM PDT by who knows what evil?
As readers of the garden thread already know; I grow loads of vegetables to supplement my wife's diet in order to manage her diabetic condition. My wife is under tremendous stress due to a dispute with neighbors here in Red Hampshire. This has been a contributing factor in the deterioration of her pancreas, and she is now on insulin.
The other night, my wife was awakened by one of our Siamese rescue cats sniffing and poking around her face. This is a rescue cat that is considered 'her' cat. He waits at the door for her to come home from work, lays on her lap in the evenings, and sleeps in the crook of her leg every night. He's her little boy. Since she feeds them at five in the morning weekdays before she goes to work; they will wake us at 5 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday; not understanding the concept of 'weekend'. It was very out of character for him (or any of our other cats) to waken either of us in the middle of the night.
Upon wakening; she realized she had a pounding headache, and when she stood up, she realized her body was trembling...classic symptoms of low blood sugar...hypoglycemia. She went downstairs (bad idea at the time), had a half bowl of cereal and a mini-carton of Juicy Juice to 'normalize' her blood sugar. Back to bed, where she informed me that her blood sugar was only 66. I was 90% asleep, and that didn't register.
She had told me what had happened the next morning...I thought she had just gotten up to use the restroom, although I noticed that the downstairs light had stayed on for some time. I have been busy with my garden, and what she had told me didn't click until today. The cat woke her up in the middle of the night at the onset on hypoglycemia? Wait...what?
It's all there...the readings from her monitor were downloaded at the doctors' office the other day, and there it was. A reading of '66' at 1:30 in the morning.
I used to call her cat 'Satan'. He is a small adult Red Point Siamese that beats up on the other cats, knocks over my prized tomato seedlings, and otherwise gets in my hair. Well..if you saved my wife, buddy; no more 'Satan'. (He was one of the two Siamese kittens we had rescued from the 'Green Mile' in Maryville, TN.)
I did a bit of research, and have found similar stories on the net and in other newspapers. Did Apollo detect some change in my wife's metabolism that caused him to wake her up in time to address her dangerous condition?
I have no idea...and Apollo isn't (and won't be) talking.
Can you ‘ping’ the kitty list, please?
I’ve never experienced anything like this, but I’ve worked (professionally) around animals for years, and I will say that there is something going on out there that we may never understand.
No, but you should treasure that cat.
Your opinion?
Wouldn't be a bit surprised if cats had the ability, as well. (prob just not as readily trained as dogs in a global setting, though :P)
Possible.
Keep the cat.
/johnny
The cat was just doing a CAT Scan.
Perhaps kitty detected ketones in her breath?
I dunno, did you try truth serum?
Seriously, I have read some interesting stories about cats, although I've never witnessed any.
There is a cat that lives in a nursing home, who normally is fairly aloof. But when a patient is hours away from death, he becomes very friendly to that patient. When the nursing home staff sees him become friendly, they know to call the patient's family so they can come say good-bye.
I read a story about a little girl who was dying of cancer. One day, she went with her mother out to the barn, and found a dirty bedraggled cat in the barn. The little girl begged to keep him, and the mother acquiesced. Over the next few months, as the little girl lost her strength and could only lie on the sofa all day, the cat was her constant companion. He comforted her when she was in pain and was always there for her. When she died, the cat disappeared, never to be seen again, while the family was attending her funeral.
66 is not that low....
My brother-in-law (who has Downs’) has a dog that seems to be able to alert the family to an imminent Grand Mal seizure.
I had a cat every bit as attached and affectionate as the one described. He could respond appropriately to moods, but I had no chronic illnesses for him to detect.
Her physician has advised her to contact her when her sugar drops below 70. This was in the middle of the night, and she would have spent another four hours in that condition.
LOL! If that particular cat were to kill someone; it would be me...even though I was the one that drove 300 miles round-trip to save his furry *ss from certain doom (along with his brother, who appreciates me.)
The State of Virginia has a program in which specially-trained dogs are given to Type 1 diabetics to alert them when their glucose readings get too low.
Well. THANK YOU for that....I had looked up service dogs before for people with diabetes because my nephew is a Type 1. Guess what...he lives in Charlottesville, VA, which is where this organization has its home base! Again, thank you! (he probably won’t do anything with it, but I’m sure going to send him the link) http://www.servicedogsva.org/index.php/learn/faq/
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