The Plague! The Plague!

And lo, the angel of the Lord appeared unto Julia and said, “Hail Julie, full of grace, the Force is strong with thee.  Blemished art thou among kitties, and blemished is the Fruit of the Loom Lord Cheeses.  I bear unto thee bad tidings of great oy vey. . . for ye shall contract a virus, and it shall spread and be called feline viral rhinotracheitis, FVR for short.  It is also called feline herpes.”

“Herpes!  How can this be, Angel, when I have never known tomcat -- and have been spayed, to boot?  I do recall that my brother Sebastian, when we were unaltered kittens, did once try to make me his sister-wife.  But before the deal could be sealed, he was thankfully relieved of the family jewels . . ."

“Ignorant girl!  This cat plague is not transmitted though fornication and debauchery.  Nay, we left that one to humans, who boink far too much and are fast overpopulating the earth.  In fact, we have made sure man carries both genital and oral strains, for he is not only sluttish but foul-mouthed as well.  The horse has its very own species-specific herpes virus.  Alas and alack, this experiment was an epic fail, for any horse that contracts the virus needs must be destroyed.   We never meant herpes to be fatal; merely very, very inconvenient."

“And dost thou personally appear to claim every victim yourself?”

“Nay, only a select few.  FVR is designed to spread itself through infected Keetain saliva and nasal secretions. . .

"Secretions?!?"

"Er, . . .yes. . . when infected cats lick and clean other kitties and sneeze in their faces, the latter are ingesting saliva and breathing in droplets of disease-ridden nasal and ocular discharge. . ."

"Ew . . ."

". . . it is even possible to catch it from fomites."

"Really?  Luckily my master's house doesn't have them.  They are so bad for the wood . . . how will I know this sickness when it comes?"

"It will bring upon thee upper respiratory tract infections; coughing and sneezing, conjunctivitis with the danger of corneal ulcers; fever, sinusitis or any combination of the above.  Oh, and you may be happy to know your incestuous brother we also did smite with it.”

Poor Sebastian doth suffer

But his lady mistress comforts him with scritches 'neath the chin

"A word of caution - if thou shalt be living in the company of unvaccinated kittens, thou must take care not to infect them for they are most vulnerable indeed.  Witness poor Fabrizio, a foster kitten who was exposed to the virus before he was old enough to get immunized:

Fabrizio at the worst of his first outbreak

Fear not, for he a healing did find."

Fabrizio healthy again

“That looketh awful. How doth the veterinarian cure this plague?”

Alas, unhappy cats. It cannot be cured. Never ever. It shall lie asleep in thy nervous system and when ye be stressed out or immunocompromised, it shall emerge with monstrous ire and vengeance. We have cut thee a break, however.  There exists a vaccine against it, the FVRCP, which alas thou didst not receive ere the virus came upon you in the wilds of Bronx, NY.  

Also, the longer ye shall carry it and the more advanced ye be in years, the fewer recurrences shalt thou endure.”

“This shall upset my lady mistress. How shall she best comfort me?”

“She can reduce the outbreaks by giving thee 500 milligrammes of L-lysine daily; 1,000 during an outbreak. When thou hast conjunctivitis, she can put the Terramycin in both eyes in twain daily." 

“Angel, when should a vet consulted be?”

"Most outbreaks do themselves resolve in the fullness of time. Mayhap an episode doth wax more serious and lesions of the eye occur. Then get thee to a veterinary office.”

“One last question: Why, oh why would the Good Lord thus punish us?"

“The Good Lord is bored sick. He hath already created everything of old, gotten antsy and decided to mess with thee. Sorry.”