Risking the intellectual integrity of my blog...

Here are a few early pictures of Izzy, one of our foster kittens from about a year ago:

Late one night, Anna found her in the bathroom, anemic and too weak to walk. We took her to the emergency vet at 3:30am. When she tested positive for feline leukemia virus (FeLV), we were faced with the difficult decision to euthanize her. She was such a happy kitten, but FeLV is often a (painfully) terminal illness. It is not uncommon for rescue/adoption organizations to euthanize FeLV-positive kittens when they show signs of trouble. This is for the kitten's own well being, but also due to resource limitations. The resources needed to care for and quarantine dying kittens could be used to rescue otherwise healthy kittens. Such is the difficult reality of regions with significant feral cat overpopulation.

Since Izzy did not seem to be in pain, we opted to give her every chance, and tried to help her how we could. Over the next several days, we nursed her back to health with nutritional supplements and TLC. She bounced back, found a great home, and eventually tested negative for FeLV (indicating that her body fought off the infection before it became chronic). She's been doing great for almost a year, her owners sent us these photos yesterday: