@toledo
So sorry to hear about the loss of your beloved pet.
toledo: I am sorry to hear about your dog.
@Nrdsb4 Can you ask your hairdresser what cat food that was? I may need that in the future. I know that one of my cats would NOT be accommodating to shots. She’s a pain just to give her flea drops on her neck once a month.
@mom2collegekids, I’ll ask him on Wednesday.
@toledo, my sympathies also. Your story sounds sadly familiar to me. But 15 years is a good run. I know, probably not helpful today. I still cry about my dog from time to time and it’s been over a year.
Just to finish this up: I gave my cat insulin shots for about a month. At first he seemed to get a little better–a little more energetic, less crazy about eating and drinking, better at grooming himself. But a couple of weeks ago he started going downhill and I had to decide whether to make him endure the torture (for him) of getting him into the carrier and to the vet to adjust his insulin levels or say goodbye. I decided to spend the vet money on a service to come to my apartment and put him down here. By that time, the neuropathy which made his back paws weak had spread to his front paws and he could hardly walk. I staged a kitty hospice and kept the litter box near his food so he wouldn’t have to walk much but he didn’t always make it and the peeing-like-a-racehorse syndrome that comes with cat diabetes just got worse and worse. I fed him endless cans of food and discovered that he loved to drink chicken broth.
On Wednesday the vet came and did the deed, gently and compassionately. I feel better knowing that I tried to manage his illness, and I thank the respondents to this thread for their wisdom. Today I gave his accoutrements to a shelter. Bye-bye Kitcat, RIP.
So sorry for the loss of Kitcat. Hard decision well-handled.
Hugs, oldmom.
Hugs to you @oldmom4896 - it’s a difficult decision to make but the sensitivity you showed in caring for him during his last days really came thru in your post. I know it was tough to let him go.
RIP Kitcat.
You made the right decision. Good for you and the cat.
My condolences. 
I chose not to treat an elderly cat with arthritis for her diabetes, about ten years ago, and chose euthanasia instead. My son, faced with the same decision four or five years ago for his not-so-elderly cat, chose treatment (it helps that his GF is studying to be a vet tech). Injections twice a day, careful management of the diet, etc., resulted in the disease being so well stabilized that he came off insulin approximately a year later. (The cat is now 18 and on 6 different drugs, but still doing very well.) During that time, I reluctantly became the backup caretaker for the cat and learned to give the injections. To my surprise, the cat never objected at all: I learned to do what I thought of as “drive-by” injections.
The insulin injections were easy-peasy. Kitcat never objected at all. I shudder to think, though, how it would have been to give him pills.
So sorry, oldmom4896. You tried, and then made the best of the situation with your “kitty hospice” (which sounds like a great idea, btw).
Pills can be easy. One of our cats - Pug - takes a pill daily. We slip it into one of Greenies Pill Pockets and she gobbles it up.
Pug has recently been diagnosed with insulinoma - basically she copes with an excess of insulin right now from a suspected tumor on her pancreas. The vet decided to treat the symptoms rather than the cause. Surgery comes with too high a risk, plus Pug already had a thyroid gland removed a year ago. The vet has her on steroids - a half pill a day. The prognosis is not good and we too have looked into at-home euthanasia for later. I can only hope to handle it with the love and compassion shown Kitcat.
So very sorry for your loss, oldmom4896. I lost my fairly healthy (seeming) 18 year old 3 cat weeks ago to a very sudden acute illness and I still imagine I see him around every corner. I just scheduled a surgery for his 18 year old littermate sister to buy her (and us) more time together. It’s expensive but without it, the tumor will grow rapidly and her end will be awful and at this point, I just can’t put her to sleep when she’s so obviously still herself and not in pain yet. These decisions are always so hard.
Just typing this has me in tears.