well, we started out with one pregnant stray(Sissy). a few months later, we had 5 little ones. Petey, Blacky, Bear, Whitey, and Sweety all black with petey and whitey blk/wht mixed. no issues whatsoever. blacky managed to get pregnant from one of her brothers(maybe sweety), and from there we had another litter of 3….Baby girl, Baby Boy, and Einstein. you do the math—that’s 9 cats!!! to go on, the mother(Sissy), managed to escape and go back to her stray life (how lucky)….down to 8. we also gave one(einstein) from our second litter to a neighbor…..down to 7. another(blacky), we lost under anesthesia during her spay….down to 6. then 2 months ago, after all my fiance and i have gone through, we took in another stray…..back up to 7. he’s an orange maltese named O.K. (orange kitty). he looked as normal as can be, he’s as gentle as you’d ever want a cat to be, and just so mild tempered. everyone that has seen him has said that he is just so well behaved and such a GOOD cat. two weeks ago, he developed an eye conditon. puss was coming out of his eyes and he was reluctant to open them at all. as any other concerned parent would do, i took him to the vet(last thrusday). he wouldn’t even open his eyes for the doc. the vet prescribed a triple antibiotic ointment and artificial tears for him. $70 and a week later the ointments seemed to be doing their jobs. he even seemed to improve as of two days ago. the only thing is that although the swelling and puss is gone, his eye is still has a blueish-whitish tint. still concerned, it took him in today. 10:30AM was his appointment. after the vet had seen him and observed his eyes, she told me that his lymph nodes were a little large and his eye has a severe ulcer on it. she said it was so obvious and so bad that she didn’t even have to steen him to check how bad the ulcer was. she also said, that it’s possible that he may need to be tested for FIV/FeLV. after approving so, she went forward with the test. the test came back negative for FIV but positive for FeLV. (i ask you this, how does it get that bad?) all i could think about today was what about all of our other cats? we have 6 others that were partially, if not fully, exposed to this virus! or, what if they were already exposed to it and just happened to give this virus to O.K.? poor little guy, right?! what are the chances that they are ALL infected? after checking out, they said to stop using the previous prescription and gave a complete new prescription of atropene, gentomycin, and $115 bill to go along with it. she also referred us to an opthalmologist for his ulcer. after speaking with them(opthalmologist vet. office), they said it was going to be $96 for the consultation and another $34 for a needy and likely steening for his eye. were talkig about $315 total for all these visits and i haven’t even seen the opthalmologist yet. it’s also likely that he’ll want to do more to his eye which may push the total money spent over $500! then, just to get the 6 others tested for the virus, were talking another $250. if they’re not infected, we would need to get them vaccinated to prevent such a virus, another $150! hey folks, were talking close to a $1000 dollars gone out of my pocket in visits and medication and i’ve only spent $185 so far. i am really contemplating all of my options, even releasing them so that they can get all the attention they need! it breaks my heart….. all i can think about is, how can i afford to take care of their needs? how can i make this work? i am a full-time college student with a part-time job to cover whatever bills that dont get covered by my loans and grants. i don’t even have health coverage for myself! i ask you, what am i to do? what is the right thing to do? there is a good possibility that they’re going to be terminally sick from this virus. that means many visits, many bills, and multiple broken hearts. my advice to people looking to get in to a situation like mine: GET ALL THERE VACCINATIONS AT THE MOMENT YOU OWN THE ANIMAL!!!