Winston was an 11 yr old healthy happy male. In mid June 2008, all of a sudden, his right pupil dilated to fill the eye socket. It never came down. He was rushed to an animal opthomologist who diagnosed a bengign distrubance of a “branch of the third crania nerve attached to the ciliary nerve.”

Then, over the next five weeks, Winston sneezed a lot, hid under the bed, stopped purring or looking forward to dinner or even my coming home from work. He lost weight and avoided grooming about which he had always been so meticulous. He seemed lethargic and depresssed. His vet put him on 10 mg. of prednisone and he responded spectacularly well - for two days he was his old self, but returned to his lethargic depressed state.

Then, in late July, he drooled, had one tooth pulled under anesthesia and an abcess cleaned out and medicated in his incisor tooth. His other teeth were fine but the vet went ahead and cleaned them anyway. Winston survived a week. I started on a long planned car journey into my retirement from Washington, DC to Scottsdale, AZ on Saturday, August 2. On Tuesday, August 5, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, poor Winston was so disoriented he could not find his food bowl and even fell behind a cabinet against a wall in the motel where I heard him moaning like he didn’t know what was going on. That is how thin my fat cat had become. This was a sign of lack of coordination which, in view of all the other symptoms, which had been evaluated in isolation, pointed to FIP or toxoplasmosis.

The kindly, very experienced vet recommeded that I put my beloved Winston down. He was the only one with the patience to put all the scientific data as well as the anectodal data togther. My tears are still flowing and I must make it all the way to Scottsdale to my new home alone. I am going to get active in cat and dog rescue. There are some animals in Scottsdale waiting for a new home with me. Words from other pet parents would be appreciated. Linda