bringing home sick cat with the flu?

My cat is in the vet at the moment recovering from the flu. No doubt he will need to come home tomorrow or the next day.

I've tried to do some research, but what happens when you have a cat sick with the flu for the first time, and you already have a cat in the house that presumed to be the carrier of the virus?

Will my carrier cat give him the flu again or will he give her the flu or will it just bounce between the 2 cats or will neither get the flu again?

Will I need to quarantine my sick cat for awhiile after he comes home to recover some more?

How do we deal with this?

Hi, Sorry you and your cat have to go through this.  Your questions can certainly be posed directly to your vet as well.

How do you know your other cat was the carrier?  Have you ever seen your other cat sick with the same thing?  Personally I would never expose an actively sick cat to a healthy cat - in other words I would expose these two cats to each other while the one is ill on the grounds that I can't tell with certainty what the state of the healthy cat's immune system is, or if I know with complete certainty that the healthy cat was the carrier.  Contagious illnesses are by definition contagious so assuming that the healthy cat is protected due to prior infection might be true, and it might not be.

So unless my vet said positively otherwise, I would isolate the sick cat until it was completely resolved.

Its definitely not confirmed that she gave it to him. I kind of put pieces of the puzzle together along with her appearance since we got her as a kitten. I don't know, maybe he somehow caught it just because he had the virus,and his immune system was down since having the urinary blockages and two PU surgeries,  but we've had him since the day he was born She will be going for a vet visit when the vet is able to have time to examine her thoroughly. I'm actually not even sure how he has caught it.

I think I will play it safe and isolate him to my bedroom and not let the other cat in until I think he is well enough to be with her. I will also ask my vet what he thinks would  be best to do also.

He actually most likely picked it up at the vet's office while there for surgeries.  The stress of the surgery plus being in the cat hospital is enough to stress the immune system.  I had a cat get sick about 2 weeks after going to the vet every single time. 

First of all, talk to the vet and see if the kitty is contagious.  Most likely it'll be fine to be put in with your other kitties.  However, I'd try to quarantine the sick kitty upon bringing it home.  Sometimes, though, this doesn't work if you've got other kitties in your home who're bonded to the sick one.  You can try it and see how it works.  If the vet says the kitty isn't contagious and if your kitties are going wild because the one's confined, then you can let them socialize.  Most sick kitties are good at self-limiting their behavior due to not feeling well, but can be picked on by the others if not watched closely. 

That is entirely possible too!! I actually didn't think of that one

My cats are very close, in fact Mango, she's acting all depressed and moping around because her friend isn't here.  She's sleeping where he sleeps and keeps looking around for him and mewing at us. Poor thing

If he's still at the vet and your vet will allow it, take an old towel for him to sleep on.  Bring it home for her to sleep with so she'll feel close to him.  I have a feeling that when he comes home, you'll not be able to keep them separated if they're that close.  If she's not sick, she probably won't pick it up. 

She's not sick as far as we know, that said we ARE taking her to the vet probably the day we pick up Theodore for a complete thorough checkover. She was desexed by the same vet when she was young and there were never any apparent issues then. Now that she's around 10-11 months old she needs that checkup. Once we know exactly what we are dealing with in both cats (if any in her) it will be helpful when we bring him home.