This is the first of two posts--my wordy self had originally tried to post one
long email, but I was over the limit. So, I thought it was a good idea to
break it up. Without further ado--here is part 1--part 2 is being posted
momentarily.
Hi all,
I've been following for awhile, but never actually joined. So, first and
foremost--thank you for all of your wonderful information and kindness you show
to each other on a daily basis. It is truly inspiring. Prepare thyselves for
a VERY long email....
Second, while I am new to the list, I am not new to FELV as I've had a
wonderful FELV + kitty (Aggie) that my wife and I raised from a kitten since
2004. We found her and her siblings, less than a year after we got married,
under the dumpster of the apartment complex where we used to live. We got them
cleaned up, adopted out, and then the one person who adopted two of them called
to let us know that they were going to have one of them put down due to testing
positive for FELV. So, despite not being a "cat" person--as I've always had
dogs and birds, we became a cat family. So, I've been living with the disease,
knowing full well what it could do, for over 6 years now. She's tested
positive throughout the years on Elisa and IFA on multiple occasions.
Aggie Lucky Trouble has given us so much joy since day one. I have loved
every minute of having her in my life—within ten minutes of her being “mine”
she had me wrapped around her little paw and she became the matriarch of a long
line of cats that I’m sure my family will have throughout the years.
For the first 5 years of Aggie's life, she took daily Alpha Interferon from a
dropper (it is still the highlight of her day--she loooooves the stuff!), went
to the vet twice a year for wellness checkups and she wasn't sick a day in her
life. In the summer of 2009, however, I noticed a bump behind her right ear.
Long story short, it was an adenocarcinoma of the parotid salivary gland. Vets
at UC Davis said it was encapsulated, and they got all the cancer they could
see, with a very small, but clean margin. We opted not to do radiation, as we
didn't want to stress her little system and get the FELV into active mode. We
diligently checked for regrowths, had her lungs x-rayed every few months, and
had bloodwork run a few times a year. No return of the adenocarcinoma that we
know of.
Spring of 2010, she's active and playful as normal, but her bloodwork, and
weight started to decline. Everything looked good other than WBC 3.8,
neutrophils 2000, and platelets (est 50-120)were a bit low. On followup tests,
the WBC and neutrophils were even a bit lower (3.6 and 1800, respectively).
So, we went the LTCI route. After 3 weekly shots, things had declined further
(WBC 2.8 and Neutrophils 1200), but we had read this would happen initially as
the stuff killed off the infected cells.
Went to every other week on the stuff, and things had improved (WBC 4.0,
Neutophils 2800, and Platelets 120-Normal--not as worried about platelets as
she is VERY difficult to get a sample from--it usually takes everyone in the
office and she gives everybody heck). Subsequent tests (still at every two
weeks) and WBC had risen to 4.8, Neutrophils to 3800, and same platelets).
All was good until a month or so ago, when I noticed her weight was down a bit,
so I gave her a quarter pill of an appetite stimulant--mirazapine--and a half
hour later she was seizing (lasted 30 seconds, but it seemed like hours). This
was also the time when we tried to stretch her LTCI to every three weeks.
Rushed her to the e-vet, where she was her normal, wild self--leaping on the
vet's keyboard and getting in the way. Didn't run any tests, as the e-vet
thought it would be less expensive at our regular vet's office. Two days
later, she had another, milder seizure--still standing, responsive to her name,
but drooling and twitching, and contorted. Lots of loud meows and a bit spacey
afterword for a few minutes, but back to normal after that. Told that the
mirtaziprine will be in the system for at least 72 hours, so it is possible
that it lowered the threshold for her body to have a seizure. This would make
sense, as her last seizure was about 68 hours after her first seizure. She has
had no seizures since.
Our regular vet wanted to refer us out to UC Davis, but overall costs for
diagnostic tests were going to be almost $5000, which we couldn't afford. So,
we did a compromise, and our regular vet did a chest x-ray to see if there was
some sort of systemic cancer, and we ran blood to see if there was something
there that might indicate a seizure. The only weird thing was that her
bloodwork looked great (for her anyway--still 4.8 WBC, and good neutrophils and
everything else). Nothing in the lungs either.
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