Coping With Feline Infectious Peritonitis

My lil’ Munchkin was such a welcome addition to my home after Iost my loveable Batman to a speeding car. And Munchkin sure picked up where Batman left off, loved to be held, could climb up on my lap and perch himself up on my shoulder like a baby. I was so happy!

And then his lil’ belly started swelling at about 4 mos. of age), and started to develop chronic diarrhea. Rushed him to the vet, only to hear it sounded like the symptoms of the fatal FIP…had never heard of it before…I knew of FIV and feline leukemia…and thought I had covered it all with his 3 rounds of vaccinations. He seemed fine (’cept for the diarrhea, and an eye infection this past week), and the vet gave me a strong antiobotic to give him. He had been slowly losing his weight and was becoming very skinny, except for the bloated lil’ belly.

Then Friday night he started wetting a deep orange urine uncontrollably and defecated in my bed…something he’d never done before. He continued to eat and drink at a satisfactory level…seemed OK but a bit lazy Saturday (even climbed up and perched up on my chest and shoulder for his loving). But yesterday, Superbowl Sunday, he suddenly took a turn for the worse…became very lethargic, basically went limp when you picked him up. Sunday evening, his lil’ eyes would not even focus or follow you. I knew his time had come to leave us. Luckily he went down so fast and didn’t outwardly suffer much. It broke my heart last night as I again snuggled him on my chest, and heard his little final gasps of air. I am so tore up tonight it hurts so bad. He made it to 6 months and one day…and I was blessed to have him every minute I did. You may see pictures of my precious lil’ angel under my “kids” section at http://myspace.com/weerdwayne