Due to the disease, Huisman has to be constantly alert to her blood sugar levels and that works well during the day, but things sometimes go wrong at night. In the worst case, she could fall into a coma.
To prevent this, tomcat Boris grabs his owner’s right arm, her feet and sometimes a leg with both paws at least two to three times a week. He doesn’t let go until she gets up and makes something to eat. “Then he takes me to the kitchen, waits until I prepare and eat the food,” Huisman tells Editie NL. “Then he lies back down.”
Huisman loves the cat. “He brings life to the brewery and you can teach him things,” she continues. “Especially during the diabetes process, it is nice that he senses that something is wrong. If things are not right, he does not leave my side. Once he even woke up my father when things were going badly. And if I If he doesn’t respond once, he turns to my father and nods under the guise of: you say something.”
Huisman has suffered from diabetes for almost twenty years, but only since 2017 has cat Boris been part of the family consisting of Huisman and her father. Her mother died 16 years ago. “But we have a lot of support from each other and from the cat,” she says.
She got the four-legged friend from a home care worker who happened to have kittens to give away. This happened shortly after it turned out that the medication was no longer working and she had to start injecting insulin. Home care came by four times a day.
Sniffing the scent of insulin
Boris was only four months old when they taught him what insulin smelled like. “We involved the cat by sniffing everything, so he has been familiar with it from an early age,” Huisman continues. The smell of insulin is released when her sugar levels are low. “A cat can smell that insulin, especially if you sweat a lot.”
“During a hypo, I am sweaty and he notices, for example, from how I walk that I am not stable. I become very shaky, floaty and dizzy. If you don’t get there in time, you can fall into a coma. I feel like It happens, but the cat smells it too.”
Working on it every day
The past year has once again shown how important Boris is for the family. Due to a new injection, Huisman suffers from hypos much more often than before. “It’s code red more often.” The diabetes affects her daily life. “You work on it twenty-four hours, day in day out, seven days a week. The whole family revolves around it.”
Besides his nurturing nature, Boris is a very ordinary cat. “He likes to go for a walk, sit by the front door and play with butterflies and frogs, that drives him absolutely wild.” In order not to lose the hangover, Boris is kept on a leash while walking. “Then he can easily respond to me,” Huisman continues. “If I’m walking around in the evening and he notices that I’m in a hypo, I have to sit down for a moment. As soon as he notices something, he comes and sits on me.”
Huisman is grateful every day that the hangover is there. “He is a very satisfied and happy kitten and I am so proud that he feels so good about me. He cannot have it, but he actually deserves a royal ribbon.”
2023-10-04 16:31:43
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