Coping With Feline Infectious Peritonitis

It all started when I came home from work early yesterday and my husband told me that one of our outside cats was breathing funny. This was the only sign that we had gotten from her that anything was wrong. Mama was a cat that we had took in after she had wondered up , pregnant and weary. She took to us and we took to her immediatly. She had a healthy litter after we fattened her up and took her to the vet and took care of her. She had been a part of our family for 4 years and we loved her dearly.

She would meet me in the morning as I left for work with 2 of her kittens that we kept out of her litter. Then she would greet me when I came home, happy to see me and ready to be loved on. We lost the male kitten she had to the highway even after we got him fixed so he wouldn’t roam and that was a very big blow to me since I become very attached to my animals and they become my children. Mama was a big part of our lives and when the first sign of breathing difficulty came it just happened that I had come home from work early with a stomach virus.

My husband told me that she was breathing funny and since she didn’t come out to meet me when I left for work that morning I knew something was wrong. I was very sick so I told my husband she had to go to the vet immediatly. I boxed her in a kennel and sent him on his way to the vet thinking that he would be back shortly with meds for me to give her and was heartbroken when he called to say that when he got her there that they had just had to do CPR on her cause she had stopped breathing. He said he would call me back as soon as the doctor came back out and let him know something. I waited as long as I could and I called him back and he told me that they had done all they could but that she had died.

I was devastated. They had given her 4 shots of adrenalin to her heart and pulled fluid from around her heart and lungs but couldn’t get her back. The doctor informed us the she had FIP and that there was nothing we could have done that we didn’t do. I miss her so and pray that we don’t have to go through the same with her baby that we still have. God bless you Mama and I love and miss you so.