Ode to Java

Sad news. Java has Feline Immunodeficiency Virus and Toxoplasmosis. There is no cure, but we might be able to control the Toxoplasmosis long enough to extend her life for a while more. Or maybe not. We'll just have to see.


You can see the place on her paw where the fur was shaved off for her IV. She had come home Wednesday night and could not walk straight. We immediately took her to the vet, thinking she'd either had a stroke or was poisoned. The vet said that it could be antifreeze poisoning, and that was potentially fatal, so we had to take her to the vet emergency hospital. When we walked in, the receptionist got on the intercom and called "triage for Java" and someone ran right out and took her. It was kind of funny, since we didn't even know that our city has an emergency vet center with specialists on 24/7. Who knew there was a market for that?

Six hundred dollars later, poisoning was ruled out. Her tentative diagnosis was Vestibular Disease, which looks terrible but isn't and goes away on its own. She came home stable to wait for some last test results, and we stated thinking that when we were kids, someone would have put the cat in a cardboard box in the cellar and said "Let's see how she is in the morning." For $600 the vet put in an IV, ran some tests, and did the equivalent of putting her in the cellar box, only under the watchful eye of expensive specialists. We were thinking we'd spent a lot of money to find out she could have slept in the basement and recovered.

I was shocked when the vet called and told me the news. I'd convinced myself she was going to be fine.


She is tired and unable to walk straight or jump effectively. This doesn't stop her from trying. She knows where she's going, so she sets out for the food dish and walks in a wobbly path, then falls over once or twice on her way. If we don't follow her, she gets to her old food dish spot on the dryer and leaps three feet straight into the air, then lands on the floor like a sack of potatoes. We hear that and go get her.

She has always liked to be held. As a kitten, we called her the "the cuddle slut, 'cause she'll cuddle anyone." Now that she's tired and unstable, she likes to be held a lot. She's still sweet with no personality changes.

She's had a great life and has been a joy to share life with. She's the sweetest cat I've even known.