Hello all, early last Saturday Feb 12th, we lost our little beautiful calico girl Mui to FELV and we are just missing her so much. She was only 5 years old and we had her the day after xmas in 2009 from a rescue group who wanted to see if anyone could take in an FIV+FELV+ cat and we didn't know much about these debilitating diseases and this little girl reminded my wife of one of her babies growing up so we had to take Mui in despite her existing conditions.
From day 1, Mui was such an affectionate, loving kitty who loved snuggling up to us in bed, playing with her toy mouse, touching us affectionately by her little tail swinging by or with her just gentle head butts.. we liked cradling her and whenever we see her, she just brightens our day... she meant so much too us....she was extremely well behaved, instinctively knowing where is off limits even though we never trained her...she was probably a very intelligent kitty..
Yes, we knew she had a potentially deadly health problem but early her, she looked so healthy and had a strong appetite. She had bouts of vomiting early on but it was less frequent as she stayed with us which we thought were good signs of healthiness.. little that we know that is not a good indication of how she was really doing inside. We did some study on FIV+FELV and found that stress free environment was essential so we did our best to provide her with a loving home. We saw some happy cases where cats live long lives and we prayed that was the case with her.
Then in Dec 2010, I had to leave for 2 weeks for business and unfortunately, she apparently missed me so much that she stopped eating... when I came back she lost over 2 lbs and we took her to the vet who said she had a fever. Subsequently, Mui got a little better but then became very inactive again and no matter what type of brand of food we put in front of her, she wasn't eating much....finally in February, we took her to the vet again and the same vet now diagnosed her as being extremely anemic due to low red blood cell count as result of FELV. Our heart just sank. Still, the vet said she can give her epogen to stimulate red blood cell growth and we went with that. We didn't realize the side effects of epogen and that same evening, our Mui nearly went as her breathing became very very heavy...and she limped all over the house... we didn't expect her to make it and prepared for the worse..
But we thought we lucked out when Mui came out of it next morning and certainly looked better although her breathing was still difficult. The vet asked us to take her in a few days to test for blood level again. Independently, we desperately sought for miracle solutions to FELV although we knew going in that was impossible to date. From web searches, we learned a lot about some experimental treatments with risky results. Yet, we stuck to the vet's second appointment last week and again, the vet recommended epogen shot after her blood test came back only slightly improved. Our heart aches now because we knew our kitty had fought hard to overcome side affects from epogen not too long ago and we told the vet we worried about the side effects but she said there shouldn't be....so we allowed our Mui to get injected a second time.... and early morning on Feb 12th, our Mui couldn't handle the side effects anymore and we saw her cross the bridge and we just couldn't believe it...and we were so devastated.
We know that Mui was not healthy to begin with and we knew it was only a matter of time, with or without epogen... still, that day she looked ok, blood work improving if ever so slightly... we can't help but wonder why we allow her second injection...we feel so guilty as her parents and she trusted and loved us so much... We know it is not right to look back and second guess actions, but we would give almost anything or a second chance at how to take care of our little girl now even for a few more months for her to be with us…we loved and miss her so much…RIP Mui – mom and dad love you always.
From day 1, Mui was such an affectionate, loving kitty who loved snuggling up to us in bed, playing with her toy mouse, touching us affectionately by her little tail swinging by or with her just gentle head butts.. we liked cradling her and whenever we see her, she just brightens our day... she meant so much too us....she was extremely well behaved, instinctively knowing where is off limits even though we never trained her...she was probably a very intelligent kitty..
Yes, we knew she had a potentially deadly health problem but early her, she looked so healthy and had a strong appetite. She had bouts of vomiting early on but it was less frequent as she stayed with us which we thought were good signs of healthiness.. little that we know that is not a good indication of how she was really doing inside. We did some study on FIV+FELV and found that stress free environment was essential so we did our best to provide her with a loving home. We saw some happy cases where cats live long lives and we prayed that was the case with her.
Then in Dec 2010, I had to leave for 2 weeks for business and unfortunately, she apparently missed me so much that she stopped eating... when I came back she lost over 2 lbs and we took her to the vet who said she had a fever. Subsequently, Mui got a little better but then became very inactive again and no matter what type of brand of food we put in front of her, she wasn't eating much....finally in February, we took her to the vet again and the same vet now diagnosed her as being extremely anemic due to low red blood cell count as result of FELV. Our heart just sank. Still, the vet said she can give her epogen to stimulate red blood cell growth and we went with that. We didn't realize the side effects of epogen and that same evening, our Mui nearly went as her breathing became very very heavy...and she limped all over the house... we didn't expect her to make it and prepared for the worse..
But we thought we lucked out when Mui came out of it next morning and certainly looked better although her breathing was still difficult. The vet asked us to take her in a few days to test for blood level again. Independently, we desperately sought for miracle solutions to FELV although we knew going in that was impossible to date. From web searches, we learned a lot about some experimental treatments with risky results. Yet, we stuck to the vet's second appointment last week and again, the vet recommended epogen shot after her blood test came back only slightly improved. Our heart aches now because we knew our kitty had fought hard to overcome side affects from epogen not too long ago and we told the vet we worried about the side effects but she said there shouldn't be....so we allowed our Mui to get injected a second time.... and early morning on Feb 12th, our Mui couldn't handle the side effects anymore and we saw her cross the bridge and we just couldn't believe it...and we were so devastated.
We know that Mui was not healthy to begin with and we knew it was only a matter of time, with or without epogen... still, that day she looked ok, blood work improving if ever so slightly... we can't help but wonder why we allow her second injection...we feel so guilty as her parents and she trusted and loved us so much... We know it is not right to look back and second guess actions, but we would give almost anything or a second chance at how to take care of our little girl now even for a few more months for her to be with us…we loved and miss her so much…RIP Mui – mom and dad love you always.