Friday, January 25, 2013

My cat has the Feline Leukemia Virus

We found out in the beginning of December that our beloved cat, Gayden, has the Feline Leukemia Virus. He wasn't himself for a few days and I knew something was wrong. He will often greet me in the morning when I wake up, he will often greet me when I get out of the shower so that he can lick my toes, he always greets me when I get home - even if I've only been gone for a few minutes! Most importantly, he showed absolutely no enthusiasm for his food. I came to a horrifying realization that he probably hadn't been finishing his meals for weeks if not longer. We have never had to watch him eat as he has always inhaled his food in record time and then moves on to finish his brothers food. His brother Calvin can be a bit of a push over and will just walk away from his food as soon as Gayden comes. Well, I realized that the tables had turned and now it was Gayden that was leaving food that Calvin was finishing.

Back in March of last year poor Gayden went through the awful experience of having crystals and once he got better the vet suggested he go on a prescription diet. So we put him on W/D which is a low fat food to help with weight loss. Gayden was a bit chubby at 13 pounds. Well, he got a little too skinny in my opinion so I increased how much food he was eating. We were going through over 3 cans a day (at over $2 a can!). I did find it a bit weird that Gayden kept losing weight and Calvin kept gaining weight but I think I was more focused on his emotional health.

Gayden had been a real mess since his ordeal with crystals. He was incredibly anxious, would pace back and forth from one side of the house to the other. Just look out the windows, flap his tail about aggressively and then walk back. He had stopped lying on me, and would only stay for a bit and then jump down and pace again. His tail was constantly flailing around and worse than that, his poor tail hardly ever went straight up. A straight up tail is the equivalent to a cat smile, in my opinion. At night we had an evening ritual where he would jump into the bathtub and we would pet him. Then after March, he stopped doing this.

He wasn't very interested in playing anything, at least not for long. Sometimes I would take him out for a walk and he seemed to really enjoy that, but then when we'd come back in he would be restless again. At night when we'd go to bed he developed a new disturbing ritual. He'd howl at the top of his lungs! So we'd call out to him and then he'd come upstairs to see us, let us pet him for a second and then he'd run back downstairs and the whole process would be repeated at least five or ten times.

He also started spraying things! The first thing I noticed was the couch in the basement. I slept down there one night and kept thinking I smelled urine. Well, in the morning I sniffed around and sure enough, many of the pillows stank. I went through an extensive process to get it all clean and would not leave him downstairs unsupervised after that. It became an obsession actually, I would feel bad locking him upstairs while we went downstairs to watch t.v. So I'd let him down and he'd go over to the couch and spray. So then I'd have to clean it all over again. Eventually when I let him down I'd just stalk him and wouldn't even sit down so he never got the opportunity to spray again. He also sprayed numerous other things, not regularly - thank goodness! But often enough that I was worried that he'd developed a serious anxiety problem!

He also started trying to hump me all the time. Every time I'd talk to him and pet him he'd get excited and then start trying to hump me. It was slightly flattering, in a sick kind of way, to know that my little buddy loved me so much that he wanted to get it on with me. But it really wasn't a behaviour I was willing to allow, so sadly I had to pick him up and put him on the floor each time he did it, which was at least five times a day. He still does this, in fact, and it doesn't look like it's going to stop.

He also continued to eat his food at a pathetically slow pace. I realize now that he actually needs variety and hates to eat the same flavours day after day.

But in early December I knew something was up when he spent 3 days just sleeping and hardly getting up to do anything! My boyfriend said that he thought he was probably just under the weather, but I wasn't convinced. So I took him to the vet without consulting him first. They took some blood tests and then we had to wait. When I got home, my boyfriend was not at all thrilled at the $300 vet bill! I got the vet to also do a urine analysis on Gayden, just in case.

It turned out that he had non-regenerative anemia. This means that his body was not producing any red blood cells, so there wasn't enough oxygen going through his body which left him with no energy and no appetite. They told us that normally it's a symptom of a much more serious condition. They recommended that we test him for FeLV (Feline Leukemia Virus) and FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus). We weren't sure what we wanted to do, we were so taken aback and also felt like we had no idea what any of it meant. They gave him an injection that somehow gets red blood cells in the body. Then we took him home. I spent the next day or two researching everything I could about anemia and it's causes.

I know that the internet can be a bad place when you start researching symptoms and you can end up thinking the worst. Well, in this case that did prove to be the case. However, I was desperate to find some hope! I was so hopeful that maybe he'd have something different that could cause it that was treatable or curable. But hour after hour I just kept seeing the same basic message. It's usually a sign of kidney trouble (which he didn't have), hypo (or hyper) thyroidism - one of those two (which the vet said was unlikely for a four year old), trauma based (nope), parasite based (nope), nutrition deficiency (highly unlikely as he was on W/D) but we didn't rule that out as we were worried about how long Calvin had been eating his food. Or the Feline Leukemia Virus. No matter how hard I tried to be positive and hopeful, it really didn't seem at all likely that it was just nothing and he'd be fine.

So we decided to go ahead and have him tested for the virus as well as for FIV. As you can imagine I was absolutely devastated to find out he tested positive for the Leukemia Virus. Our cats are indoor cats, the only time they go outside is supervised and usually on leashes! We got him when he was a kitten, about four months old. As he was just left in a box on a neighbours porch we never found out about his background. I didn't even know that there was such a thing as FeLV. If I had, I would have had him vaccinated against it regardless of the fact that he's an indoor cat. We leave our cats at a friends house when we go away and she has five cats that haven't been vaccinated against it either and one of them was a stray. So there is a possibility that he got it from one of her cats, who might be a carrier but hasn't yet shown any symptoms. Or he might have been born with it. Or he might have picked it up from our back patio area as there are cats that come and spray our patio furniture in warmer months and we take our cats our there and they sniff the wet spots. There isn't any scientific proof of exactly how long the virus can survive outside yet, so it can't be ruled out completely.

In any case, it's rather irrelevant as I can't change the fact that he has the virus. I can't change the fact it's a terminal illness, and that at some point I'm going to lose him.

He's had two hormone injections called Darbopoetin which create red blood cells and we've been so blessed, because he has responded amazingly well to it! There were a few scenarios I was hoping for initially. One, that he didn't have the virus and that what he had was minor. Two, that if he was going to die soon that it be as painless as possible for my little beauty. Lastly, that I could have more time with him.

I've been handed the third option. More time with my beauty. And what a time it's been! We were so incredibly lucky to have him with us for Christmas! He gained back his appetite, he gained weight, and he had lot's of energy! We changed his diet, I don't care about weight loss at this point! I don't mind having a slightly chubby but happy and active cat! He really hates all prescription diets we've tried, except for A/D - anorexic diet - which is an incredibly palatable food for cats without an appetite. However, it's also a really rich food and a cat could end up quite fat if kept on it long term. I don't want Gayden to end up obese as that would just be an extra burden on his system. But at the same time, I can't be putting him on any more weight loss diets. Not at this point in his life. So he's on Wellness, which has loads of flavours and he seems to enjoy them all! We had him on EVO, which is cheaper but still very good quality and he enjoyed it at first, but seemed to grow a bit tired it and it only has one or two flavours. So he now eats the most expensive food in the store! We also give him either Taste of the Wild dry or T/D.  He also gets an amino acid supplement every 12 hours.

I was adamantly opposed to him eating any dry food at all after the crystals. I read everything I could find on the subject and it seemed that most people believed that dry food was bad for the condition. However, after all my research I'm not so sure anymore. The dry foods often have sodium in them which causes the cat to drink more water. I do believe that a cat should eat a species appropriate diet, but as an animal in captivity this does end up being very difficult. No one wants to feed their indoor cats live mice! Raw diets can be great, but they are still new to the main stream so therefore it's hard to get concrete facts and recipes. There is a wealth of information out there on it, but it worries me that most vets are not on board with it. Anyway, for now I'm staying away from raw but am not opposed to the idea.

I feed him about 80% wet and 20% or less dry. So I believe that at that ratio he's getting more than enough moisture in his diet. He enjoys crunching on the food and at this point, it's his quality of life I'm looking at.

Gayden is back to being his old self, the little guy we had before he had crystals. He is really perky, he walks around with his tail up if I talk to him. He enjoys attention and affection. I let him outside in the snow for some fresh air, but he comes back in quickly as it's currently -20 ÂșC outside. I bought him a bunch of new toys and he seems to enjoy all of them! Especially a wand toy with a little insect thing attached. He went crazy for it, chased it around with such force it was like he was a kitten again! I didn't let it go on too long, as he has a heart murmur! But we play a lot of hide and seek with it, and I throw his favourite mice around for him which he loves. He doesn't sleep all day, and is active at the usual times. He greets me all the time, follows me around the house, gets involved with anything going on in the house, however small. He doesn't like to miss out on anything.

He's a really special cat, and I love him so much. Right now I'm really just trying to enjoy him day by day. Every day I know that this could be the last day that I get to enjoy him before he gets sick. From what I've read, it's not the Leukemia Virus that will kill him, it's the fact that it destroys his immune system so he becomes vulnerable to other things. So we're kind of in for a hard time ahead and I'm not looking forward to that. Which is why it is so important to just enjoy today. Today he's in in a good mood, energetic, perky, friendly and healthy. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, so I'm not going to live there, I need to live now - right where he is - and enjoy him as much as I can! As I write this he is lying at the end of my chair against my legs. One of his favourite spots.