His name was Ryzik (Redhead). He was the brother of Pusha and Big Grey and their arrival in the beginning of June 2015 is well described in the corresponding posts.
He was the weakest one of those three. He was sick in many ways but the first problem that we had to manage was his eyes. The eyes was swollen, they became glued by pus several times a day and we had to open them by force to put medication in the morning and in the evening.
We have no pictures of that process but I can still remember the horrible sight of his thick, swollen, glued eyelids and tiny eyeball deep inside.
It took about one month before his eyes began to normalize. During this time he was almost blind and had been searching for protection and warmth beside other adult cats, which not always been pleased by this.
Because of such condition we couldn’t begin adoption attempts for Ryzik and he didn’t take part in photo sessions for Pusha and Big Grey.
As time went by, Ryzik’s health got better but his right eye have never recovered completely and its third eyelid remained underdeveloped.
Big Grey had been adopted and his place was occupied by Gegemosha (little hegemon) – another tame, affectionate kitten that had an unfair, cruel fate. You can see him on some pictures in this post – he had a “spotty”, “cow-like” fur color of black and white stains.
On the video below I temporarily incarcerated Ryzik, Pusha and Gegemosha to save the vacuum cleaner from them.
In several months Ryzik became a large ginger cat with nice mustard-colored eyes and perfect, bright fur. He also was rather shy and timid at least in relationships with humans. Since the time he began to feel better he ate much and preferably meat, but we often noticed that his stool wasn’t well and his eye had something oozing from it.
We showed Ryzik to the vet clinic and tests revealed that he has an incurable disease (Leucaemia viralis, FeLV) which affects immune system.
I remember that he didn’t cause any problems during the tests just huddled to me though he was a large, strong cat.
Because of the disease Ryzik had very weak immune system and also he was contagious. Until his death we had been trying to keep him apart from other cats. That was one of the reasons why Pokemons sat in their cage for so long…
As we’ve been told, such a cat can live up to five years in good conditions and we tried to find a new home for Ryzik, where he would be the only cat.
Time went by and we with all our cats met the New Year of 2016.
Approximately in January 2016 Pusha became pregnant from Ryzik because they lived together in the same room…
We somehow missed the fact that they had entered the reproductive age. They were in the age of about 8 months.
We spayed Pusha because it was already unavoidable, but we dragged on neutering of Ryzik as long as we could because we were afraid of the impact on his health.
Time went by, Ryzik met his summer 2016.
By the end of the summer we were forced to neuter him because he became rather aggressive and made problems for other spayed cats.
It seemed that surgery had completed well, although Ryzik was sad and almost didn’t eat for about 10 days after the procedure.
Then began a routine life, all cats lived in their room, sometimes they were allowed to walk all over the flat…
It was about one week before New Year 2017 when we noticed that Ryzik does not eat, he had lost much weight and his fur lost its shiny bright color.
Me and my wife were very busy at that time (I also lost my job right before the New Year) so we barely had time to feed cats and clean their toilets.
Maybe if we had noticed his strange behavior earlier we would be able to do something…
Ryzik was dying under the door to our bedroom and he was waiting for our attention but we just ran around.
When we noticed the problem – it was too late though we quickly found a time to show Ryzik to the vet clinic.
Actually, given his immunodeficiency, there were very little chances that we could do something even at the early stage of illness because Ryzik somehow got panleukopenia. A plague.
There were very strong signs of this disease in his tests.
We don’t know where he got it. He never left home, except the day of neutering four months before.
Also we got a new cat in autumn, but she was healthy.
All our cats, except Ryzik and the new cat Slow-mo had been inoculated against panleukopenia by that time. We couldn’t inoculate Ryzik because such vaccination can be done only for cat that at least looks healthy. But Ryzik had immunodeficiency and obvious problems with his eye.
So, we think either Ryzik was infected during the visit to the vet clinic (which is rather dirty place) for neutering or we have brought the virus on our hands and clothes because we have contacts with cats in the yard everyday.
We rushed to do all that were possible for him – antibiotics, immunomodulators, glucose… But he became weaker and weaker. On the last his week he had a bloody diarrhea and had died by the 5 January 2017.
We buried him in the forest near the other our pets – Mickey and Gegemosha.
It was a very cold day, -30°C…
Ryzik lived his short life in a gloomy room, which was almost never visited by the sun, and finished it in a parcel box…
We (especially my wife) loved this big, bright and shy cat and this was a shocking event for us (actually, my strongest (so far) shock, is yet to come in May 1 2017 with the death of Mooska)
After this shock we’ve made tests on typical diseases, including panleukopenia, for two most vulnerable cats that contacted with Ryzik – Pusha (because she has something oozing from her eye) and Slow-mo (because she wasn’t inoculated at all, at least by us). We couldn’t check all our cats because it is too expensive. All tests were clear and nobody got sick so far (end of summer 2017)
