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01
Stripe Today...
via imgur"Stripe was 11 weeks old when we got him - he was found as a stray near the Arkansas/Oklahoma border."
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02
But something was wrong...
via imgur"We noticed he wasn't acting right so we took him to what was our vet at the time. They wouldn't see him for a few days which didn't sit well with us. We took him to another vet who found out he had Cytauxzoon Felis, or Bobcat Fever. The long and the short of it is that a tick lands on a bobcat, gets the disease, and then transfers it to a domestic cat."
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"The domestic cat can't handle it, and eventually suffocates from lack of oxygen. At the time of Stripe's diagnosis, the disease was over 90% fatal in 48 hours. Our vet tried everything she could, but gave him back to us and said he would probably be dead before the end of the weekend. His symptoms would be that he would be lethargic, start wheezing, fall asleep, and eventually die."
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"I spent that Friday cuddled up with him on the couch. He slept the whole time. You can see the little bandage around his paw from his IV. On Saturday, just like the vet said, he started wheezing and fading out. We were going to take him in to be put down, but it was too late in the day. They were closed on Sunday, so we figured if he was still alive, we'd take him in on Monday."
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05
The Miracle
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"And a few days later we got to see this."
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"Not only did he kick the disease, but they used his blood in studies. It was sent to the University of Oklahoma. The disease is still 60% fatal, but he helped a lot of fellow cats out. "
"A few years later he got very sick by eating Iams cat food. If you remember, sometime around 2007 or 2008, Menu Foods brought in a bunch of "protein" from China that was full of melamine - something to make it look like it had a higher protein content than it was. It's basically plastic. The plastic crystalized in his kidney's, and he was again, expected to die in a year or so. We put him on 'kitty dialysis', basically filling up like a water balloon with saline solution twice a week to flush out stuff from his kidneys. Unbelievably, 2 years after this, he flushed all the crystals out of his kidneys and was fine!"
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08
"You'd think this is the end of the story right? Nope."
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Cats have determination. And after all of this consent fear of unpredictable bad luck, Stripe has thrived. Thriving on to 13 years and becoming a best friend.
Wishing you the best birthday Stripe!
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