Help with Winston's FIP treatment and eye surgery!

At Nine Lives Cat Rescue, we believe that every kitten and cat deserves a chance, but we need your help to help our boy, Winston following a recent diagnosis.

Meet Winston, affectionately known as Winny! He was born in care on November 5, 2024. Unfortunately, his mum had cat flu and this was passed onto Winston and his 3 siblings.

Winston and his brother, Ernest, copped the most severe of the symptoms which included chest infection, congestion, sneezing, weight loss and very gunky, infected and swollen eyes.

They were started on antibiotics, but sadly, due to their eyes being so swollen, this made administering the antibiotic eye drops near impossible.

After Winston and Ernest's eyes did open, they were very ulcerated and infected, but our team was determined to clear the infection up. Surgery wasn't an option at that stage as they were still quite chesty from the cat flu, so the only option was to persevere with the antibiotics and the eye drops.

For 8 weeks, multiple times a day, their carer applied their eye drops and at times it looked like the infection was getting worse, but the ulcers finally came to the surface (it wasn't pretty!) and the infection was finally able to be controlled. They have recovered from the flu, but sadly they each have an eye that is non functional.

Winton and Ernest aka as 'The Bad Eye Boys' bad eyes are slowly being reabsorbed back onto their bodies. They don't cause them any pain and they do everything a normal kitten does - they get the zoomies, they play with each other and other kittens and cats in care and they are incredibly affectionate!

The plan was to wait until they were ready to get desexed to get their bad eyes removed (enucleation - the surgical removal of an organ or tumor, typically an eye, from its surrounding tissue without cutting into it. It essentially involves removing the entire organ or tumor in a way that it comes out intact and whole, like a nut from its shell) to avoid the stress of having to put them through two surgeries, however as they were unwell for so long, they are slightly behind in their reproductive development and their testes are a bit on the slow side to fully descend.

Recently, Winny's carer noticed that he wasn't quite himself - he was eating more than usual, but felt boney. He wasn't wanting to play, he was lacking energy, his breathing was faster than normal, his usually very pink nose was very pale, his belly was starting to get big, but he was starting to lose weight. This all happened very quickly - we are talking days!

Our first thoughts were "Did his wormer not work this month? Has he got worms?", however after a few days of no change in him after giving him a wormer and his belly looking more swollen, his carer was concerned that he had fluid in his abdomen and he was taken to our vet for a consult.

Our concerns were confirmed via an ultrasound on 1 May 2025 that Winny's abdominal cavity was full of fluid and Winston was diagnosed with wet FIP - Feline Infectious Peritonitis. Our hearts sank. FIP is a viral disease of cats caused by certain strains of the feline coronavirus. FIP is non transferrable between felines and humans.

FIP generally occurs in one of two forms, a “wet form” in which fluid accumulates in body cavities like the abdomen and/or chest, and a “dry form” that affects the central nervous system, resulting in neurologic signs. Once a cat develops clinical FIP, the disease is usually progressive and almost always fatal without medication.

12 months ago, if Winny had been given the diagnosis of FIP, it would have been a death sentence, however a revolutionary drug is now available to treat FIP and our vet had ONE vial in their pharmacy. But there was a catch - each vial cost $250, there were only 7 -8 daily doses in the first vial and he needed a total of 84 doses to complete the full treatment plan!

With all the trials that Winston had been through with cat flu, our team wasn't ready to let him be taken by FIP! He is too beautiful in nature and spirit of a cat to no give him a chance, so we stuck our hands in our pockets to get him started on the treatment immediately.

Within just 7 days, Winston's belly started to decrease, he had more energy and his sweet little pink nose that had disappeared was back! We were absolutely astounded by how quickly his body was responding to the medication and incredibly thankful. He is eating normal amounts and has almost gained back all the weight he had lost due due to the swelling, accumulation of fluid and being unable to absorb any nutrients from the food he was eating.

Winston has been receiving his daily injection of Remdesivir for the last 25 days (which is administered by his carer) and he has 59 more days to go. He takes it like a champ and knows that as soon as he sees the vial in his carers hand, it's time to jump on the table for his injection.

We have recently been able to deal with the compounding pharmacist directly and submit Winston's prescription to them which has helped us bring the cost down to $100 per vial. But we still have another 8 vials that we need to order to complete Winston's treatment - that's $800 and we have already spent $450 to get him started on the first 3 weeks of treatment.

Once Winston has completed him treatment, he should be in remission and shouldn't need to to have any further treatments and he should be able to get desexed and have the operation to remove his eye.

Winston getting FIP wasn't on the cards for our budget on top of his eye surgery, which will cost up between $1200 and $1500. Both are however necessities and he deserves our help!

The Nine Lives Cat Rescue team can't do what we do without the support and generosity of the community.

We would love to raise $2500 to cover Winston's FIP treatment, costs for his follow up appointments and for his eye surgery - if you can spare even a few dollars, we would be forever grateful and you will be making a massive impact to Winny's life and get him one step closer to finding his forever home.

Anything raised over the $2500 for Winston will be used towards the costs associated with Ernest getting his eye surgery and other kittens and cats in care.

Thank you for your support!