Tonic is six years old and he has always loved his food! He has enjoyed a very interesting diet for a cat which included chinese take-away and the occasional rum&coke when he owner wasn't looking!  He is a big cat, but had become quite overweight over the years.  In march Tonic became really very sick, he couldn't walk properly and his appetite was totally gone. He was drinking lots of water and his owner was really at her wit's end trying to figure out what was wrong with him.  She brought him to Tom Farrington, a homeopathic vet in Rosscarbery (sites.google.com/site/farringtonvet/).  He had attended lots of other vets but no one could figure out what was wrong with him.  Tom did a simple urine sample on Tonic and found that his urine was full of glucose (a sugar).  Tom suspected then that Tonic was a diabetic  (felinediabetes.com) and decided to send him to The Cat Hospital to get him treated. 
Tonic had full pet health insurance which helped greatly with the costs of diagnosing and treating his unstable diabetes mellitus.
Treating an unstable diabetic is not easy, but Tonic took to life in the hospital very happily.  In fact now he thinks he owns the place and when he visits he gets cranky if his favourite overnight bed has another cat in it! 
Tonic started on a relatively new type of insulin called 'glargine'.  This insulin is a human medicine and it is given twice a day to diabetic cats.  Major changes in Tonic's diet were needed too and he started eating a special high protein low carbohydrate food for diabetic cats.   Tonic had blood tests taken to confirm that he was actually a diabetic and to establish how severe the diabetes was.  Thereafter he had glucose blood samples taken every day while he was in the hospital to make sure he did not develop DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) which is life threatening and also to make sure that his insulin did not cause hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) which is also life threatening! Tonic gave us lots of work to do over the first 4 weeks, but suddenly decided he was going to stabilise.  He now gets his morning and evening injections at home from his devoted mother while his brother Gin looks on.
Tonic's legs have come back to normal again too.  He no longer drinks too much and he normally sticks to his diet.  He has even managed to jump up onto a table once for a sip of....rum&coke!