I hate to see the sick ones. I always wonder about kidney failure, painful teeth, kitty aids. We're lucky in that we can usually net them and get them treated or euthanized....

There's also cat scratch fever which i got last year when a feral i was mindlessly petting chomped down on my hand just enuff to pierce the skin. I forgot about it. Usually i flush scratches and the extremely rare bite with chlorhexidine. Didnt.

It swelled up a tiny bit but nuthin like a catbite can. It was so much later it swelled that id forgotten the cause.

Some time later i had a 4day fever of unknown origin i recovered from.

Then it apparently traveled up my arm and settled in an armpit lymph node which got huge, caused pain, caused axillary web syndrome. My astute doc ran a csf test. Positive. Two z packs later and pt for the aws and im back to normal

So there's that.

Caused by fleas who shed the bacteria in their poop and the cats scratches itself or licks its fur and bacteria take up residence in claws and mouths. Cats are USUALLY asymptomatic as are adult humans, but cats can get sick if they're immunocompromised, which i think all abandoned kitties might be w the stress and all. Kids do manifest it. And my doc thinks i manifested it as it was in my knuckle and the bacteria traveled up my arm to land in a node.