During the years of 1998 and 1999, we noticed that sometimes Tamlin would go into what we called "funks."  He would just lay around a couple of days not doing much or eating much.  It never seemed quite enough to take him to the vets since he would perk right up again.  Oh if only we had known!  January of 2000 rolled around and Tamlin got really sick.  We took him into the vets and we were told he had Bronchitis.  Then a day later I got a call from the vets that Tamlin had feline leukemia.  How could this be???  We had made sure all our cats had their shots.  This prompted us to go to the Internet and do some research.  What we found out was shocking to us. 

Feline leukemia can be very hard to detect if it is in hiding.  Kittens are especially prone to this disease.  Just having the shots does not guarantee that your cat will not develop leukemia.  I learned that your cats need to be tested every year before they get their booster shots.  Our vet at the time was not doing this.  It is likely that these kittens had a mother who was FeLV positive and she gave the virus to her kittens.  Already 2 of the kittens had died, one from unknown causes and the other from cancer.  The vet we were seeing advised having Tamlin put to sleep, but we wanted to fight this.  We took note that during our one visit to see Tamlin at the hospital he was very happy to have us there.  He growled if we tried to walk away, and he ate like a pig for us.  The next day the nurse told us that Tamlin sure did eat good for us.  So we took him home to do what we could for him. 

On the way home from the vets, Tamlin seemed really happy.  The first thing he did when we got him home was to wolf down several slices of turkey.  Then he curled up to sleep next to Jessie.  For the rest of Tamlin's life he did not want to leave Jessie's side.  I've heard that sick cats often want to just be alone, but it was really different in Tamlin's case.  One of us had to be with him all the time.

For a few weeks Tamlin seemed to get better, but then he got sick again.  Joy became upset and wanted us to call the mobile vet to come put him to sleep.  She was afraid of how bad he might get.  It was Monday, February 7th when I made the call.  While waiting for a callback, Tamlin decided he wanted to go outside.  We spent several hours with him outside where he seemed to really enjoy the warm sun.  I was concerned though because he had a strange constant cry.  

In the hours of waiting for the callback something told me to wait.  So when the call finally came, I talked with the mobile vet who recommended we call Pet's Best Friend if we wanted to try interferon.  We had read some great things about both interferon and other natural treatments.  Our old vet's office told us they would not treat with interferon.  When I called Pet's Best Friend, they had a whole different attitude. 

In the meantime, I decided to fight back.  That's when I made up the Aloe cocktail with his antibiotics that we hadn't been able to get in him for days.  And Joy came home with the Nutra-Cal which worked wonders for perking him up. (check the FAQ for the details on all this).   Our appointment at Pet's Best Friend was for Wednesday.  We had one day to wait, and I was going to do whatever I could for Tamlin.

Tuesday morning Tamlin wanted to play in the sink.  I'm so very glad we had that day together.  Yep, we took lots of pictures of him having fun and drinking water out of the faucet.  He also decided his head needed washing that morning.  I continued the cocktail mix and the nutra-cal, and he was doing pretty well until Tuesday night when he started that strange crying again.  I grew very concerned but was holding out hope for our appointment the next day.