How to Care for Cat with Aids and Leukemia in a Multiple Cat Household

Here's an excellent article by Susan Golis from eHow on how to responsbily help your Feline Aids or Feline Leukemia stricken cat and protect the other cats in your household.


I rescued an abandoned Siamese cat three months ago. He was thin but very active. I kept him in my office away from my other cats. Sam needed to go to the veterinarian's office to have a physical and to get his shots. Sam had the Elisa blood test and the veterinarian told us he tested positive for feline FIV Aids and FeLV, or Feline Leukemia Virus.

The veterinarian recommended that we put Sam down. He had no symptoms of either disease, other than being skinny. I took Sam for a second opinion and contrary to the advice I was given I choose to keep Sam, however I needed to make some major household changes. Here are some tips on how to care for a cat with aids and leukemia in a multiple cat household.

Read the full article HERE!

Wecome To Living In Costa Rica ...Your Homecoming Includes A Shakedown At Customs!

Go HERE for part one of this humorous series about our move to Costa Rica:

Part Two

We were standing in the heat, about a mile from the airport, on hot sticky tarmac with half a dozen Costa Ricans, also called Ticos as they refer to themselves, unloading our ten thousand bags and cats, rattling in Spanish, which to this day I still cannot speak or understand...except for a few choice words. It was probably a good thing at this point on the hot tarmac that I didn't know how to swear in Spanish.

Ticos generally don't like cats and are terrified of them thinking of them the way Americans think of rodents...which I never really 'got' the entire time I was there. So having to handle ours, even in kennels, was something to be discussed, debated endlessly, feared, but eventually accomplished. Look at these faces! How could anyone be afraid of these oversized plush toys?

Latin American is not known for its timliness or efficiency and just because they tell you Costa Rica is not really a third world country any more, you really shouldn't believe them. At best it is a second world country with serious issues around timliness among other agonizing cultural traits that just didn't mix with my North American JAQ expectations...I know gotta learn the local fare, but at that moment I still hadn't become anywhere near local.

Getting our belongings and pets ready to head off for immigration and customs was something out of a Keystone Cops movie and I was literally terrified to let my babies go without me. Just loading everything on the truck took over an hour! And by the time we were reunited with them it was another hour at least. We were put into a van clinging to the family jewels which our hosts wanted to liberate from us and take on the truck with the rest of our luggage. Since that wasn't an option we lugged the heavy bags to the terminal and awaited the arrival of cats and luggage...and waited, and waited!

I've learned through my years of travels there are several phrases I needed to memorize in the native language of whatever country I was in and 'Where is the bathroom' was always the first and most important. Donde esta el banos? Simple right? Wrong! I could not remember how to say this little tiny sentence. When I did finally get something like it out of my mouth the guys looked at me like I was from Mars. You don't get to go potty until after you go through customs. They didn't know Tiny Bladder and that I was permanently damaged from holding it in and now about 7 hours later still praying for intervention by the pee angels. I knew it would be hopeless to beg as they were unsympathetic and my Spanish was non-existent anyway. Still probably a very good thing I was unable to swear in Spanish. So my next best move was to ask for a wheel chair because it was easier to hold it in sitting.

Once again who woulda thunk we still had hours to go before I could pee and we could leave the airport! The terminal was almost empty, a total blessing. The dog was with us on the leash and no one said a thing about it except anyone who saw him wanted to pet him and of course he ate it up! He was more interested in marking the entire airport, so unlike me, he peed his way to customs in every corner on each and every chair leg and trash can. I was hoping no one was looking and wanted to drop my pants and squat at one point on the nearest kiosk but bad luck seemed to follow at every corner. My Tico escort was glued to me with no escape possible.


Our adventure in full swing, we had the unfortunate luck of being the ONLY ones going through customs at the hour we entered the country and the agents were bored and needed something to do to justify their having jobs. So they nearly strip searched us! Everyone of our 25 bags, two knap sacks, purses, fanny packs and pockets were emptied. Ooos and Ahhhhs aside, they were convinced we were theives and smugglers and the jewelry was contraband, so they confiscated it...ALL OF IT! Well, not all of it. They didin't get the stuff in the kennels. So fearful and superstitious about cats, they backed off and wouldn't go near them even to peer into the kennels. And that was good because in those cozy kennels was all the gold.

A cacphony of hysteria broke out. I started crying and wailing because that was the only way I could get their attention, the cats were howling and mewling as only cats can do, Winston was barking non-stop and Bryana stood there stunned and silent. We spent hours and hours trying to explain that the jewelry was ours and not stolen, but the customs agents were not interested nor did they understand us. I got angry, I got funny, I got hysterical, I waved my hands around like a manic in an asylum, I started threatening, I swore...in English, I pleaded, begged and tried bribery offering them each some jewelry for their wives...to no avail. Although this is not me in the video, it sure as heck coulda been...except for the Chinese part. And I bet she can't swear in Spanish either...



Someone who spoke Spanglish finally arrived and after hours of cajoling and begging, pleading and finally greased palms for the lot we came away with our things, our jewels, our pets and no dignity...and I STILL had to pee! But HELL, we were in paradise...right?


End of part two. Stay tuned, part three coming in a couple days.

Some photos "Courtesy of CostaRicaPhotos.com"
Thanks to all other internet sites whose photos I have used. Too many to mention. These are my cats tho'!

How Do We Live Our Lives? With Abandon and Lotsa Moxie!

It was pouring rain as we loaded our bags into the back of the Land Rover, our Toyota and Paul's broken-down old yellow-orange VW van with failing fenders, chunks of character and 1960s bumper stickers. That is, we loaded our bags...27 of 'em, and our eight cats, one dog, one mom, one daughter and half a ton of jewelry and headed off for the airport. Of course it was raining! What else?! The gods were crying with joy and sorrow, mixed blessings and grief for our leaving our lives and climbing into the tiny cigar with wings that would take us to a new beginning, the fulfillment of a hard won dream fantasy. We were moving to Costa Rica, the whole fam damily and doing it against all odds and when no one else had the balls to do so even though everyone seemed to want to run away too!

I'm a recovered Jewish American Princess or should I say Queen, a JAQ with a serious defect in my personality. I like taking risks and adventure and don't much give a damn about status, position or clout in the community. Not into stability, the right husband, the acceptable outfit or being politically correct. I grew up having many of my dreams bashed by circumstance or by mom and dad and learned when I became an adult that taking action and bringing into reality those dreams, fulfilling them and allowing myself to live and be me was one of the most important things I could do for myself...and for my kids. And so it was and still is. My kids might not agree with this, but I sure gave it my best along the way. We are all dream makers and in our family we do our best to live them too! So, Costa Rica became a reality instead of a moment in time where we might have been left wondering what would our lives had been like if we had not actually picked up and left.

For me and Bryana, the only 'material things' we are REALLY concerned about are our pets and our jewelry...and for Bryana, being young...of course she loves the guys...not that they are material things, but sometimes I wonder what Bryana actually thinks as she flings them aside in a steady succession of collecting. I used to love collecting them too but then I got old and the only men in my life now are the ones in men!oh-pause.. But who cares? We're not talking guys here, rather jewelry and fulfilling dreams...LOTS of jewelry. Two knap sacks full, my purse, a fanny pack, the back of all 8 cat kennels and all twenty fingers, two necks, four wrists and four ears. I'm talking a LOT of jewelry!

Yep, after years of dreaming about it, being afraid to do it, wanting it, swearing up a tree about it, threatening to leave and pulling back...FINALLY we left. She quit college, bored with the idea of a stable income and great clothes from practicing law and I quit my life bored with the idea of spending the rest of my days working 'til I was carried out in a pine box and disagreeing with whatever government was in power. So we did it. We sold everything we owned...have you ever tried to do that? It sounds easy but is not so easy. Believing we would never come back, we sold EVERYTHING in the house, in the shed, in the yard, the cars, the house and the shed...and packed what we didn't sell. We were down to basically nothing and that nothing filled the 20 foot container truck from one end to the other...with 200+ boxes and my adjustable bed and of course the 25 suitcases and two knap sacks, purses and fanny packs. What was left of our entire house was packed in a big truck and off we went! No one believed we would go, but we did it and lived to tell about it for another day.

Our trip was not originally about jewelry but very soon became a jewelry odyssey and an animal story of great proportion and humor. There was no way we could get all our pets on a commercial airliner safely, feeling confident that one or more might meet its demise in the holding section down under with the luggage. And since we figured out after hours of research it would cost many thousands of dollars anyway, we solved the problem by chartering our own Learjet airplane, a very small cigar with wings. Yes we did! We lived like the rich and famous for a few moments and it was such fun! Can you see it now? Each little party puddy cat and our corgi dog in it's own seat with a tiara or a jeweled collar holding a Martini or a Champagn cocktail and a cigar and wisking off into the clouds towards Costa Rica?

Our two handsome pilots were astounded when we appeared with our paraphernalia and through all the wet muck and the rain. Even with our menagerie, our soggy clothes and dripping hair they still found time to flirt with us. OK, OK! It perked me up for a few minutes and then I fell dormant again. After they loaded the 25 bags, eight kitties and the dog we both climbed on board clinging to our two knapsacks full of jewels, purses, fanny packs and sloshing clothing to make our great escape from American tyranny as we saw it. Winston sat cheerfully soaked in Bryana's lap, the cats slumbered peacefully under a blanket of sedatives, our jewelry slumbered peacefully wrapped in miles of bubble wrap awaiting the next adventure when we got THERE; and I tried to figure out how I was going to make a 6 hour flight without a potty except for an old 5 gallon bucket I brought along for emergencies. The thought of baring my over sized butt openly with no privacy to the two jokers in the cockpit was sobering enough to jam my pipes and help me hold it in for hours. To answer your question, our plane was so small there was no bathroom and to have one would have required a larger plane and an extra $15,000. So we flew to Costa Rica and I kept my knees jammed tightly together until we arrived. It never dawned on me that I would have to hold it in another 6 hours in the airport!

End of part one. I'll be posting this story in bit sized parts over the next few days, so be sure to come back to read the next chapter in our adventure! Thanks to the many sources for the stock photos, to numerous to mention individually. These are not our animals. It was just too difficult that day to take photos on top of everything else!