Greetings, FeLVie fans!

There’s lots of news again this month, so let’s dive in. You already know about Boba and Espresso getting adopted; we’re so thrilled, and it’s even better that the two of them were adopted together.

Our Tucker is something of a miracle boy. Because of his FeLV+ status and the stage of his cancer, our vet team was not optimistic that he would make it through his chemotherapy, but Tucker proved everyone wrong. He has just finished three months of chemotherapy; in fact, he finished so strongly that he was cleared for a dental procedure, during which he had several extractions. His blood work looks terrific, he’s off the post-procedure oral medications, and we’re weaning him off his steroid. Fellow suite-mate Oram had continued on steroids to control his mouth inflammation, but we’re trying to decrease the frequency of those and still keep him happy.

We’ve switched the living situations of some of our FeLV crew. Senior Arthur had not been doing well; he was clearly under the weather and had lost some weight. An abdominal ultrasound didn’t show us much, but we moved him into a suite by himself so he didn’t have to deal with other felines trying to steal his food or competing for attention. We’ve started giving him lunch every day, as well as subcutaneous fluids. We changed his medications around and included a steroid, and to our relief, he has started improving.

Arthur is living in the suite formerly occupied by Tucker and Oram; that duo has been moved into Boba and Espresso’s former suite, so they’re now living with Charles and Hoopla Green. Is everybody clear on that? There’ll be a short quiz later…

Speaking of Charles, he is delighting in the summer weather and loves to sleep in the solarium, either stretched out on the floor or high up on one of the shelves. But he’s not as happy with our staff as he might be, because he’s now receiving daily ear and oral medications since we discovered that he has a chronic ear infection. We sedated him for an ear flush; there’s a chance he has a middle-ear polyp. Charles was becoming more persistent in his demands to play with Hoopla Green and Espresso, and it was starting to turn into bullying. However, we are hoping he can use up some of that energy interacting with Tucker and Oram, both of whom enjoy vigorous play.

Meantime, we continue to monitor Hoopla Green for weight loss. We did some blood work on her, but the results showed nothing amiss. She has certainly been coming out of hiding more and more, but we have noticed her pacing around the solarium, and we’re not quite sure what to make of that yet. Possibly, it’s anxiety, but we’ll continue to watch her.

Durin developed a yeast infection in his ear, but it responded well to treatment and has cleared up. Ponce de Leon has been doing nicely over the past month; both he and Durin love their solarium and are usually found there during the day. Durin sleeps in a cat tree cubby hole, while Ponce favors one of the benches. Over the past month, we installed several donor recognition pieces in and around his suite and solarium, and Ponce was happy to supervise, with an occasional break for a snack.

Finally, we have a new FeLV cat, Derby. He’s not living in Quinn’s Corner just yet; since he came to us so recently, he’s still in quarantine. But as soon as he clears, he’ll be moved to one of the FeLV suites.

My goodness, that’s enough for one month! Thank you so much for helping us care for these Special Needs felines; we couldn’t do it without you!

Your correspondent,
Stephanie