Treatment for Winter’s FIP

I’m attempting to raise money to help pay for treatment for Winter. Her veterinarian recently diagnosed her with FIP, a fatal disease, killing 100% of cats infected with it within several months of diagnoses, some sooner. This treatment is a drug called Shire, a 84 day injection course that should hopefully cure her of this horrible disease. It’s not FDA approved but when I reached out to a wonderful community of people on Facebook named the FIP warriors, I got to hear all the wonderful success stories and see so many cats actually survive. It’s a drug not yet on the market and is difficult to obtain, however with the help of the FIP warriors group, I can get the treatment through some wonderful people all helping each other to get our kitties healthy and happy. 

September 4th, 2019: I brought Winter in to get spayed, nervous about the procedure but knowing she would be fine. It was my day off work but I wanted to be able to monitor her during anesthesia and spend the rest of the day after to make sure she was ok. We started to get her vitals and noticed some bad things, her gums were white as a sheet and she had a fever of 104.8. We immediately took some blood to send out to the lab and to check in house and she was anemic, almost to the point of needing a blood transfusion. I was so scared, I hadn’t noticed any changes in her behavior except maybe that she was sleeping more often but I thought that maybe it was just because she was growing (she was 6 months old). She was still eating like crazy (she loves food) and acting like a kitten. We started her on a steroid and doxycycline, a antibiotic. Over the next month we checked her pack cell volume and total solids every two days to see if her anemia was improving. It did thankfully and we were able to start lowering her dose of steroids. Then she had a fever spike and it went to 107 degrees and she was laying in her own diarrhea.  I rushed her to the emergency vet hospital at 10pm and was crying my eyes out, worried that I would have to have her euthanized. They were able to get her temperature down and started her on a different antibiotic Metronidazole and ran some more bloodwork on her.  One of the doctors biggest concerns with how she presented was FIP. But after reviewing her blood work and putting a ultrasound probe on her, she seemed less inclined to think it was as she had no fluid in her chest or abdomen. We went home and followed up with her vet at my work the next day. In October we sent out a Fever of Unknown Origin panel, it tests for a lot of different virus and infections, all of which came back negative. This made it even more of a solid diagnoses of FIP. There isn’t a test for FIP so the way to diagnose it is if you rule everything else out. At this point, we were running out of potential diagnoses, she had been treated for multiple things in a attempt to get her fevers to stop happening. At this point, we have spent several hundred dollars, which is difficult with our income and we had just bought a house and moved to Oregon. Skip to now, she has had a fever spike at least once a week but still continues to eat and act somewhat like a normal kitten. But after everything, we have a almost positive diagnoses of FIP. She doesn’t have any fluid yet in her chest or abdomen, no neurological signs or ocular changes, so she is stable. But it’s just a matter of time before she starts to decline and fade before our eyes. She probably won’t live to be a year and a half without treatment. I’ve cried so many nights, done so much research, and been devastated every day about our sweet angel baby. She makes our lives so much fuller. Because the treatment is not on the market, it’s expensive. It’s $80 per vial. One vial will last about 5 days and she would have to get treated for 84 days, bringing the cost of treatment to about $1400. I would still have to have her going to work with me and getting tested to make sure she is getting better. I hate to ask for anything, especially money but I’m desperate to keep her alive. If I can raise the money for treatment to actually be able to see her live a full, happy and healthy life, we would be over the moon and forever grateful for everyone’s help. 

Here are the website links for more information on treatment and what FIP is:

1) http://www.pethealthnetwork.com/cat-health/cat-diseases-conditions-a-z/feline-infectious-peritonitis-fip
2)https://www.zenbycat.org/blog/for-those-looking-to-buy-gs441524-to-treat-fip
3)https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190213100442.htm