It's taken the better part of a couple of weeks to be able to write this but
here it goes..... When I first found Rusty many of you were very helpful in
me deciding what to do...

A year ago this month I was working at home in my computer lab on a Friday
like I do every week when I looked up to my window and saw an old scruffy
cat smashing his head into the actual window. At first I thought the cat was
insane but as I looked at him just a couple of feet away I could see he was
not in good shape. Our home is located in a rural area that is prime dumping
grounds for unwanted animals. We have a lot of woods, with deer on our front
lawn all day and night and a ground hog colony in the woods next to our home
and our next door neighbor has a bass pond in his back yard,. It is a nature
scene squared.

Looking at this cat I could see he was dilapidated. You could see his ribs
and there was something about his lips that was in a weird way similar to
Elvis's twitched lip, but on a cat. I went upstairs and I opened a can of
cat food and put it on a paper plate and feed the cat. I have been a cat
lover my entire life. I have owned cats since I was a little kid and in my
41 years on this planet I never saw a cat kill a can of food as quickly as
this little cat did. Afterwards I hung out with him and petted him and he
was purring like crazy. To be honest he was real scruffy and dirty. His lips
and eyes had black all around them. It looked kind of out of place
considering that he was a rust colored cat. Thinking back in the 2 prior
years I've lived here I had seen this cat walking steadily down the street
as I landscaped and I never really paid much attention to him. After playing
with him and figuring that he was still hungry I gave him a second can of
food. He demolished that one also. Now he wasn't going anywhere. Over the
course of the next few days he parked his a.s under my newly purchased "Cat
Lover Lives Here" sign that resides in my landscaping. He stayed right there
and we continued to feed him while he looked through our glass screen door
at our 2 indoor Rag Doll Cats. I found this to be more than Ironic. Here are
2 top pedigree cats a foot away from a dirty scruffy cat who probably dreams
of the life they have. After a couple of days I said to my wife "I don't
care if he is not ours I am taking that cat to our vet and getting him
checked out". I made an appointment thinking that our vet would maybe work
with us on helping him out after all he wasn't even our cat. Well I brought
him to our Vet and this place is a high end vet hospital where most of the
pets are pedigrees and spoiled and in I walk with this cat. The vet pulled
him out of the cat carrier and said "my you're a scruffy little guy aren't
you?" I then told her that although he might not be the best looking pet in
the hospital, he was the smartest. She then asked me how I knew that and I
proceeded to tell her that the day after I put the "Cat Lover Lives Here"
sign out in front of my house, he parked his a.s in front of it and never
left. I explained to our vet what was going on and they performed every
medical test possible on this cat. During every thing they did he never
stopped purring. They even tried scaring him to get him to stop purring so
they could check his heart but nothing stopped him from purring. We also
observed that he had one tooth in his entire mouth, hence why he had that
Elvis thing going on. He was also fixed so at some time someone took care of
him. At the end of it all I was handed a bill for $500+. I must say it kind
of pissed me off at the time. Especially the $21 they charged me to cut his
nails. Considering I bring my other 3 "legitimate" pets there I thought that
they would work with me on this one being I was trying to do the right
thing.

I left the vet with the cat and my daughter and we went to the pet store and
bought him the best collar there. After getting home I put his collar and
shot tags on him and he walked around the yard like he was the coolest thing
ever put on this planet. I remember saying to my daughter that this was
probably the best day of his life and that we would start making him one of
our pets.

Everything went good for the next few days and then I got "the call"...
Rusty (as we named him) was FIV Positive. At first I was quite concerned. My
wife was 9 months pregnant and I had no clue what FIV was other than it was
the cat equivalent of aids. The DR told me that he was no danger to anyone
other than a cat. Humans cannot contract anything from them and that the
only way they could transmit the disease was through birth or through a
bite. Since he had 1 tooth left he wasn't much of a risk. At first I was
kind of bummed about it, but over the course of time I realized that he knew
something was wrong with him, and that his attitude was one that didn't have
the cockiness usually associated with cats. He was very lovable and
appreciative. I would open the garage and he would come lay on the extra
mattress we had out there and he loved being petted. You could pet him until
your arm fell off, and he would just hang out and purr.. In my pursuit to
help him I went online and I discovered that much like human DRs and HIV,
vets know very little about FIV, I found many wonderful people who had real
life experience with these cats and told me many things I could do to nurse
him back to a decent life. I started making him a sport shake very much like
one a human would drink. It contained all the vitamins and supplements that
humans take. Immediately upon giving him this "shake" he started to gain
weight and get back to looking like a normal cat. We feed him like clockwork
4 times a day. Chunk Light Tuna, Salmon, etc.. he was living like a king. He
would hang with me while I did all of my landscaping duties and he was just
living large. One clear memory I have is that at the end of the summer I cut
all of the fresh catnip I had grown for my indoor cats and had a giant pile
of it. While my indoor cats go wild over it and do all kinds of stupid
stoned cat sh.t, Rusty didn't have their energy. So instead of going crazy
he just laid on top of it, high as a kite. As fall approached he looked
better and I was afraid that a winter outdoors would be the end of him. In
the fall my daughters went back to my ex's house which conveniently left me
an extra bedroom. One with access to the backyard via a window over the bed.
My wife's fear was him getting out of the room and fighting with one of our
rag dolls so I put dual locks on the door and that was the end of that
problem. Rusty was now living larger than ever. Not only did he have his own
room with heat, but he had digital TV which was on for him all of the time.
He loved his room. Throughout the year on several occasions Rusty got very
sick. Each time I would take him to the vet and they would charge me up the
a.s and tell me that this was it, but each time he rallied and recovered.
That was half the fun, proving the Drs wrong, and he did it several times.
Once they told me his liver wasn't working but I found out about a special
medicine for a Cat's liver. We put him on it and he was fine. Between all of
the drama, he was the nicest cat I ever met. He would lay on my chest about
3 inches from my face and his breath was horrible from the disease but he
purred and was just loving life.  It became apparent to my entire family
that he was one of the most special animals ever on this planet. In our
quest to learn more about his life we discovered that he was not the 11-12
years old we had thought, but he was actually 19 years old. He had been left
behind by a family around the corner in 1986. He had lived in the woods
around our home since then surviving off of the food left out by other
neighbors and by the bountiful chipmunk den that is in the woods by my home.

Rusty got very sick at the beginning of August. He started breathing
erratically and we got him on antibiotics right away. The breathing just
became worst and worst. After coming back so many times from the inevitable,
this time he couldn't do it. We watched him and prayed for him. We
repeatedly took him to the vets for different attempts at saving this
creature who had become so much a part of our family. It got very bad and I
looked at him and he gave me "the look". It was time, as much and as hard as
it was to admit it he was too far gone and as tough as he was, and as much
as he put up with in his life he had had enough. We called the Vet who had
taken thousands from us at this point,  20 minutes before they were going to
close, only to be told that none of the 6 Drs there could wait the extra ?
hour to help this cat out and that we would have to take him to a clinic 2
hours later. (Needless to say I will spend the rest of my life badmouthing
this rather well known Vet Hospital in Lakewood NJ)  I walked him around the
woods he loved so much as he could barely breath, and said my goodbyes to
him. We took him into the clinic and he passed peacefully.

Rusty was an incredible animal and he made me realize how much could be
gained by giving an old timer like him a chance. I would suggest to anyone
who can try adopting one of the many FIV Homeless cats that are up for
adoption all over the US. It will be one of the most rewarding experiences
you will ever have. These cats know they are sick, and they know they need
you. You will be rewarded in ways a regular pet just couldn't reward you. As
heartbreaking as it has been for my family I would adopt a FIV cat without a
second thought. Our home is not the same without Rusty..He is buried outside
my Office Window on the edge of the woods by the Groundhogs and Chipmunk Den
he loved to hunt by..

Sorry this story is so long but I had to write this for myself and Rusty...

Rusty pics are at http://www.lavolpe.com/r/rusty.htm