NAMIRI'S FIP STORY

Graduated FIP WARRIOR: Namiri's journey….

We welcomed two 14 week old beautiful sibling Bengal kittens, Namiri and Duma, into our home November 25, 2022.

Namiri is a super energetic sassy and feisty little independent girl. Duma is a cuddly, goofy, beautiful love bug.

We bought a ferris cat wheel December 20th and Namiri took to it right away and was on it every single day.

The change happened quickly. Sometime in late February to early March she became less playful and was sleeping a lot. And then eating less and withdrawn. She stopped running on the wheel. And then I noticed her growth had stunted. Then I noticed she felt bony. She had a fever.

We took her to our vet March 7th, 2023. Immediately, FIP was suspected. Testing confirmed it. We were grief stricken and were looking at having to say farewell to the wee girl we had grown so attached to at the end of the week. Everyone at our vet’s clinic, including our vet, were mourning our pending loss.

Then a miracle happened. A new vet hired at the clinic told us about a contact she could give us for treating her but not to waste time thinking about it and act. My vet was not aware this existed. Our breeder had mentioned it but everything I read about FIP said it was fatal. Then Iain discovered his boss' daughter had been through FIP Warriors with her Bengal and shared before and after photos with us.

We had hope. We reached out to FIP Warriors, with the help of our breeder, ordered an emergency kit and started treatment March 9th, 2023.

We have hope. And here she is. A living, breathing testimony that FIP is no longer a death sentence.

August 23rd was her last day of observation after treatment and her follow-up bloodwork was done the next day.

Today, August 25th, she has been given the all-clear. We have our baby girl back.

A bit of background for those just starting.

Every situation is different, of course. A key note is that we were fortunate to catch it very early. She had wet FIP. Our vet was also giving us support and assisted us with direction on injections. The trouble was that she wasn’t as sick as some that come to FIP Warriors because we caught it early so she bounced back quickly and became extremely feisty and difficult to give injections to. She literally started to come back after her first day of injections. Her play and energy increased through the first week. She became a Ninja Warrior and rendered us literally useless for giving injections (we tried everything!). Our vet was happy and said it was a good sign - it meant she was healing/recovering. Our vet urged us to switch to the pill form. We had decided to choose one of the options that were available in either injection or pill form early on. We weren’t expecting that we would need to or be able to switch so soon. It worked for us. Most importantly, it worked for Namiri.

A huge gratitude to FIP Warriors, Admins Mon, Jaime, Jason B. and our breeder, Carmen. And of course, Jason L., who got us off the ground with our emergency kit. A thank you to the vet from the Ukraine that initially gave us the printout of the program information and our vet for supporting us through this. And to Shannon who shared her Bengal's recovery story that gave us hope.