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Jenn,
I agree with you that FeLV isn't easy to catch and isn't cause for
immediate panic, but it can be caught among healthy normal adults. I don't
vaccinate for FeLV because my vet said that the vaccine doesn't boost immunity
enough to be worth the risks - once exposed, it only boosts immunity by about 1%
- and most of my guys were exposed initially for 6 weeks in 2000, VAS has
been linked to FeLV vaccine more than to any other, and the cost is prohibitive
for large numbers of cats to be vaccinated. Even before the exposure
event, the vet had not encouraged me to vaccinate for FeLV because he said the
only people pushing the FeLV vaccine anymore were the schools who developed it
and vets out to make a quick buck. He felt the risk of VAS from the
vaccine was greater than the risk of FeLV because roughly 80% of the population
is naturally immune. Theoretically, had I tested all new arrivals before
letting them in, we could prevent exposure pretty effectively and more cost
efficiently than with vaccinating. I still think the VAS risk outweighs
the convenience of letting my guys all live together in one group - but that's
just my decision based on my own fears and paranoia's - and guilt from other
events. With everything we've been through here, I don't think I could
take finding out even one of my negatives had cancer because of a vaccine to let
my groups live together when keeping them separate and unvaccinated (for FeLV
only - they get the other vaccines according to the new protocols) has worked
well so far.
Here's how I ended up with FeLV here.
On 12/29/99, I brought home a kitten to be socialized that looked to be 6
weeks old and was too small for my vet to test (he didn't have needles small
enough for the blood draw). Since the kitten looked completely healthy
after the first 3 days, I let him have run of the house with my other 26 cats at
the time - ranging in age from less than a year to 9 years. My other
cats were all FEV/FeLV negative and were in near show condition (even when I had
to take one to the ER vet now and then, and the vet found out how many cats I
had, they commented on how good they looked overall). We'd been dealing
with ringworm all fall, but the last of the 11 who'd come down with it had been
recovered and free of bald spots for almost a month. 6 weeks later, the
kitten, Akechta, came down with a sniffle and I wasn't overly worried - sniffles
are common with kittens, so I started him on amoxy and made a note of the day I
started to see symptoms (record keeping to the point of being anal has saved our
butts and helped me to catch bugs and disorders in the early stages before it
became life threatening more times than I can count). After 3 days,
Akechta wasn't improving and he'd started getting bald spots on his white areas
(he was a black and white tux short hair), so I took him to the vet and we put
him on baytril. 4 days later, he was much worse, then we did a blood test
and found out he was very strong + for FeLV - it only took about 3 minutes for
the test to show strong + instead of the normal 10-15
minutes. Because he wasn't responding to meds and the bald spots
turned out to be ringworm and were taking over his body, we put him to
sleep.
A month later, I started testing, and then, after a year of testing
and keeping multiple groups, I had 6 strong positives (ages were age at the
time of the strong positive test) - Slick Willie (the first to go strong
positive) 8 months old, Redbud - 3 years, Monty - 1 year, Tina - (my first
bottle baby - I got her when she was 2 days old) 7 years, Pasula Sapa (Willie's
1/2 Aunt) - 2 years old, and Samson - (Slick Willie's dad and the last to
go strong positive a year after exposure) - 3 years. None of my +'s
had been sick with ringworm.
I have pictures of a number of my other guys who were snuggling with and
bathing Akechta, and stayed entirely negative. I also had 4 who were
positive for exposure on the first test and went negative on the second test 3
months later, and stayed negative on the 3rd test 3 months after that.
Because I had the 6 who went positive, my positives live in my bedroom and
my negatives have the rest of the house (had I ended up with more positives
than negatives, they would've been reversed, and if I'd had closer to 50% +
and -, I would've cut doors in a couple walls and put glass doors on a
couple bedrooms (so they could see the rest of the house and to keep
the house from feeling much smaller) or left the walls as they were and put a
custom fit glass door in the hallway (to divide my house more or less in half) -
preferably with a top section that had a screen and a glass panel that
could be lowered to prevent nose to nose contact, reduce sneeze throughs and
still let me have some air movement when everyone was otherwise healthy.
What's become of my FeLV+ group since then.
Samson died from lung cancer caused by FeLV 4 months after he went strong
positive (died on 7/5/01), Willie died from lung cancer caused by FeLV a
few months after his dad (10/19/01), Tina died from severe anemia
(3/11/03), Monty died from severe anemia (7/25/03), and Pasu died suddenly from
an unidentified GI tract problem (she looked fine in the afternoon, threw up at
4:00, had explosive rice water diarrhea at 6:00, was at the ER vet by 6:20, and
was obviously not going to survive the night by 8:00 - we have no idea what hit
her, but it reminded me of what I'd read about cholera during the move west on
the Oregon Trail during the gold rush) - (10/22/03). Redbud looks so
healthy you'd have no idea he was sick if you didn't know the test
results.
After Tina died, I took in a very sweet FeLV+ stray that I named Legolas
and who turned out to have enlarged kidneys and severe anemia that he'd adapted
to. Because we didn't think Legolas was going to live very long, and
Redbud was grieving for his lost buddies - especially for Pasu - they were heart
and soul devoted to each other, I tracked down a couple new friends for him
online - and ended up with Althea from Cleveland and Byron from
Nikki's F.E.L.V. rescue. They saved Redbud. He's got a
personality like Mufasa from the Lion King and was the family greeter for
years. When Althea came here, it took almost 10 minutes for her to leave
the carrier because Redbud had his head and shoulders in the carrier doing his
typical ears and tail up, eyes wide, "Hi! I'm Redbud! Who are you? Will you be
my friend? Pleasepleasepleaseplease?????" greeting (slow intros are torture for
Redbud - when he meets someone new, he wants to be their buddy
yesterday). When Byron came, Redbud was giving headbutts as soon as the
door to the carrier was opened. Since then, I've taken in Chase from a
town south of here (west central Ohio), Gandalf - who was abandoned at my vet
when he was diagnosed with both FeLV and mouth cancer last fall, and Baran from
New Jersey last January. Redbud's happy - he has buddies to play
with, some he sleeps with, and everyone tends to gravitate to him for
leadership. Everyone snuggles with Redbud when they wouldn't necessarily
snuggle with each other. The others get along, they just aren't all lovey
with each other like they are with Redbud.
Legolas passed away last December 28th from a combination of anemia,
mouth cancer, lung problems, and kidney problems - basically, he got sick and
tired of being sick and tired. For a long time, to get Legolas to eat, I
had to give him KFC - minus skin and bones - and if we were sharing a meal, he'd
eat an entire chicken breast and a little of everything I had - mashed
potatoes, mac & cheese, biscuit, whatever I was eating, he would share - if
I got a chicken dinner for him and I had a sandwich, he didn't want much of his
dinner. It was such a bonding experience that I still can't bring myself
to eat KFC at all, and fried chicken in general is hard to get down - not
because I don't like it, because it doesn't seem right to not share it with
Leggy. I used to bring the dinner into our room, and Legolas would
come up and see what I had. When he saw I had chicken and was tearing some
up for him, he'd come up on my lap, put his front paws around my neck and
rub his cheek against mine a couple times, then he'd get down and sit on the bed
next to me - next to the dinner lid we used for his plate and wait for me
to get his dinner ready. He was so happy to be inside and loved.
When his RBC was 13% - the same as Monty and Tina's when they were too weak to
stand - Leggy was running in from the window over the bed and cleared a
jump from the floor to my shoulder when I was sitting on the toilet.
When he couldn't groom himself anymore and wanted to get clean, he'd jump
to the top of the shower door from the toilet tank and then climb down into
my arms while I was taking my shower - and he'd let me bathe him in the
shower. He lasted about 1 1/2 years longer than anyone guessed he
would based on the blood work from a month or so after I got him. He
always looked at me like he'd been looking for me his whole life and now that he
found me, he wasn't going anywhere soon. He was a very special guy.
I can't believe how much I still miss him - and all the others
here who've passed. I'm making the best of a bad situation, but I'll
never completely get over the guilt that Sammy, Willie, Monty, Tina and
Pasu died long before their time because of me. Had I not brought
home Akechta, or at least had not allowed him free run until he was tested, I
wouldn't have a positive group now - and the only reason why I have a group
now is because Redbud needs buddies. As long as Redbud's
alive, I'll have a group. Once he's gone, the other +'s here at
the time will have a home for life, but I won't bring in more as they
pass. I love the new +'s and I'm glad they're here, but I'd give anything
to have never have needed to meet them - and have my original +'s back healthy
and whole again.
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