All You Need Is Love and A Cat

 This past weekend should have been a fun time out with my husband and the boys.  Instead it was a weekend full of lots of anxiety as I was working through all the information I received on Thursday at the vet.

On Thursday, Cole stopped eating.  He has always been a fussy eater but he finally stopped.  He had gotten so thin and I was worried that he might have some kind of blockage.  My regular vet couldn't see him so we went to the ER vet.  They were amazing!  They did blood work and x rays and other tests, but could only do just so much to get to a diagnosis.  My choices were grim.  Lymphoma, IBD (Irritible bowl disease), or FIP (Feline Infectious Perotinitis)  Both Lymphoma and FIP are fatal.  Or so I thought.  I remembered that someone I knew in the quilting community had treated her cat for FIP.  I reached out to her and she connected me to the FIP Warriors that operate all across the US to provide an experimental drug for FIP treatment!  

 FIP is caused by a mutation in a harmless type of coronavirus found in cat GI tracts. It causes them to lose their appetite, severely lose weight, and is often accompanied by a fever that doesn't respond to antibiotics. There isn't an official treatment for it, but a lot of folks who have had cats with FIP have found success using the drug "GS-441524."  The doctor that has done the research on this is Dr Pederson at UC Davis.  You can read his publication here.  It has about an 80% cure rate!  It involves daily injections of the medication and the meds are VERY expensive.  It is about $90/vial and Cole will need around 30 vials for his treatment (84 days).

This is after we got home from the vet.  You can see how thin he is now.

 So I ordered a month's worth of the meds while we waited for Monday and a trip to the veterinary specialists at The Blue Pearl.  We spent the entire morning there waiting to find out if he had cancer or FIP.  OMGosh I can't even tell you how horrible this was for me!  I had to wait in the car and could not be with him.  The doctor was thinking cancer.  They did an abdominal ultrasound and wanted to draw out abdominal fluid to check for cancer cells.  Also a chest x-ray to see if there was any cancer in his lungs or heart.  The x-ray came back clear!  The pathologist read out the cells in the fluid, no cancer!  This narrowed the diagnosis down to FIP (which at least gives us a chance!).  Lymphoma, even with treatment, is a true death sentence.  They are going to run a pcr test on the fluid to confirm the FIP.  That will take a few days.

So we came home.  Luckily when we got home the meds were waiting for us!  I loaded up a syringe and gave him a sub cutaneous injection.  First of 84!  

I had put some of my money aside for a cushion that I am using to pay for the vet bills and for his meds, but it is more than I had anticipated.  I can NOT just let him die without trying to give him a chance.  My daughter helped me set up a Go Fund Me page to help pay for some of the vet bills and medication.  It will cover about half, I hope of the vet bills so far and his meds.  We have a long road ahead of us as far as his treatment and recovery.  Our vet would not work with us to monitor his progress, which was disappointing.  The Blue Pearl doctor we saw will be the one to continue to manage Cole and his medical issues so I am sure the vet bills will continue to come. If you can donate, even a small amount we would be so grateful!  If you need you can paypal or venmo (out of the country) and if you can't donate, and we understand that too, please keep us in your prayers!  Also, if you can share the link, that would be amazing too.

Cole is the BEST boy and I am going to do everything possible to give him a chance at a good long life with us!

Thank you for listening and for donating!

~XOP~