This is a quick story about our newest cat. Why do I call him a project cat you ask? Well most of us will spend a lot of money on a pet and all of us will spend a lot of money on a project. What happens when a pet needs care that costs beyond what a normal pet lover is willing to spend? He needs to be double classified in the budget. Then you throw out the receipts as they come.
Meet Leonardo. He is a Maine Coon we got to fill the hole in our lives that was left after we lost a 4 year old tabby.
He was diagnosed with FIP a few weeks after we got him. It is a bad situation and up until about 4 years ago it was, "Your cat is going to die in a couple weeks, there is nothing we can do"
Our vet gave us some websites to check out because he had heard of some experimental treatments that are not FDA approved. He offered as much help as he was able to give if we chose to try what was out there but warned it is expensive.
Expensive.... yep. Roughly $5K then you add extra vet visits and lab work.
There is a whole worldwide black market for a medicine that treats FIP with pretty high success. If anybody has questions on it I can answer by email or PM. I joked with my kids that I had to go on The Silk Road and pay with Bitcoin. It isn't that bad but close.
So we order the first batch of medicine and start his 84 day cycle of shots. Yes, 84 days. 84 shots with dosage based on his weight.
I give him his first shot in the evening, it hurts him and tears my heart out. 6AM the next morning we are awakened by him howling on the floor. His back half is paralyzed and he drops into what I can only describe is a coma.
I'm thinking I've just killed my kitten. We have him on a towel on the floor moving him as the sun beam moves and we watch him take his last breath at least 5 times. Each time a starts breathing 20 seconds later.
At noon, in my mind I am deciding where I will bury him.
3pm he is still hanging on but no improvement. We reason that he may have the worse version of FIP, or both "wet" and "dry." The wet version makes their stomachs large and they end up shaped like a football. The dry can attack the brain and eyes and not have external cues. Look at his picture, see that extra eye lid from the corner of the eye, that is a sign of trouble. Ocular or neurologic FIP.
You treat them the same, just higher dosage. We reason that we have the meds and he is going to make it or he isn't. So I do some calculations based on time and weight and we give him a "catch up" dose to bring the drug level up to the higher numbers.
6pm, I've been petting him and telling him he can go all day. As I scratch his head at the top of his nose I see his toes move. That was a fluke. I keep petting and scratching in his favorite spots. A few minutes later, his toes curl again. My wife saw it this time, not a fluke.
Over the next 4 hours he goes from curling his toes to kicking his leg when I tickle his toes beans on his back feet.
11pm he lifts his head but has no control over holding it straight.
He slowly gets his gyro spooled back up and can hold his head up but can only rest his body on his elbow at midnight. At this point he hasn't had food or drink in 30 hours. We get a syringe full of water and he takes the drips pretty well. 30 minutes later he can drink from a small dish if I hold his head up.
I tell me daughter to grab a can of food and see what he does. She cracks it open a foot in front of him and he knows the sound and the smell. He drags himself like a seal toward it and falls face first into his can of kitten pate'.
Water and food in him, he just might make it.
Over the next week he slowly becomes a cat again. He has trouble walking, has poor control of his mouth and grinds his teeth as he chews. My wife and I keep him on 24hr watch for 2 weeks.
He belly starts getting smaller and he starts gaining weight. As he gains weight his dosage goes up, more howling as I give him the shot. The ph level of the medicine is around 2.2, its like giving him a shot of acid every day and not the fun kind.
Half way through the 84 days you couldn't tell he was ever sick. Every time you looked at him he looked bigger, and he was. Near the end of 84 days each shot was over $70 because of his size.
He finished the cycle of shots and then started an 84 day observation period. If FIP was going to come back, it would come back in that time and you start over with the medicine if you have more dollars than sense.
Leo finish his 84 days of shots and 84 days of waiting and all his blood work looked good. He joined the few thousand cats around the world that are considered cured of FIP.
Leo just turned 1 year old a few days ago. He is 17 lbs and still growing. He should hit 23 or 24lbs by the time he is 2. He has totally forgiven us for all the shots but he will attack my wife while she sleeps so he can't be in our room at night.
Taking his half of the couch
