Re: Is FeLV really the WORST?

[Wheezercat42]

Cherie,   FeLV is a bad disease, but at least FeLV+ cats have a chance to live with it - sometimes for many years - in relative good health.  I know of two that I read about in a Dr's Foster and Smith catalog in 2000 who were brothers who tested positive as kittens and were now (then) 20 and doing well (oddly enough, it came within days of finding out that a kitten that I'd brought in for socialization and allowed to have run of the house for 6 weeks without being tested first was FeLV+.  I found out because he got an URI that my guys had just gotten over and then picked up ringworm that my guys got over a month before he arrived.  The ringworm overwhelmed his immune system and the URI ran rampant and was completely unaffected by antibiotics).  There was also a cat in Vandalia, OH in 2002 who was 23 and looked like an 8 year old who had first tested positive at 9 weeks and also in occasional retests throughout his life.  Although many cats die from FeLV in 3 months to 3 years from infection, some do well much longer than that - and it's the ones who do who give me hope to keep helping them when I can.  Redbud will have had FeLV for 5 years as of this June.  The other 5 from the pre-FeLV days here are gone, but Redbud is still doing beautifully - and that gives me reason to hope.   In 2002, I had FIP sweep through.  With FIP, all cats die from it in anywhere from hours after beginning to show symptoms to maybe a year.  A few carriers have lived for several years, but the few I've heard of who have also have been chronically ill all the time since they were exposed.  Of the 3 I lost to FIP - Omaste had the wet form and looked healthy at noon when I went to run errands and go to the doctor, but when I got home at 4:30, he was collapsed on the floor, too weak to raise his head.  Patches fought off FeLV - having tested positive for exposure in 2000 and then negative at 3 and 6 months later - but he got FIP during the outbreak, and it went neurological a month later.  Little Dillon was the first to show obvious symptoms at 3 weeks of age, but wasn't diagnosed for another 13 weeks.  He went partially into remission with the use of depomedrol every month, but then it also went neurological in him and he became incontinent, and a month later, he let me know he was ready to be done - when he was 8 months old.    If I had to deal with one or the other of these diseases, I would much rather deal with FeLV.  Once my guys who died from FIP got sick, their lives were pretty miserable.  FIP attaches to the immune system and tricks it into thinking that an organ or system of the body is an invading organism, and the immune system attacks the body which leads to their death.  FeLV can, and sometimes does, move fast, but usually, FeLV+'s can live fairly normal, reasonably happy, and pretty comfortable lives for a long time with it.  With FIP, if you get more than a month or two with the sick one, you're extremely lucky.   Where there's Life, there's Hope Kathy "If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." Catherine-