Support Beans on Toast's Fight Against FIP

Beans on Toast was once a clingy, affectionate, big-eared, and *healthy* kitten. She was born in April 2023 surrounded by loving foster parents and specially made crocheted blankets. She came into my life on June 25th, 2023, when I walked into the kitten room of my local animal rescue, and she stood up on her own two back paws to look at me. In that moment, it wasn’t I who chose her, as cliché as it sounds; she looked right at me and grabbing at my leg mewed out “adopt me!”

We became inseparable, moving into an apartment as I started my second year of college. She owned the place, toys everywhere, a cat tree on my desk, pestering my roommates by day, purring on my chest by night. Loving this cat has taught me responsibility in ways that I did not even realize, and the love she has for me got me through the last year.

This past Sunday night, July 14th, I was certain that my baby was going to die in my arms, drowning from the fluid buildup in her lungs. Hours later, even worse, I was certain that her cluster seizures were going to take her while I had no choice but to watch. But Monday morning, she was still breathing.

This miracle, seeing her alive, after watching her decline from what was first suspected to be a mild sinus infection but quickly developed into lethargy, high fevers, balancing issues, refusal to eat, and unresponsiveness to anyone. Her seizures, which started as short petit-mal “absence” seizures, grew longer, more severe, and closer together. The first time she seized severely enough to flood her lungs with fluid, I called her animal ER doctor in tears describing everything I was seeing, and with the addition of her blood chemistry results from the day prior, she was diagnosed with Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) without a doubt. That night, I was told that it would take “heroics” to save her.

But there is a treatment.

GS-441524 or Remdesivir is a drug that was developed to treat Coronavirus, and as it so happens, FIP is a rare mutation of a feline coronavirus strain. Only just being approved for use in the United States on June 1st, GS treatment has been curing thousands of cats through a discrete community with access to information and a supply of synthesized GS medication and dedicated charitable volunteers who are all paying it forward on behalf of the success they had curing their own kitties. This medication consists of daily injections or pills and lasts 84 days, with another 84 days of observation. There is a 93% success rate. My baby girl is alive today because my family and our team of angels have been networking to get her first few days of treatment for free, but soon we are about to have to start paying for her medication and supplies out of pocket, with frequent vet visits to treat the various associated health issues that come from being as sick as she is as well as routine bloodwork to ensure that her treatment is working.

Fortunately, FIP treatment is not as expensive as it used to be. However, Beans has neurological symptoms which ultimately require a higher dose to keep under control.

Please, Beans and I need your help. After all of the associated costs of treating and monitoring her, and the money already spent on the vet visits and Emergency Room intervention, I am asking for anyone with some spare cash or even just a platform to share our story to help us reach our first goal of $2000. This number is only a portion of a larger rough estimate based off of careful calculations and thorough research in sourcing only the best for my baby. Any amount donated is immensely appreciated. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you would like to follow Beans’ journey.