I hadn’t been up for more than 10 minutes or so when I noticed Duke, our 13-year old tabby point Siamese, was acting strangely. I thought he was sniffing the floor near his litter box, but then I smelled urine. He was peeing on the floor, when he sort of crawled around the box and into a hidden corner. Now I was worried, and I pulled him out of his hiding place.

When I put him down, he sort of shuffled along unsteadily, head still down. Now I was even more worried. I thought maybe he was having a stroke. One of our former cats, Leo, had a stroke before he died. An even earlier cat, Emma, also had some kind of stroke that caused her to walk in circles. Duke wasn’t there, at least I didn’t think so, but he was clearly disoriented.

As soon as Meda came down the hall from the bedroom, I got out my glucose test meter, pricked Duke’s ear to produce a drop of blood, and tested the level of glucose in his blood. It was very low. Hypoglycemia, a crash in his sugar level. It is potentially life threatening. It’s never happened before, at least to my knowledge, but read about it back when he was first diagnosed with feline diabetes.

To counteract this low glucose level, I dug around in the closet and came up with a tube of Nutrical. This is a high calorie concoction in a sugary base, and I figured it was a reasonable substitute for honey or other sources of sugar. Luckily, Duke liked it and quickly licked of an inch or so that I had squirted out onto my finger. I repeated this a few times. Then I set a timer so that I could do a second glucose test in another 20 minutes. Meanwhile, Duke seemed to have perked up slightly. He was purring, and now seemed interested in food. So breakfast was served, and I felt like the worst was over.

VCA in Kaneohe opens at 7 a.m., and I could just make it when they opened the doors. The second glucose test showed he was still very low, so I gave him another finger of Nutrical, then it was into a carrier and we were out the door.

Fast forward to VCA. Dr. Ochiai was the one on duty first thing in the morning. We like her a lot, although she isn’t our “regular” vet. And after examining Duke and running the first round of tests, she could report that his glucose was still testing low. They’ll put him on a dextrose drip to raise those glucose levels to normal. A urine test showed that he didn’t have dangerous levels of ketones, which was a very good thing, but he did show signs of a bladder infection. So that went onto the treatment list.

So Duke’s going to be in the hospital overnight, hopefully ready to come home on Sunday morning.

It’s lucky we were home and recognized what was going on.

Welcome to the weekend.