Hourly checks on the Charlie through the night until 3 a.m. when I fell asleep. Chappy woke me at 6:00 a.m. As a precaution, I am keeping my charlie clothes in a plastic bag at the foot of the stairs. Even though he is fully isolated from the rest of the group, if he has what I now suspect he might, I could carry the organism to the rest of my group.

I am not as a rule an alarmist. In my work with these cats, I have never encountered one that had symptoms of FIP, well except when I was told Guinevere had FIP before I took her home from the shelter. I remember telling the shelter workers they were crazy. Guinevere was 17 years old then, they gave her less than three months- almost a year later, she is still going strong.

Last night when I was comforting Charlie, I was scratching the back of his belly with one finger. I heard this sound like fluid gurgling inside his tummy, and when I made contact with this larger than normal bulge on his side, it sounded much like a drum full of water would sound. It was a soft raspy sound, not typical or normal.

When he goes to eat, I almost cry because he sounds full of fluids, like a faucet that won’t stop running. He lurches his throat and leans forward. It is quite sad. He ate a little bit last night, then quit eating which started the force feedings again. He was fighting this so much that I finally decided to just quit them and let him get to sleep. That was at 1:00 a.m.

This morning, he is off his perch where he slept last night. He isn’t what I would call an active kitten, and he left me a present of roundworms which I was so glad to see. His eyes look a bit better but he is still very sleepy and somewhat dehydrated.
Poor baby…..

If I am right, then there is little that can be done for Charlie, except to keep him in a fairly stress-free environment, and keep him comforted until he passes. There is no cure, there is no test for FIP and if your vet says differently, well he is lying. The virus the coronavirus is carried by every cat especially in multi-cat homes. But it is the benign form of the virus being carried the majority of the time. Situations such as trauma, stress, lack of proper nutrition and illness can cause this virus to mutate into FIP. I put up another high barrier in front of the door so if the other cats do manage to sneak up the stairs, they can’t get close to Charlie.

I could be mistaken here. I am not a vet, nor do I play one on the Internet. He doesn’t have the fevers that go along with FIP but just to be safe, my clothes will be changed and I will take care not to bring anything dangerous into my home for the other cats.

9:24 a.m- after talking to my good friend Dusty Rainbolt- kitten rescuer and author extraordinaire, we both started hashing out his symptoms. Now, after consideration, I am leaning towards this just being a really bad load of rounds. The worms get into the lungs and other organs so this could account for the gurgling- once they break away, they can also get lodged in the throat as they die, so that could account for the hard swallowing and lack of appetite. It could also explain the swelling on one side of the belly. He does look better today, he doesn’t have the high fevers and if he did have FIP, Dust and I are in agreement that he would be getting and looking worse, instead of being a tiny bit mobile.

12:56- Talked to the vet early and his take is if this were FIP kitty would be probably be dead by now. With the obvious injury to the eye, it could be likely he had a collision on the road but that doesn’t make sense to me because such a little kitten hitting a car wouldn’t survive it, especially considering how fast some of these idiots drive.

The only thing I can do is the best I can and keep him in my prayers. He just got another helping of fluids (the only thing he is eating). I feel so bad sticking him with a big ol needle and making this huge pocket of fluid inside him, but if anything is going to pick him up, the fluids will. He keeps getting quickly dehydrated (damn worms). He has moved off the heating pad and is sitting on the floor right now under the chair looking at me like “woman if YOU touch me one more time with that pointy thing, you will feel a lot of pointy things!” He is a fighter, I will give him that.

6:52 p.m. His respirations are slowing. I talked to a vet friend I know from Cat Writers and she has suggested some holistic measures for him. I will be starting them in a few minutes- including Vitamin E, C, probiotics and enzymes. He just got 60 ml of fluids again. His body is so depleted, the pockets don’t hang around long.