Please help Shrimpy & his mom battle FIP!

Shrimpy was hospitalized and received a blood transfusion on 8/13. He's since been discharged and is working on gaining his strength at home with his mom by his side! He's still unable to urinate on his own as of 8/20, but his mom has mastered expressing his bladder, and we're still hopeful that with time, this will resolve. They need all the support they can get from our community as they continue his FIP treatment. Please read his story below and share if you're able. <3

For all future updates, please follow Shrimpy's mom on Instagram @popcornshrimpy

As many of you know, Shrimpy is an Inked Kittens Club alumni baby that very recently had a double enucleation procedure to remove both of his eyes. He was born with a birth defect called eyelid agenesis that caused his eyelids to not develop properly. Unfortunately, due to that underdevelopment, his eyes had ulcerated, and he ultimately did not have any remaining vision by the time he came into our care.

I'd love to say that Shrimp has had a smooth go since landing in rescue, but that isn't the case for our sweet guy. After his enucleations, we had a really rough time managing his fever. His first night discharged from the hospital, shortly after getting home, he spiked a fever. I was able to give him SQ fluids to bring it down for that evening, but by the morning, it was back with a vengeance. Shrimp made the trek to work with me (vet med), where we hospitalized him during my shifts for the remainder of the week and continued trying to figure out the cause of this fever. It would come and go in waves, as would Shrimp's demeanor. Ultimately, we ended up finding an appropriate dose for his pain meds that seemed to hit the sweet spot, and from that point forward, Shrimp did great for his remaining surgical recovery!

Fast forward a couple of weeks (June now), and Shrimp was able to go home with his adoptive mom, Sarah. In true perfect boy fashion, he adjusted to his new home incredibly and had no problem making friends with Sarah's other foster kittens & his new sibling, Poppy. Together, Sarah calls the duo Popcorn Shrimp. I could cry; it's so cute.

Safe to say, she was immediately as in love with him as we all had been for the last several weeks of knowing him.

2 months later, and we are now in August, current FIP battle.

This is Monday, this is when Shrimpy came over with the fresh diagnosis of FIP. His meds have been ordered but will still take a few days to arrive. I have FIP meds on hand, so we start him on orals immediately, give him SQ fluids, a B12 injection, and pain meds since we know historically how sensitive he is.

Shrimpy had a PCV of 16 and needed an immediate blood transfusion. Of course, he's a special guy, though, and is type B blood, which proved to be a bit of a challenge to round up. Thankfully, the ER got some located and picked up in no time.

This Wednesday is when Shrimpy really tanked. His temp was low; this was when he stopped being able to urinate on his own, and we discovered he was slightly blocked. Expressing his bladder 3x a day starts at this time as well.

Shrimpy was able to go home! He stopped by his primary vet, where I was, for all of us to see him, and he was looking much more alert!

Sarah and Shrimpy were still having a bit of a learning curve getting used to expressing his bladder, so they went into his primary vet to have them do another one-on-one lesson. Sarah said after this she felt a lot more comfortable continuing with his expressing. I'm confident no one at the clinic was complaining about seeing Shrimpy again either.

Since then, there was one other scare where Shrimpy had an overnight accident and a lower temp, so Sarah took him back into the ER to make sure he wasn't declining again. Thankfully, the doctor that saw him was incredible, and they were able to be discharged again.

All of this to say, Shrimpy has really been putting us to work!

Throughout this entire process, Sarah has been nothing but incredible and wanting to do everything she can in her power to get Shrimpy on the mend despite the substantial stack of vet bills piling up.

I know for a fact Shrimpy has a little (massive?) army of people out there that are absolutely as obsessed with him as we are... and if all of the people that adore him donated just $1 to his bills, Sarah could probably breathe a lot easier. If you aren't able to donate, that is entirely understandable. Please comment or share the GoFundMe if you're able to instead. The more eyes on the fundraiser, the better the chance of hitting our goal!

Thank you, everyone, for caring about Shrimpy as much as you do. He's so special; we're all lucky to be living in his little world. <3 Deej

For all future updates, please follow Shrimpy's mom on Instagram @popcornshrimpy