crazy cat lady

listen to the guru, action is a good cure for grief, but there are limits, peoples!

man and woman comes back from supper and a cat comes up to them for attention. they recognise it as the sweet young 'village bicycle', having been seen frequently mounted by tomcat and tibby. since this presents a rare window of opportunity, they catch it and bring it upstairs with the intention of sterilising it the next day.

but once they get it home, her big round eyes win them over and they start to think that they might keep it to fill that big old empty place the grand dame left behind. so confusion begins.



before they admit the cat for operation, they have it tested for virus for the sake of fruity and me at home. the results test positive for leukemia and this throws everything out of whack. the vet advices against sterilisation because there is a high chance of complications after the operation. not an issue if the cat is to be kept permanently indoors. what could be done is to deworm and vaccinate it against other diseases, as well as vaccinate all the other cats at home against the virus.

the man and woman rush home to get fruity and me back to the clinic. to their chargrin, the vet then tells them that the vaccination for leukemia is known to cause tumours in cats. it is also not a 100% guarantee and it is best to keep the cat with virus permanently away from the healthy ones.

the man and woman are utterly confused at this point. is it too much to ask for the vet to provide all necessary information up front so that a decision can be properly made? the man asks the vet for statistics on tumours after vaccination but she doesn't have it on hand. so how much of what she is saying is a real risk or just to cover her ass??

keep or don't keep? keep, they subject us to risk and themselves to a lifetime of logistics separating all of us; don't keep, the cat will be out there spreading the virus and having litter after litter of sick cats. WTF!

coincidentally, cat welfare person calls the woman at this time in answer to her previous enquiry about sterilisation of strays. their simple advice (if only sooner) would be to sterilise the cat anyway and then release her. they have sterilised many strays, all with high risk of leukemia and complications after surgery are rare. also, the stray cats that have been in contact with her would already have been infected anyways, like it or not.

logical common sense that the woman is angry with herself for not arriving at sooner. problem is, she is reluctant to let leukemia go. see, she even named it.

but it is too late, leukemia cannot be sterilised until one week after vaccination.

with their very cramped quarters, the man and woman are not confident of enforcing a proper quarantine for a whole week. they release leukemia back downstairs and hope to catch it again when the time comes.