The Jazz Cat Cole Story - by Mary
“In 1983 our next door neighbour was given a kitten, which he named Jazz. Before he was very old Jazz found a way of getting over a ten-foot high wall and into the garden of a small private school which we were running. The children were delighted, and the job was to keep him out of the buildings, particularly the dining room, at lunch time!
Over the next few years he divided his time between his home, the school, neighbours and the nursing home next door (he even had his own mat in the nursing home lounge!)
In October 1987 the south of England was devastated by the worst storm in 700 years. That was when we found Jazz shivering on the window sill and took him in until his owner managed to get home. It was then that we found out about the trouble getting him to go up the staircase to his flat. We now think that another neighbour had kicked him downstairs. Jazz actively refused to go home.
Another neighbour “adopted” him, but made no provision for him when she went away on a prolonged holiday. Five weeks later, we found him starving, and from then on, he adopted us and our home.
During that time he became a fixture in the school, attending lessons, and like most boys, dozing on a desk in the back row!
Ten years later, we retired and moved to a flat a few streets away and he seemed to settle. We noticed that he was losing weight, but thought that it was because he could no longer get treats from the neighbours. Then came the everlasting drinking at the bathroom tap. We took him to the vet, and a urine sample showed glucose in the urine.
Blood tests followed and a few weeks later we started to inject him with Insuvet Beef PZI. He started on 2 units daily, and at weekly intervals we increased by half a unit, until on 4 units daily his urine showed no sugar.
We kept him on this regime for a month until he had regained his lost weight. Then we decreased the dose by half a unit daily, and decreased each week until we found him regulated on 2 units daily. He has lived a normal cat life, with occasional scares, when he did not eat enough and went hypo. This was treated with glucose.
For three and a half years he was well regulated, but this year he became a fussy eater, and it was difficult to ensure that he had enough food to balance his insulin.
We started to home blood test with a blood glucose monitor and found that with his food intake he needs only 1 unit a day.
He now leads a sedentary senior citizen style life as becomes a nineteen year old who has been treated for diabetes for four years.”