And then there were still four

So Zoe tried to die again today. We got home from yoga to find her in the middle of a terrifying episode. Her eyes were all pupil and she was twitching and emitting piteous meows, nothing like her usual voice. She had lost control of her bladder and bowels. As Dave rushed her in the door to the vet, she started seizing.

We cried while we waited because we were pretty sure she wouldn't be coming home with us. I added "shovel" to the list for the trip to Target we'd planned later in the day. The vet came in and it turned out to be a hypoglycemic episode - her blood sugar was way too low. So she's had some sugar and a bunch of food and she seems okay now. We are still keeping an eye on her; at least we know the route to the excellent emergency vet facility if we need it. (That facility is where Inty had her endoscopy.) I took "shovel" off the Target list and added "blood glucose monitor" to the pharmacy list.

In retrospect, Zoe was actually showing several signs of being hypoglycemic - inappropriate toileting being the main one. She probably had a seizure yesterday, too, while we were at work, because when we came home we found that her belly was mysteriously soaked in urine.

When we picked Zoe up, the vet mentioned that she probably does have a tumor on her abdomen. One of our options is aggressive chemotherapy. (The other was steroids, but that's problematic for all kinds of reasons for diabetic cats, making the already difficult-to-stabilize blood sugar even harder to track.) Dave said, "I think our option is more like an aggressive syringe of sodium penethal. Oh, wait. Isn't that truth serum?" So then we started talking about what Zoe would say if she was under the influence of sodium penethal:

"I was the one who crapped all over the house."

"I'm pro-life."

"I endorse Sarah Palin."

"I'm secretly gay."

"I'm a Republican."

Heh. Because in Massachusetts, being a conservative republican is pretty shocking.