Visiting Cat Has Conjunctivitis

This little girl, Roxanne, has been making herself at home lately. We had her confined to one back room but two weeks ago, began letting her into the living room for short periods but not when our cats were in the room (thank goodness for all of the doors.) However, she either caught a virus outside or inside because she's not well. She had watery eyes Sunday; and watery eyes (no discharge) but slightly blood shot in one eye Monday. Watery eyes can mean a fever. Sunday through today I gave her lysine in case it's the herpes virus. And last night and this a.m. I gave her some Buprenex (a pain and fever reducer, anti-inflammatory agent.) I couldn't get her an appointment yesterday at any of the vets we use nor her own (her owner gave me the info) but she has one today with our vet. She didn't appear sick enough for the ER (no diarrhea or vomiting.) Either she caught one and brought it in, or caught a virus from our cats (they have the herpes virus although it's mostly dormant.) If she caught it from our cats, that means the virus can be picked up indirectly through humans (we hold or pet her and our cats) or furniture or cat bedding-anything our cats have lain on that she came into contact. That's not how it's suppose to passed on. It shouldn't be through bedding that a cat hasn't touched in a few hours. It's supposed to be through shared litter boxes, and food and water bowls, or grooming/cat fights. She's not come into direct contact with our cats nor their litter boxes nor food bowls. We also don't share syringes with her and she has her own bottle of immune liquid. So, we will see how many tests she has today and what they confirm.

Let's see how today goes. I'm hoping her vet will tell our vet what shots and tests she has had. We will test her for everything today and get any further shots in the future when she's better. And I'll have to ask the vet if our cats now need other shots. Typically-if you have a cat when it's a kitten-a kitten gets all sorts of shots and boosters against FLV, FIP, leukemia, etc. If a cat is an indoor cat, it only needs distemper and rabies going forward as an adult. If you don't know if your adult cat has had any of those shots, you should get them for the adult cat if it's going out. So, we will see.

Of course, our HCM cats may only need rabies and distemper and should be indoor cats. And our HCM cats may not be able to get even those two vaccines if they are not doing well because their bodies and immune systems are already compromised (Myrna stopped receiving hers in 2013 because the cardio ruled against it when Myrna was having a difficult summer, a difficulty that would increase over time. So, it was never a good time to get them. But luckily, she never got sick from distemper.)

I'll let you know more later after the vet visit.