“Munchkin” Needs A Home

Your post is of interest because I have a similar situation.

Ethel became a part of the family some four years ago. She was a bony, bedraggled stray before I opened my door to her.

She’s so endearing, I hadn’t the heart to put her to sleep when she fell ill 19 months ago, so nursed her along for almost five weeks. During this time she lay motionless, her eyes unfocused, her abdomen lumpy with swollen lymph nodes. At first I thought she’d suffered a hernia from having been kicked, or struck by a car. When she didn’t recover, I finally took her to a vet who performed a – OMG – $400.00 test. The results were worthless, as they showed only the absence of cancer. I couldn’t afford additional tests, so took her home. She lay huddled in bed for another week; I kept her warm with a heating pad and coaxed her to eat dabs of canned cat food and baby food four times a day.

I carried her outside for a breath of fresh air a few days later, and the first thing she did was gnaw on a clump of garden soil. From that day forward she continued to strengthen, and at last she recoveed.

Unfortunately, last October I took her to another vet for a blood test, and she tested positive for FL. Question is, was her illness FL?

Somewhere on this website I read a postI found rather bewildering. I think it said that @ 40% of cats recover from FL – but then 80-90% of them die within @ 3 1/2 years. Apparently, the recovery is fleeting. (I may misquote, as I don’t have the post in front of me.)

I’m also wondering if tests for leukemia can give false positive results. Thought I once read that. Ethel is the picture of health: she’s plump, pretty and playful as can be. What’s more, the vet said she could probably live to a ripe old age. Don’t know what to make of any of this.

At present, though, it seems possible to have FL positive AND negative cats in the same household. Inspector McWee, my kitty-man, is pushing 18, and remains uninfected. But I keep them apart: they do not share dishes and litter boxes. Nor are they together — when one is upstairs the other is down. Yet both sit in the sun on the backporch on a rotational schedule. Neither has contact with the other – though of course they walk on the same floors and rugs.

You sound as if you might like to keep Munchy-Wee if you could. I can’t advise you pro or con, but my vet says a cat does not get infected by sitting on surfaces sat upon by a FL positive cat. I’ve worried that droplets of moisture might contaminate the surface – but the vet says not to fret. According to him, shared dishes, litter boxes and mutual grooming are the vectors for infection.

Don’t know if this helps, but hope it might.

Best of luck with your kitten.
S