Re: Pilgrim's second ELISA

[ferozar01]

Congrats on your probably negative, Talk about a complicated virus, I hope the 
next test is negative without a doubt.  We had six abandoned kittens at my 
hospital and 3 were negative, 3 positive- figure that one out.. it gets worse 
the first day only one was positive, 3 days later a 2nd on (who originally 
neg), then 1 week later a 3rd (again neg x 2) we seperated them all regardless 
of status, waited a week and it stopped there... that's how I got into this 
they are my 3 babies all though they not such babes anymore:) They were all 
tested in house, but when we get a positive no matter how faint we send it out 
for ELISA and use that as our confirmation, we test again 6 months later to be 
sure, but until then we assume they're positive.  This time we used ELISA to 
confirm our negs too.  It turned out our in house tests were correct, at least 
in the end.
Good luck with the new fur kid, and congrats on adopting, that is amazing of 
you.
Kristi

A sincere thank you to everyone for your wealth of knowledge on Pilgrim's care.   We look at this little ball of energy and shudder to think of what "could have been" had we not chosen to research FeLV.    However, nothing is ever easy!  We're finding this to be a complicated virus.  After a positive ELISA and a negative IFA, Pilgrim's second ELISA was ... probably negative.  The vet took me back to look at it in the bright lights and there was the ever-so-slightest tinge of blue on the meter indicating a possible positive result.  Our vet is calling it negative, but said he couldn't be 100% sure.  My big mistake - I didn't think to ask for a re-test!!   At any rate, we're stepping out in faith, calling it negative, and choosing to introduce Pilgrim to our other cats this afternoon.  I have a 4 day weekend with no other plans other than to catch up on housecleaning, so I'll be around to monitor the process.   We will get a second IFA next month when we have her spayed.  In the meantime, we're happy to have her aboard!   To touch on a couple other things:  we also use a glucometer on our diabetic, Bamm-Bamm.  We've done curves and were able to regulate his insulin accordingly without trips to the vet.   On whether we had the capacity to set up permanent quarters for FeLV cats:  not really.  It's been very inconvenient and cumbersome to close off the dining room and sunroom for Pilgrim.  We had to block a pass-through from the kitchen which blocks our view of the entire backyard.  To add to the mix in our small home, we're adopting two beautiful children from Guatemala in the next couple months!  Life just can't get more exciting than this!!   Rhonda