10-17-2009, 10:00 AM
He had the dry form of FIP. For a long time we (his vets and I) thought that it was just a really persistent URI, and he would improve for short periods of time, but then he stopped eating on his own so I had to syringe feed him, and then he developed neurological symptoms. I took him to a 24-hour animal hospital about an hour away, which has veterinary internal medicine specialists, and we tried to bring him back to some sort of quality of life with corticosteriods and other supportive therapies, even if just for a few more weeks or months. But after around a week (a week where I'd drive that hour each way every day and stay for 2-3 hours to visit with him-- fortunately I'm a grad student at the dissertation stage so my schedule permitted that) he had plateaued in his improvement and it wasn't anywhere near enough to get him back to any quality of life, so I decided to let him go. It was the hardest decision I've ever made in my life, and even thinking about it a year later it still makes me cry.
I ended up getting Winston and Ollie a month and a half later, and it was so healing, but I was really nervous beforehand because FIP can happen to ANY cat exposed to the corona virus (basically almost any cat from a multiple-cat situation) so it's almost impossible to prevent (the vaccine is HIGHLY controversial)... Before I got Petey I'd look at his photos SO many times a day and couldn't wait to bring him home-- I wished that time would go faster! But when I was waiting to bring home Winston and Ollie (and I wasn't sure about Ollie until I met him, because I didn't know if it would be too painful since they're both flame bicolors) it wasn't like that at all... I almost wished that time would go slower. I wanted to really use those 7 weeks to heal as much as I could. In the end I was still a wreck for their first few months with me, terrified by every sneeze or soft stool, and when Ollie developed a pink eye at 6 months old (turned out to be allergies, not conjunctivitis) I sped over to the emergency vet at 11pm sobbing hysterically, because conjunctivitis had been Petey's first symptom, in retrospect. But as they grew and thrived it was incredibly healing, and I am so lucky to have them in my life-- they're such wonderful cats. Even though in retrospect the timing was probably too soon, I'm glad that I did it because otherwise Ollie and Winston wouldn't be my cats and I can't imagine my life without them.
I ended up getting Winston and Ollie a month and a half later, and it was so healing, but I was really nervous beforehand because FIP can happen to ANY cat exposed to the corona virus (basically almost any cat from a multiple-cat situation) so it's almost impossible to prevent (the vaccine is HIGHLY controversial)... Before I got Petey I'd look at his photos SO many times a day and couldn't wait to bring him home-- I wished that time would go faster! But when I was waiting to bring home Winston and Ollie (and I wasn't sure about Ollie until I met him, because I didn't know if it would be too painful since they're both flame bicolors) it wasn't like that at all... I almost wished that time would go slower. I wanted to really use those 7 weeks to heal as much as I could. In the end I was still a wreck for their first few months with me, terrified by every sneeze or soft stool, and when Ollie developed a pink eye at 6 months old (turned out to be allergies, not conjunctivitis) I sped over to the emergency vet at 11pm sobbing hysterically, because conjunctivitis had been Petey's first symptom, in retrospect. But as they grew and thrived it was incredibly healing, and I am so lucky to have them in my life-- they're such wonderful cats. Even though in retrospect the timing was probably too soon, I'm glad that I did it because otherwise Ollie and Winston wouldn't be my cats and I can't imagine my life without them.