Angelbait is home and convalescing better than expected. Kamikaze is hissy and I feel drunk. Think mental health reform is contentious? I think the similarities with feline diabetes are about to blow my mind.
The learning curve is steep, a week ago I did not know feline diabetes existed and today I’ve got a handle on the basics of diet, syringes, lancets, meters, ketones, spreadsheets, blood glucose home-testing, and my favorite, how to introduce hyperglycemia during insulin shock, which led to complete meltdown and eccentric 3 AM googling (guess which one is mine, ha ha ha).
Yes, long-term hyperglycemia is bad, but you have to introduce it temporarily during hypoglycemia to save the cat’s life. Oh, ok. Now then, spend 3 days tracking down the ingredients in a can of cat food, because the manufacturers hoard the data. Wonder why? It’s a conspiracy! No, it really is, those fuckers.
The Feline Diabetes Message Board is a wealth of information, award-winning, altruistic, been around since 1996 and more than a little cutting edge, which leads to all the proselytizing and threats you expect from activists who managed to save a life by going against the standard treatment protocol. The most vocal members are understandably pissed about the wrecking mainstream and long passed waiting for the science to catch up with their approach. But I entered in the middle of the plot with all the desperation of the newbie and whimpering hope that the vet will tell me what to do, forgetting for the time that this is health care, after all, capitalism’s crowning clusterfuck.
I had to step back and start over with the “meta” issues in the ever-shifting field and ground. How to assess credibility, sanity, common sense when challenging philanthropists, figure out how to do it without being abandoned, sort out who to trust when I trust no one, because when opinions differ measuring horse-sense is something that needs doing before you even begin dealing with the treatment protocol, and not enough people seem to realize that. No cookies til you prove it. Make me explain why? O god please kill me.
Sitting at my computer these days not even sure if I’m reading about establishment psychiatry or veterinary medicine. A comment I made on the FDMB might ring a few bells for some:
You realize what you all are advising here is very, very hard to take. Let me know you have the self-awareness to get how disturbing is your insistence that I be
non-compliant
with my
vet’s
instructions.
I need to know that you are self-aware, to test your basic RATIONALITY, sorry, but that’s life on the internets.
Testy, no love lost there. Next day:
“Some of us have a theory”, thanks that explains a lot. I’m a health science nerd and total policy wonk, and when things settle down will want to know more about the research base, whether it’s commercially funded or grassroots experimental, and how the model is received by the medical/science community, if it has been denoted as an evidence-based emerging or promising practice. I just don’t have the sense to get into this right now but am sure it will lead to interesting discussions.
Better?
My anxiety has to do with the human element, it’s not that people hide the truth, it just feels that way most of the time and this particular urgency precludes waiting for the truth to emerge the way it does, in stages, as people get to know each other and the conversations deepen. When one mistake can kill my cat I am kind of insane about the discrepancies. They stand out, that’s just me. There is the enormous good work being done, and there are gray areas, that’s just life.
Happily, most of what they advise is adding up for Angelbait. My vet is fantastic and I have been able to ask intelligent questions when his protocol disagrees with the FDMB and so far he approves of the modifications. And there is cross-pollination with the scientific/research community, who also watch and critique the site so I am beginning to relax and act less like a dick.
Any regular readers asking what in tarnation is going on with this blog, looks like it’ll be occupied with cat matters too now, but I’m as exercised as ever about the great downward spiral in community mental health. I just opened last week’s google alerts, almost every one of them calling for outright forced drugging and supervision of people with severe and persistent mental labels. This is how it happens, they’re opening up the Overton Window, it’s frightening, not at all therapeutic, and it’s happening under our noses. Visit a zillion mental health blogs asking every one, where is the pushback, why is NAMI on your blogroll, is NAMI your advocate? Does NAMI speak for you? Yes? No? Am I suggesting NAMI is controversial, not what it seems to be? Do I ask too many questions? Here, have one. Just one, will be my gift to you.
Writhe Safely 