Someone Owes Me An Explanation

I’m sure I have mentioned it before, but in case I didn’t my cats have FIV, Feline Immunodeficiency Virus. I was pretty stunned when I found out but not totally shocked, Morpheus has lived a pretty wild life, so if he didn’t inherit it from his mother he probably caught it out carousing . The day I found out the veterinarian I had used before that gave Morpheus shots not 6 months earlier and a well check, stating at the time he was in fine health, she was now telling me he had maybe months to live and I should put him down immediately for the safety of my other cats, because according to her it was like feline Leukemia it was spread through water dishes, minor contact, that they were surely all doomed. Well what this woman failed to ask was whether my other cats already could have the virus, and they do of course because one is his son and the other well she got it by relations before I knew anything.

The part that is really upsetting is that since finding out and making the wise choice not to listen to my “Vet” and put my sons cat down I have been doing a lot of research on this disease, being that I am now running a sort of FIV refuge I figured I better know what I am dealing with. The first bit of mis information was all over the web, almost every site repeated it and that was the life span of these cats, I had been told that Morpheus would die any time and other cats had a very short life expectancy, well thats just not true, not only is he doing great but all the sites say they can easily live to be twelve years old maybe more. Then I was told how terribly contagious this disease is, also not true, it is ONLY spread through bites that break the skin and mating and then passed to the babies. So if you have cats that fight aggressively then yes theres a good chance it would spread between them, my cats don’t fight each other, just me. The other thing I was told was there is no hope, my cats were better off being put to sleep because they would live miserable lives and just rampantly spread the disease. Hmmph *rolls eyes*

What I read today blew my mind, I was just cruising around looking at some new sites I had found on feline diseases and I started reading this amazing site, its called Manhattan cats and its written by Arnold Plotnick MS, DVM, ACVIM, ABVP, he goes into something I had read a little on before which is that there is no “unique to cats” drug for FIV yet, but they are seeing promising results using the human AIDS drug Zidovudin (AZT). Then he goes on to say that scientists from the Parker Hughes Cancer Center in Roseville, Minnesota reported the successful treatment of cats chronically infected with FIV using a drug called stampidine. Cats in the study showed a drop in viral load when treated with the drug. At higher doses, stampidine eliminated FIV in cats with no side effects. No decision has yet been made as to whether this drug will be made available for cats. ??? Are they serious? Not only is Roseville like right next door but they may have a cure! I am so calling them, I mean if anything maybe they would be willing to let one of my cats in on the study, if there is further ones being done. At any rate I am going to be contacting whomever I can on this and doing what I can to find out more on this drug, and as far as my old Vet, she needs to go back to school, don’t tell a cat lover there’s no hope, we will find some!