The Veterinary Review, January 21, 2021
This week’s Veterinary review includes two stories. Ferrell and Helios.
Ferrell Brown has a virus called Calicivirus. It can show up in the eyes, mouth, throat, and in some severe cases, other bodily systems. Ferrell is also FIV positive. FIV, much like HIV, is an immunodeficiency virus that never goes away. Most FIV cats never see any problems from their virus, living just as long and just as healthy as non-FIV cats - whom they can live with! Once something else takes hold of the body, however, the immune compromised condition can cause that “something” to become very difficult to get rid of. That is where we are with Ferrell’s Calicivirus.
Ferrell Brown
Calicivirus is another virus that never goes away, the symptoms just get managed, but we are having a difficult time getting some of Ferrell’s more dangerous symptoms under control. He is anemic, and we are not sure his bone marrow is producing enough red blood cells to overcome that anemia. He has been on a medication protocol for several weeks now, and went in to the vet last Friday for a couple of reasons.
The first reason was to recheck his bloodwork. He is still anemic - just a couple of points higher (good) than it was before. A couple of points really doesn’t mean anything, though. Dr. Heimlich, however, had expected the numbers to either go up or go down. They basically stayed the same. So maybe this is good news? We won’t know until another 3 weeks.
The second reason was that Ferrell had suddenly started drinking an insane amount of water - so much that he was leaking a lot of urine when he slept. He was still eating like crazy though, so Doc ruled out kidney involvement at this time. Apparently the trip to the vet scared Ferrell’s bladder straight. He has slowed down on his water consumption and has stopped peeing while sleeping. I will take that as a win!
Helios was a little orange kitten we took in on January 15th. Eight weeks old and paraplegic from a broken spine, his story was right up our alley. He came in with a little grey tabby who was about 6 weeks old, also paraplegic from trauma. His name was Jeffrey.
Helios was found in a TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) colony dragging his back legs. One of the women working the colony caught him and took him to her vet. X-rays showed a severely broken spine. Her vet spoke to her regarding the fact that he would not be able to pee or poop on his own, that he would never walk again, that he would likely have to wear diapers and have baths multiple times a day. While she desperately wanted to help, she was not prepared for this huge undertaking, so she sought us out.
While she was looking for a sanctuary, the vet had taken him home to hang out with a little paraplegic kitten she had brought home from the holidays - Jeffrey. He was the victim of an overzealous dog and had multiple small bite wounds in addition to the nerve damage causing his paraplegia. The two hit it off and bonded quickly.
When we agreed to take the one kitten, we were asked about the other kitten as well. We were told they were bonded. Since they would only take up one cage at night, we said yes.
Jeffrey (Grey Tabby) and Helios (Orange)
They got here on Friday the 15th from far south Houston. On January 17, Jeffrey was looking a little tired, but I wrote it off to his new pain medicine we had just started. The very next morning when Tiana got to work, he was deceased. Needless to say we were all shocked. We had no idea what could have caused it.
We continued on with Helios who stopped eating the very next night. Figuring he was lonely for his bond-mate, we force fed him to get him over the hump, and gave him a little bit of medicine for nausea. We repeated that on the 19th and 20th. On the night of the 20th, Tiana took him home with her in case socializing with a few (older) kittens might help him feel better.
At 8:45 that night I got a message that he had a seizure. I called her back and sent her to the emergency clinic. They took him in, stabilized him, and after much testing and treatment we realized it was best if we just let him go.
I was in utter shock. I have never lost one of our paraplegics. To lose not one, but two - KITTENS! - in less than a week after they came here tore my heart out and blew me away at the same time. When I spoke with the vet who had them both in her home, however, she made me feel a little less responsible. She said the whole thing sounded like a virus called panleukopenia. It is not super common, but not super rare, either, in feral colonies. The timing was right for it to have happened the way it did, as was the immediacy of their crashes.
A good visit to our regular vet, a sad visit to our emergency vet, and a good conversation with a veterinary friend. It’s been a long week and we are 1 for 2. Hope our numbers turn around soon.
- Mimi