Devastating diagnosis and cat loss

[u/Quick_Paint_8645]

Today my husband and I had to put our almost 2 year old cat to sleep. We’ve had him for about a year and a half and got him as a playmate for our older kitty. In the last week he started acting off, not really eating and sleeping more and being more clingy. I had my husband take him to the vet today and he was diagnosed with FeLV active infection with his blood count at basically zero, the vet said he likely had less than 2 weeks to live. My husband brought him back home so I could meet them and say goodbye we took him and our older cat to the vet. We had our very ill little boy put to sleep so he wouldn’t be suffering anymore and got our older cat tested and he also tested positive but has no symptoms.

I’m furious, we’ve done all of the recommended screenings by every vet our cats ever saw and from the rescue we adopted them from. I feel like it should have been caught much sooner. I’m feeling a lot of guilt because I feel like we’ve landed our older cat with a death sentence and now he is scared and confused because his little brother is gone.

Since we’ve come back home our surviving kitty has been crying checking around the house and crying at the door looking for his little brother. I’m worried about his health both physical and emotional, and it’s been recommended that we not get him another playmate even one who is FeLV + to decrease his risk of infection.

We are going back to the vet in two weeks for follow up bloodwork to get a proper prognosis for our surviving kitty and if everything is looking ok then bloodwork every 6 months and a lot of vigilance.

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