Could be worse than we thought
After our less than good experience with our cats, the vet called us with the results of the blood test. The test was “equivocal”, and we’ve been told it may suggest either feline leukemia or feline AIDS. If it turns out to be AIDS, there is a good chance that our other kitty would not be at risk, unless there is a transfer of blood; this is unlikely, as they rarely fight, but a little rough play would. Feline leukemia, so we are told, can be transferred by saliva. If you consider how often cats lick themselves, and each other, the other cat would almost certainly also have it. The petplace.com article says that cats who are diagnosed with feline AIDS will, quite often, also suffer from feline leukemia.
Our vet wants to conduct another blood test in 6 weeks. A change in the levels of [unknown medical term] will tell us what the problem is. For now, we’re just going to hold onto the unlikely possiblity that “equivocal” simply means “ambiguous” and could mean anything, including it was just a false positive.
We can’t fool ourselves, but we can always have hope.