Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Nahum's Tufts adventure

Nahum had a big adventure today! Road trip to Tufts Small Animal Hospital! An exciting 2.5 hour drive each way. He had some sedatives for the way down, so he was pretty stoned. On the return trip, he talked the whole way!


Tufts veterinary hospital is massive!! The small animal hospital was the largest veterinary place I've ever seen. They also have a number of adjacent buildings dedicated to large animal and farm animal veterinary services, as well as a behavioral clinic, spay/neuter clinic, and wildlife clinic on the same campus. One stop shopping for animal wellness!


A special cats only waiting room section was very nice! The regular waiting room was filled with dogs of every size you can imagine and even some birds. Nahum didn't care much for the dog sounds, the birds were a different story! Too bad they didn't have a bird only waiting section next to the cat only section! 


Nahum did great, as always! The internal medicine vets enjoyed him and were generous with compliments of how beautiful and well behaved he is. 


I was very impressed with the vets, Kenny, a 4th year veterinary student, and Dr. Burns, a resident internist. Both had thoroughly read Nahum's medical history in advance, which was awesome. Dr. Burns did a great job explaining what she thought was going on and her rationale for ruling out other possible conditions. We met with them for well over an hour and never felt rushed.

Windows at cat height!
The news was good. She ruled out Cushing's Disease and Acromegaly. Also said it would be improbable for him to have a brain tumor causing this. Both of his adrenal glands showed up on the ultrasound as enlarged, however she noted, a cat of his size, it's hard to know if they are just larger than normal because he's a larger than normal cat. She said there could also be a connection with the hyperthyroidism he's experienced. In the end she thinks it's just run of the mill diabetes and she believes there is very good chance we can get it in remission with weight loss and proper treatment.

She was not concerned by the all over the place blood glucose numbers. Our plan is to switch his diet to a weight loss food, so he can trim down. She also recommended we try the FreeStyle Libre - which is a temporary sensor that gets attached to him and allows for continuous glucose monitoring for 14-days, without drawing blood (no more ear pricks!) The sensor is the size of two US quarters stacked on top of each other and it wirelessly transmits the information to a reader or smart phone app. The idea is to collect a lot more data about his blood sugar levels, that way we will know exactly how he responds to food and to insulin. With that data, she can more accurately fine tune his treatment.  She seems pretty confident that we can get the diabetes in remission!

The GI tract concerns that showed up on the ultrasound have not really been showing symptoms, so we are gonna wait and see on that. Treat the diabetes and keep watching for GI upset.

let's go home now!
We are feeling a lot of relief and more hopeful after this visit. Time and money well spent.
Go Nahums!!!

9 comments:

  1. Oh, you are so lucky to have good vets there and hospitals!

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  2. OH I am thrilled he got to go there. I get their newsletter for cats these past several years. Every issue is money well spent. I would love to be able to go there as well for Katie. We have the University of Tennessee Veterinary Hospital very near by but Tufts...that's one of the cardiacs of animal medicine. Go Nahum!!!

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  3. Tufts has a terrific reputation, so Nahum is in the bestest of hands...besides your own, of course! And that FreeStyle Libre...how cool is THAT?!? Makes so much SENSE.

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  4. that is great - and we had no idea you could attach one of those to a cat. what a great idea

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  5. We are so happy to hear it was a god visit at a terrific Vet place, way to go Nahum!

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  6. You definitely brought him to the right place to get the help he needs.

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  7. Hooray! Glad you got good news about Mr. Fluffer-Nutter. ❤️

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  8. That is wonderful news about Nahum! Diabetes is a controllable medical condition (easier with Nahum than with some of Dads old patients we are sure) and we are hoping that gets better soon. We will keep Purrs and Prayers coming

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  9. oooh! I was wondering if the sensor thing would work for cats, that totally rocks!!

    Which weight loss food did she recommend?

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