>>507288737Feline leukemia is a death sentence but there’s a vaccine
FIV can be a death sentence but it’s hardly guaranteed, one of our cats had it for like a decade and a half and lived to be over 20
And one of my current cats has it, he was doing poorly for a bit, his kidneys were having issues and he was really thirsty/dehydrated all the time, we got some take home IV fluids and gave him some periodically and now he’s pretty much fine.
In my experience the first flare up is the sketchiest, but if you get him thru it they have a good shot at being fine. It’s not a guaranteed death sentence if you don’t feed him terrible food and help them through it