Re: New Member - Deb and mixing
That's awesome news! It probably was brought in with Jadon or Bruschi, or maybe both had it. Did they come from the same place by chance? Phaewryn http://ucat.us/domesticcatlinks.html Special Needs Cat Resources http://www.iGive.com/html/refer.cfm?causeid=21303 Sign up for iGive and a percentage of your purchases helps save animals!
Re: New Member - Deb and mixing
Well I have good news for once.My female Takara who just had her 5 kittens is NEGATIVE.WHAT A RELIEF I just wanted to thank Phaewryn,Mary Christine, Nina , Kelley and everyone else who has been guiding me through this nightmare. I'm looking at things in a whole different way because of your advice , comments, opinions and experiences and I think I'm out of panic mode finally! From now on I will vaccinate all my cats to help prevent this from happening again , even though I'm now convinced the 2 newer cats came here with it and I'm still hoping my oldest Bengal tests negative when I retest him. He had tested negative before and could just be going through fighting it now so I have 3 more weeks to wait and will retest him and see where he is at. I have a wonderful home for Bruschi and that leaves me with my Calico girl who is still battling her URI and needs to gain some weight but Phaewryn is giving me some good advice and hopefully I get her back on track real soon:) THANK YOU ALL...you're a wonderful group here and have helped me through this tremendously! Deb - Original Message - From: MaryChristine To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 9:38 PM Subject: Re: New Member - Deb and mixing halleluia, sister! (yeah, i'll go to bed now.) On 5/9/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Every what if I have experienced in the past brought me to a new awareness in the present, even though the lessons were hard, I learned from them. What if I had just taken that extra few minutes to check on Kiki that night, rather than going to bed because I was too tired to feed him? Would I have been able to take him to the vet in time to save him? That was a hard lesson, when I found him dead the next morning with injuries. BUT, now, when I think something might be wrong, I take action on it IMMEDIATELY, I never wait to take care of things I could put off until tomorrow, because I learned that sometimes tomorrow doesn't come. What if I had just not let him go outside? Would he have not been hit by that car? Of course not. BUT, now I keep my cats indoors only, unless they are on a leash. I learned from that what if as well. What if I had only KNOWN that a broken back wasn't a death sentence? Would I still have my sweet Do-Dah here today, happy in a cat cart? I miss him, but now I know that it's not a death sentence, and I've used the lesson I learned from his life to help countless injured pets since by telling THEIR owners don't listen to your vet, there ARE options! I have Bones to show for it too, I think it was a test, that I was to be sent not one, but TWO cats with broken backs. The first one, I got it wrong, but the second one... well, she couldn't be any happier than she is today! I swear to you all, I am SURE that I have been sent these second chances just to redeem myself and forgive my past mistakes! I could list a long list of all the what if's I've experienced in my years with cats, all my regrets, and all of my losses, but the fact remains the same, no matter HOW HARD that lesson came, and no matter how many times I relive it, and no matter how many tears I shed, I know that I LEARNED, and THAT means that none of their lives were in vain. Phaewryn http://ucat.us/domesticcatlinks.html Special Needs Cat Resources http://www.iGive.com/html/refer.cfm?causeid=21303 Sign up for iGive and a percentage of your purchases helps save animals! -- Spay Neuter Your Neighbors! Maybe That'll Make The Difference MaryChristine AIM / YAHOO: TenHouseCats MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ: 289856892
Re: New Member - Deb and mixing
Hi Nina, I Love to hear more and more experiences from all of you that mix negatives and positives...it's building my confidence more each day. What I need to know is do you still keep them together if one still has a persistent cough that just won't clear even after treatment or if one sneezes here or there? My situation as it is now is that I have 3 positives , the two boys that I might have homes for , and my calico girl that I thought I had a home for but after seeing her with symptoms of her cough which I had thought went away, I feel I can't let her move and be more stressed out until I can get her completely healthy and a little more weight on her. My boys seems healthy but may sneeze here and there or have a little coughnothing persistent or on a daily basis so I was just wondering if it's still OK to mix them with my negative boys? My Calico girl is back on antibiotics and while she was with us that night for about 5 hours ,before she had that bad coughing spell she was fine for the 5 hours. So can she still be with my negative boys while I treat her. You said I should've seen her face when I had to confine her..well I barely could see her face because I was crying my eyes out myself:( She was not put by herself thank god , otherwise I would've grabbed a sleeping bag and slept with her! She was put back with her two feline brothers who are also positive so I hope she wasn't too distraughtI sure know I was though!! I know my kits have all been exposed and I have now vaccinated the negative ones. I just don't know the do's and don'ts of mixing them all together again. I think I'm so scared because I had thought I had 6 healthy cats, 3 had been tested for FELV and showed negative and lived healthy and happily for over 2 years. I then brought in 3 more over the past year of which one tested negative and I never tested the last two thinking they came from parents that were tested. Then all of the sudden one gets sick and I have 3 FELV+ cats, one is my oldest Bengal boy who tested negative previously and then the two that were never tested. None are related. I was told this is a rare situation and if FELV doesn't spread that easily then why are 3 of mine infected? So I either have really bad luck and more than one brought this in my home and the FELV tests I had done that were negative meant nothing or the last 2 I brought in came here with it and spread it to my adult cat. I will never know, but after having been hit with 3 of my 6 cats getting this disease at one time with still one kit to test, to me that makes me think this spreads like wildfire and that is why I'm so nervous about putting them all back together. The first night we decided to bring up my calico girl was after I had fed them all so they didn't share any food dishes and my other kits didn't really even go near her as they were surprised to see her and she just really followed me around the house all night and then fell asleep with me while my boys seemed a bit mad that I was showering attention on her all night and they slept with my Son so there wasn't much contact in that 5 hours. I'm trying to my best to get used to doing this but I'm still in panic mode here and just trying to learn all I can and make sure I do right by all my cats. For now I'm trying to rehome the positive boys that I know will take a move easier and the home I found for my 6 month old boy sounds perfect as he will have a 7 month old FELV+ playmate. This home might take both boys but I won't know until she comes to meet them. So this is where I'm at right now and my mind is spinning every day with more info and seems to change daily on how much I can handle so I'm just taking it all a day at a time and giving them as much TLC as I can until I figure this all out:) Thanks for your advice/input here.it's much appreciated:) Deb From: Nina To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 1:19 PM Subject: Re: New Member - Deb and mixing Deb, I'm pleased to hear you have potential adopters for your boys. I'm hoping that someone will adopt them together. Tell those folks to come join us here! Forgive me for responding without reading your previous posts, you may already have addressed this, but... I am one of the people that have mixed negs and pos together, (with the negs being vaccinated). I have done this for years without any of my negs turning pos, but I understand what a difficult decision it is to make. In my case, I had brought in a litter of felv bottle babies and didn't find out they were pos until they had been mixing freely with the rest of the household for months. It still gave me pause, (because the vets and the literature suggested segregating, hell, they suggested euthanizing too), but it would have been hard on everyone concerned to separate them at that point. One of my cats at the time was a born-in-the-wild feral
Re: New Member - Deb and mixing
Hey, Deb - I also mix my negatives and positives -- and don't isolate anyone who is coughing, etc. I figure that everyone has been exposed anyhow and it is probably viral -- and strict isolation isn't possible at my house. I've never been sorry that I've done it this way. Deb Stockbridge [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Nina, I Love to hear more and more experiences from all of you that mix negatives and positives...it's building my confidence more each day. What I need to know is do you still keep them together if one still has a persistent cough that just won't clear even after treatment or if one sneezes here or there? My situation as it is now is that I have 3 positives , the two boys that I might have homes for , and my calico girl that I thought I had a home for but after seeing her with symptoms of her cough which I had thought went away, I feel I can't let her move and be more stressed out until I can get her completely healthy and a little more weight on her. My boys seems healthy but may sneeze here and there or have a little coughnothing persistent or on a daily basis so I was just wondering if it's still OK to mix them with my negative boys? My Calico girl is back on antibiotics and while she was with us that night for about 5 hours ,before she had that bad coughing spell she was fine for the 5 hours. So can she still be with my negative boys while I treat her. You said I should've seen her face when I had to confine her..well I barely could see her face because I was crying my eyes out myself:( She was not put by herself thank god , otherwise I would've grabbed a sleeping bag and slept with her! She was put back with her two feline brothers who are also positive so I hope she wasn't too distraughtI sure know I was though!! I know my kits have all been exposed and I have now vaccinated the negative ones. I just don't know the do's and don'ts of mixing them all together again. I think I'm so scared because I had thought I had 6 healthy cats, 3 had been tested for FELV and showed negative and lived healthy and happily for over 2 years. I then brought in 3 more over the past year of which one tested negative and I never tested the last two thinking they came from parents that were tested. Then all of the sudden one gets sick and I have 3 FELV+ cats, one is my oldest Bengal boy who tested negative previously and then the two that were never tested. None are related. I was told this is a rare situation and if FELV doesn't spread that easily then why are 3 of mine infected? So I either have really bad luck and more than one brought this in my home and the FELV tests I had done that were negative meant nothing or the last 2 I brought in came here with it and spread it to my adult cat. I will never know, but after having been hit with 3 of my 6 cats getting this disease at one time with still one kit to test, to me that makes me think this spreads like wildfire and that is why I'm so nervous about putting them all back together. The first night we decided to bring up my calico girl was after I had fed them all so they didn't share any food dishes and my other kits didn't really even go near her as they were surprised to see her and she just really followed me around the house all night and then fell asleep with me while my boys seemed a bit mad that I was showering attention on her all night and they slept with my Son so there wasn't much contact in that 5 hours. I'm trying to my best to get used to doing this but I'm still in panic mode here and just trying to learn all I can and make sure I do right by all my cats. For now I'm trying to rehome the positive boys that I know will take a move easier and the home I found for my 6 month old boy sounds perfect as he will have a 7 month old FELV+ playmate. This home might take both boys but I won't know until she comes to meet them. So this is where I'm at right now and my mind is spinning every day with more info and seems to change daily on how much I can handle so I'm just taking it all a day at a time and giving them as much TLC as I can until I figure this all out:) Thanks for your advice/input here.it's much appreciated:) Deb From: Nina To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 1:19 PM Subject: Re: New Member - Deb and mixing Deb, I'm pleased to hear you have potential adopters for your boys. I'm hoping that someone will adopt them together. Tell those folks to come join us here! Forgive me for responding without reading your previous posts, you may already have addressed this, but... I am one of the people that have mixed negs and pos together, (with the negs being vaccinated). I have done this for years without any of my negs turning pos, but I understand what a difficult decision it is to make. In my case, I had brought in a litter of felv bottle babies and didn't find out
Re: New Member - Deb and mixing
Deb, You are afraid of mixing because the danger is real. Your household is indicative of that. We might never know how it is that you have 3 previously believed neg cats testing pos. Was the disease dormant in their systems before they came to you, are they in the process of clearing the virus, did one carrier give it to the others? My one piece of advice for you is to keep them separated until you have come to terms with what mixing them might mean. Imho, I don't think you are going to spare any of the negs from the possibility of whatever fate has in store, they've already had too much contact together for that. One of the hardest things we have to learn in being the guardian of special needs animals is that no matter how desperately we want to control the outcome, no matter how diligently we arm ourselves with information and advice, it is ultimately not in our power to keep them safe from illness. All we can do is our best to insure that the time they do have to share with us is filled with as much joy, safety and love that we can offer. Early on I made the decision that I would opt for quality of life rather than quantity. Each and every one of us must make these types of decisions on our own. It's a very personal judgement call that only you can make. We must weigh the potential consequences and be ready to live with whatever the results turn out to be. There are no guarantees with felv or with life. Why do you think so many otherwise caring people still advocate pts? It's the only sure solution to save you from dealing with the possible ramifications of living with felv. No life, no felv. Dealing with the what ifs after the fact is always punishing, (what if I'd kept them separate, what if I'd sought out treatment sooner, what if I'd done this or that differently). Researching my alternatives, knowing I did the best I could with what I knew at the time, following my intuition and heart, are my talismans against the bitterness of what if. Nina Deb Stockbridge wrote: Hi Nina, I Love to hear more and more experiences from all of you that mix negatives and positives...it's building my confidence more each day. What I need to know is do you still keep them together if one still has a persistent cough that just won't clear even after treatment or if one sneezes here or there? My situation as it is now is that I have 3 positives , the two boys that I might have homes for , and my calico girl that I thought I had a home for but after seeing her with symptoms of her cough which I had thought went away, I feel I can't let her move and be more stressed out until I can get her completely healthy and a little more weight on her. My boys seems healthy but may sneeze here and there or have a little coughnothing persistent or on a daily basis so I was just wondering if it's still OK to mix them with my negative boys? My Calico girl is back on antibiotics and while she was with us that night for about 5 hours ,before she had that bad coughing spell she was fine for the 5 hours. So can she still be with my negative boys while I treat her. You said I should've seen her face when I had to confine her..well I barely could see her face because I was crying my eyes out myself:( She was not put by herself thank god , otherwise I would've grabbed a sleeping bag and slept with her! She was put back with her two feline brothers who are also positive so I hope she wasn't too distraughtI sure know I was though!! I know my kits have all been exposed and I have now vaccinated the negative ones. I just don't know the do's and don'ts of mixing them all together again. I think I'm so scared because I had thought I had 6 healthy cats, 3 had been tested for FELV and showed negative and lived healthy and happily for over 2 years. I then brought in 3 more over the past year of which one tested negative and I never tested the last two thinking they came from parents that were tested. Then all of the sudden one gets sick and I have 3 FELV+ cats, one is my oldest Bengal boy who tested negative previously and then the two that were never tested. None are related. I was told this is a rare situation and if FELV doesn't spread that easily then why are 3 of mine infected? So I either have really bad luck and more than one brought this in my home and the FELV tests I had done that were negative meant nothing or the last 2 I brought in came here with it and spread it to my adult cat. I will never know, but after having been hit with 3 of my 6 cats getting this disease at one time with still one kit to test, to me that makes me think this spreads like wildfire and that is why I'm so nervous about putting them all back together. The first night we decided to bring up my calico girl was after I had fed them all so they didn't share any food dishes and my other kits didn't really even go near her as they were surprised to see
Re: New Member - Deb and mixing
My vet puts it much less eloquently. I go in there at least once a week all upset saying I'm doing X, Y and Z. I don't know what to do. He always says It's a virus. There's nothing you CAN do. (which is not entirely correct, there are supportive things and immune boosting things, etc - but he means - you can't CURE it.). If you can let go of needing to control (and if you figure out how to do that..well, I am still learning.. but when I can do it I find I do MUCH better). On 5/9/07, Nina [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Deb, You are afraid of mixing because the danger is real. Your household is indicative of that. We might never know how it is that you have 3 previously believed neg cats testing pos. Was the disease dormant in their systems before they came to you, are they in the process of clearing the virus, did one carrier give it to the others? My one piece of advice for you is to keep them separated until you have come to terms with what mixing them might mean. Imho, I don't think you are going to spare any of the negs from the possibility of whatever fate has in store, they've already had too much contact together for that. One of the hardest things we have to learn in being the guardian of special needs animals is that no matter how desperately we want to control the outcome, no matter how diligently we arm ourselves with information and advice, it is ultimately not in our power to keep them safe from illness. All we can do is our best to insure that the time they do have to share with us is filled with as much joy, safety and love that we can offer. Early on I made the decision that I would opt for quality of life rather than quantity. Each and every one of us must make these types of decisions on our own. It's a very personal judgement call that only you can make. We must weigh the potential consequences and be ready to live with whatever the results turn out to be. There are no guarantees with felv or with life. Why do you think so many otherwise caring people still advocate pts? It's the only sure solution to save you from dealing with the possible ramifications of living with felv. No life, no felv. Dealing with the what ifs after the fact is always punishing, (what if I'd kept them separate, what if I'd sought out treatment sooner, what if I'd done this or that differently). Researching my alternatives, knowing I did the best I could with what I knew at the time, following my intuition and heart, are my talismans against the bitterness of what if. Nina Deb Stockbridge wrote: Hi Nina, I Love to hear more and more experiences from all of you that mix negatives and positives...it's building my confidence more each day. What I need to know is do you still keep them together if one still has a persistent cough that just won't clear even after treatment or if one sneezes here or there? My situation as it is now is that I have 3 positives , the two boys that I might have homes for , and my calico girl that I thought I had a home for but after seeing her with symptoms of her cough which I had thought went away, I feel I can't let her move and be more stressed out until I can get her completely healthy and a little more weight on her. My boys seems healthy but may sneeze here and there or have a little coughnothing persistent or on a daily basis so I was just wondering if it's still OK to mix them with my negative boys? My Calico girl is back on antibiotics and while she was with us that night for about 5 hours ,before she had that bad coughing spell she was fine for the 5 hours. So can she still be with my negative boys while I treat her. You said I should've seen her face when I had to confine her..well I barely could see her face because I was crying my eyes out myself:( She was not put by herself thank god , otherwise I would've grabbed a sleeping bag and slept with her! She was put back with her two feline brothers who are also positive so I hope she wasn't too distraughtI sure know I was though!! I know my kits have all been exposed and I have now vaccinated the negative ones. I just don't know the do's and don'ts of mixing them all together again. I think I'm so scared because I had thought I had 6 healthy cats, 3 had been tested for FELV and showed negative and lived healthy and happily for over 2 years. I then brought in 3 more over the past year of which one tested negative and I never tested the last two thinking they came from parents that were tested. Then all of the sudden one gets sick and I have 3 FELV+ cats, one is my oldest Bengal boy who tested negative previously and then the two that were never tested. None are related. I was told this is a rare situation and if FELV doesn't spread that easily then why are 3 of mine infected? So I either have really bad luck and more than one brought this in my home and the FELV tests I had done that were negative meant nothing or the last 2 I brought in came here with it and spread it to my adult cat.
Re: New Member - Deb and mixing
halleluia, sister! (yeah, i'll go to bed now.) On 5/9/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Every what if I have experienced in the past brought me to a new awareness in the present, even though the lessons were hard, I learned from them. What if I had just taken that extra few minutes to check on Kiki that night, rather than going to bed because I was too tired to feed him? Would I have been able to take him to the vet in time to save him? That was a hard lesson, when I found him dead the next morning with injuries. BUT, now, when I think something might be wrong, I take action on it IMMEDIATELY, I never wait to take care of things I could put off until tomorrow, because I learned that sometimes tomorrow doesn't come. What if I had just not let him go outside? Would he have not been hit by that car? Of course not. BUT, now I keep my cats indoors only, unless they are on a leash. I learned from that what if as well. What if I had only KNOWN that a broken back wasn't a death sentence? Would I still have my sweet Do-Dah here today, happy in a cat cart? I miss him, but now I know that it's not a death sentence, and I've used the lesson I learned from his life to help countless injured pets since by telling THEIR owners don't listen to your vet, there ARE options! I have Bones to show for it too, I think it was a test, that I was to be sent not one, but TWO cats with broken backs. The first one, I got it wrong, but the second one... well, she couldn't be any happier than she is today! I swear to you all, I am SURE that I have been sent these second chances just to redeem myself and forgive my past mistakes! I could list a long list of all the what if's I've experienced in my years with cats, all my regrets, and all of my losses, but the fact remains the same, no matter HOW HARD that lesson came, and no matter how many times I relive it, and no matter how many tears I shed, I know that I LEARNED, and THAT means that none of their lives were in vain. Phaewryn http://ucat.us/domesticcatlinks.html Special Needs Cat Resources http://www.iGive.com/html/refer.cfm?causeid=21303 Sign up for iGive and a percentage of your purchases helps save animals! -- Spay Neuter Your Neighbors! Maybe That'll Make The Difference MaryChristine AIM / YAHOO: TenHouseCats MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ: 289856892
Re: New Member - Deb and mixing
Deb, I'm pleased to hear you have potential adopters for your boys. I'm hoping that someone will adopt them together. Tell those folks to come join us here! Forgive me for responding without reading your previous posts, you may already have addressed this, but... I am one of the people that have mixed negs and pos together, (with the negs being vaccinated). I have done this for years without any of my negs turning pos, but I understand what a difficult decision it is to make. In my case, I had brought in a litter of felv bottle babies and didn't find out they were pos until they had been mixing freely with the rest of the household for months. It still gave me pause, (because the vets and the literature suggested segregating, hell, they suggested euthanizing too), but it would have been hard on everyone concerned to separate them at that point. One of my cats at the time was a born-in-the-wild feral that had had no shots at all and had mixed right into the litter as if it were her own. (She tested neg later, boy did I sweat that one). I took a leap of faith and followed my heart and kept everyone together. I felt fairly safe in making this decision, (as far as the guilt/fear factor goes), because everyone had already been exposed. Perhaps explaining it in that way might make your son more receptive to the idea? For Heaven's sake, you've already re-exposed your neg cats with last night's visiting. I mean no disrespect, but it seems a little like locking the barn door after the horse has escaped, (again). Everyone loved our felv babies. I don't think there was an animal in the house that hadn't spent very intimate time with them. I recently lost a stray-turned-resident with both fiv and felv. During his last weeks I cringed everytime he sneezed felv germs all over the house. I haven't had the others tested since Spencer passed, (I will if anyone gets symptoms of illness), but I'm confident that no one has contracted felv. I would never judge anyone's decisions about mixing. We all understand both sides of the argument too well. I can hear how dedicated you are to helping these babies and I thank you for everything you are doing for them. I just wanted to throw my two cents in because I can just picture that little girl's face when she was closed off from the family again. None of the decisions we are forced to make are easy, and all too few results of those decisions are truly in our control. Blessings to you and your family, Nina Deb Stockbridge wrote: OMG Phaewryn, YOU ARE A GODSEND!! You posted my boys last night and already I have a home for Bruschi and possibly one for Jadon as well! Someone very close by me saw them on Petfinder and fell in love with both but thinks Bruschi will be the perfect match for her FELV+ female 7 month old kitten so that's who she chose and she might know of a friend who can also take Jadon. I'm meeting with her on Friday and will know then if both boys have a new home. I'm just crying over having to do this so soon as I never expected this quick of a response but also crying for the joy of having potential homes where my boys can have free roam of their new homes and interact with people like they were used to here before I had to keep them confined. I will let you know Friday how things go.keep your fingers crossed all goes well for me and my boys! I just can't thank you enough for your help and it has made dealing with all this that much easier to handle.one step at a time:) BTWafter reading a few of the emails from others about how they mix their positives and negatives with pretty good luck I tried to do this last night after finally talking my Son into letting us try it with one at a time. All was well and boy was our girl happy and meowing up a storm for the first couple hours and we were just all so happy to have her with us again UNTIL later that night she had a coughing spell and it woke me up as well as my Son and my Son started crying and asking where our two negative kits were and it freaked him out more than I expected and I had to confine her with the two boys again:( I have to admit it scared me as well and I know it would take some time to get used to but I think with every sneeze or cough we would just think what it could be doing to our healthy cats and I just don't think I can put my Son through that again. I really commend all of you who can manage a positive and negative household and if it was just me and my husband I think I could eventually get used to the idea but just not right now with my Son here with us. I love ALL my babies and it would be ideal to keep them all if I could let them live together but for now it's best I find homes for these special kits. You are all just wonderful people helping these animals with health issues and though I can't foster them in my own home , if I can help in any other way, with transporting
