The Merlin Baticus Fund
This is Merlin Baticus. Born on April 22nd, 2020, he is our one year old cat who despite his color, has brought nothing but brightness and happiness to the lives of everyone he has met. He was adopted on July 9th, 2020, and currently lives in Kailua with his baby sister Maxie. When he was a kitten his ears were a bit large compared to his head causing him to look like a bat, thus the middle name of Baticus was born.
On Friday June 18th we took him to the vet for a routine check up that ended up taking a turn for the worst. Merlin has been hospitalized for a week now, and has been undergoing several uncomfortable and lengthy tests in attempt to figure out what is going on. Right away the vets were able to identify some liver issues and diagnosed him with liver failure causing jaundice; however that was just the beginning. As many of you may know the tests he is undergoing are not cheap, and the hospital bill is even worse. After several long nights and multiple blood transfusions the vets have come to the conclusions that Merlin has a rare disease called Feline Infectious Peritonitis or FIP.
FIP is a rare mutation of a kitty virus similar to the corona virus. There are 2 different variations of the disease to include wet and dry. Merlin has officially been diagnosed with Dry FIP, and unfortunately his case is very time sensitive. FIP has no cure, however it does have an experimental treatment that has been tested through UC Davis, with very high success rates. We are hoping Merlin will be able to go through this lengthy treatment plan and become one of the positive statistics that helps another cat in the future live a long and healthy life.
Our purpose in setting up with GoFundMe page is to hopefully raise some money to not only help Merlin go through this treatment, but also help cover some of his medical expenses. We understand these can be extremely hard times especially with covid, however anything you can contribute would help greatly. Merlin is only a year old and we hope to do everything we can (no matter how long the process) to see him thrive in a long, happy, and healthy life.
