Last Monday, I sat down on the couch and thought I felt okay, just “tired.” My eyes immediately closed (although I had gotten a rare 8 hour sleep the night before). I awoke a few hours later with a muddled head and I was surrounded by warm bodies. Rocky, my Maine Coon mix had settled around my neck and was purring into my ear. Matuse (my tuxedo male) was lying on my chest, Sierra (Rocky’s sister and a miniature version of him) laid sprawled on my legs looking up a me intently. Muddy was on the armrest stretched over my left arm and Chappy (who usually only visits me at midnight and later) claimed my other arm.

I felt weighted down as if submerged in water and I was finding it hard to breathe. Shaking the cats off had little effect- they immediately sprang back to their positions all the time watching me. When I shook them off initally, I thought that breathing would be easier, but it wasn’t their weight that was hampering my breathing. As I finally managed to get to my feet, my legs buckled under me and I fell to the floor projectile vomiting just missing the trash can several feet away.

I managed to get to the bathroom where I will spare you the details but I was really sick. Turns out, I had contracted the neovirus and it hit with a vengeance. I was down (and I do mean down) for five days. All the symptoms bestowed themselves upon me and by Thursday I was simply asking God to let me die. I was so sick I couldn’t even go to the ER because the only decent one is over an hour away from our home, so I tried to push fluids, slept when I could and dealt with what nature threw my way. It was dismal and all through it, warm bodies kept trying to comfort me, although most of them were gently removed because even the weight of a kitten on my stomach was more than I could bear. But all the cats, even Dash remained in the living room where I was recovering the entire time I was sick. When I was rushing to the bathroom, Mike said it was like watching the parting of the Red Sea because the cats would back away and leave me a path to the BR door.

I don’t know how they knew before I did that I was ill. It is not the first time these cats have turned mentalists, but if they could have brought me chicken soup or hot tea, I sensed they would gladly do it. When the chills hit, I found myself not only covered in extra blankets from a concerned and anxious Mike, but once again covered in cats. Mike says he swears that if I had died (and I literally felt like I could have) and they cut open my brain- cats would come running out.

I am not 100% but I am better and in researching this benign sounding virus, I find that around in the 1940’s this virus mutated and split off into the cat world becoming the calici virus! Maybe, I am part cat! LOL The virus is resistant to all the known flu vaccines and just like a loving spouse, I can’t keep anything to myself so now Mike has it. The only time I have ever been so ill was years and years ago when I contracted shegella and ended up in the hospital for three weeks.

Before the flu hit- we put a new roof on the cat enclosure! YAY! Paid off the vets!! Stocked up on pet food and helped out some other folks who rescue like me privately. It was glorious and I look at this illness as satan’s way of stealing the blessings of the smiles received on my end.

I did a lot of soul-searching and praying during recovery and have decided to maintain the same status as before. To go non-profit means that I need to be recognizable to the public (which means being off a busy road) many stray cats are suddenly going to be flying over my fences! I have currentlyunder my care and in my life twenty cats, and as Mike pointed out- “If that isn’t a cat hotel, I don’t know what is!” So I am NOT going non-profit (it’s really costly to do it right) I will stay private, and if I place another cat here into a loving home or God forbid, lose one- I will replace it with another who needs all that I can offer. For as I found out many years ago, there will always be cats in need of rescue no matter where I am.

Just want to say- Nice to be back to the land of the living with all my mentalist cats!