Coping With Feline Leukemia Virus

Today we found out that our 3 year old cat Merkebah has feline leukemia He was acting fine until a few days ago when he started to become listless and acting depressed. I checked his gums last night and they were white so we decided he needed a trip to the vet. I wasnt expecting the outcome and have been crying ever since.

We have 6 other cats-2 of which are half feral strays that have lived under our back porch since kittenhood-and now all of them will also have to be tested. We had opted not to get the vax for Merky as a kitten because we had planned on keeping him inside. I wish we had. We decided that under the circumstances it was best to put him to sleep. We couldnt quarantine him from the others in our small home, and I didnt want him suffering for god only knows how long just to satisfy my own desire to keep him with us a little longer. My husband is at the vets right now to be with him when he passes on and I wish I could have gone too, but we have a two year old daughter who doesnt need to be there for this.

I just wish right now that we had done things differently, that our vet had reminded us to vax him at his check ups after being informed he was no longer just an inside cat. We make sure to have all of our cats-even the strays-fixed, we bring them in for their check ups, and we thought we were doing everything we should. We were wrong.

My heart is breaking right now knowing that my baby boy will no longer be a part of our lives. He was the sweetest, most loving cat we had ever had the pleasure to share a home with and he will be greatly missed.