The Diagnosis!

April 21:

Today is a grim grim day!

This all started about a month ago when we took Luxe in to the vet for her bloodwork they do before she gets spayed, standard stuff. The results came back with elevated white blood cell count, but everything else was fine. Doc gave her a standard antibiotic shot and sent her home. Doc said she also has a sore painful back, but we just assumed it’s from all the rough play with the other cat we have, Maurice, he’s a much bigger 2 year old Snow Bengal.

We took her back to the vet 3 weeks later for another round of blood work to determine if the antibiotics had worked, so that she can get spayed, but the results from that came back with even more elevated levels of white blood cells, indicating the antibiotics did not work and things are getting worse. We looked online for help and discovered that it may just be from all the stress she is under with the other cat. So we decided she needs to go to my GF’s house for a couple weeks to recover and de-stress, a little spa vacation.

A week later, my GF tells me that Luxe’s mood has been way off the past week, she only sits in one place, starting to stay low to the ground, and hardly moves. Her belly looks like it was growing slightly, but we all thought she was just gaining weight. Even the vet said that she is gaining weight and we need to manage her food better, so we just assumed that’s what it was. But now her belly is growing and fast, starting to look like there’s a small water balloon in there, we were hoping she was just bloated, maybe it’s the food. Or maybe she’s pregnant and its good news? So we booked another appointment with the vet for an x-ray of her belly to see what’s going on.

X-ray came back but the vet was unable to see anything, belly was filled with fluid that obscured everything, but the vet was sure she was not pregnant, as no bones were seen. She also took more blood and sent them away this time to double check her results of the local lab. Results came back even worse than before, super elevated white blood cell count, high bilirubin, low red blood cell count, and the list goes on. By now we suspected it was much worse than we thought. The vet took a sample of the fluid and sent it off to the lab for a diagnosis.

At this time there were things that had not stuck out, but they sure did now. Her gums and nose were starting to get more pale, her pads were starting to crack, and her eyes were starting to look off, the pupil was not sharp. So we wait for the results to come back from the lab and see where we go from there.

Results came back, positive for FIP (Feline Infectious Peritonitis), essentially a death sentence. The doc prepares us for the reality of what will happen in the coming weeks and days. At the point where Luxe was, the vet gives her “less than weeks” to live with absolutely no medical cure. We have the option of putting her down or giving her drugs to make her flight from this world a little less painful. Neither of those options were ok with us, so what does one do when they are faced with an impossible task? We went to Dr. Google.

The next week was hell, her situation got worse real fast. She was hardly alive, barely moved, tried to meow but couldn’t make a sound. Her walking was very off, starting to miss steps, couldn’t jump into the litter box so she would pee right beside it and the pee was neon yellow. When she did make it into the litter box to poo, it would just be stuck to her and she she couldn’t even clean herself so she had to be cleaned every time. At this point she needed round the clock care. She barely slept, just laying there starting at the ground with her eyes slightly open, slowly dying. She found a little spot in the hallway where she spent most of her time hiding away from the world, it was heart breaking and frustrating knowing we are all helpless and powerless to do anything about this.

So my GF took time off work, I took vacation days, and we spent the next week taking care of her as she faded fast. In the mean time, I Googled my heart out trying to find a cure. Called every vet in the city to get a second opinion, and when that came up short, started calling every vet in every city close by. Till one day I got ahold of a vet in London Ontario that only visited the clinic once a month, and she had successfully cured 2 cats with FIP, it felt like we were blessed with an angel! Hope had come back and we couldn’t have been more thankful! She recommended we visit the Warriros 5.0 facebook group and that’s when everything turned around!