SWEETPEA'S FIP STORY

Sweetpea, a Ragdoll x Scottish Straight, was just a kitten, 10 months old, when we found out she had the ‘fatal’ cat disease FIP. Apparently certain breeds are more prone to developing FIP but any cat could develop FIP.

Our nightmare with FIP began when we were out of country and our pet sitter let us know our kitty was listless and hadn’t eaten in a day. We instructed the pet sitter to take Sweetpea to the Emergency Clinic where she was tentatively diagnosed with FIP. The emergency clinic wasn’t 100% certain of the diagnosis so a friend transported Sweetpea to a specialist emergency office. The specialist said it’s either cancer or FIP but couldn’t be 100%. Apparently it is very common to not be able to get a 100% positive diagnosis. The specialist let us know of a group on Facebook called FIP Warriors Canada. I connected with them and in a matter of a few minutes I had an admin person asking to see the lab results and the results of the ultrasound which had been done by the specialist. The admin person felt confident that all the hallmarks of FIP were present and treatment needed to be started without delay.

The specialist vet told us in no uncertain terms that FIP is 100% fatal however a drug being used off label may give her a chance and was available through the group FIP Warriors Canada on Facebook.

As the drug being used is off label it’s very very expensive and because it is off label it can not be vet recommended or administered by a vet without jeopardizing their license to practice. It would also therefore not be covered by any pet insurance.

Considering I was in a third world country with rolling blackouts and no cell service and spotty wifi I had to rely on friends to pick Sweetpea up from the specialist and to meet up with someone to provide an emergency supply of the drug.

Thank God for my breeder who knew how to give injections. FIP warriors provided all of the education needed to know how to do injections but our young house sitter was petrified of needles so the breeder agreed to step our pet sitter through the first injection. After that the pet sitter was able to watch a video and refer to other supportive materials provided by the FIP Warriors Canada group.

The first several injections were rather easy to give because Sweetpea was so sick and docile. Within 3 days she was playing and eating like nothing was wrong.

Prior to starting treatment the vet had said she was on deaths door.

With SweetPea’s regained strength giving injections became more and more difficult because she would fight so hard and I ended up stabbing myself with one of the needles. The FIP Warriors Canada group had a multitude of suggestions for wrapping and making your cat into a burrito to make it easier to give injections.

My admin decided at the perfect time to stop the injections and move to oral tablets instead. This was an amazing day!

With the injections and tablets there are steps to follow that are very precise in order to give the medication the best chance to be effective. We chose the medication with a guarantee that once Sweetpea had finished her course of treatment any treatment needed after that would be at the drug providers expense. We did need to do an extra 2 weeks of treatment to ensure FIP would be eradicated in Sweetpea and those two additional weeks of treatment were totally free to us. Selecting this option made the initial treatment a bit more expensive but we had the assurance if FIP ever reared its ugly head again in Sweetpea we would not have additional drug expenses. All in all between drug costs and costs for lab work to monitor SweetPea’s progression as treatment was administered we spent around $8000.00 Canadian.

The result ….Sweetpea was recently declared cured of FIP. We seriously didn’t know how to feel, whether to laugh or cry, it was such a moment of complete relief.

FIP Warriors Canada admins held our hand the entire journey. They were there for us at crazy times of night and day. I seriously don’t know when they sleep. They always know what to say, how to solve any challenges and are sweet sweet angels to us and our cats. This treatment is not easy and on days when you think you can’t go on FIP Warriors Canada admins know exactly how to support you.

Seeing Sweetpea’s miraculous recovery after only a few doses and now having gone the distance in the FIP battle and hearing Sweetpea is cured I can only hope those in charge of drug regulatory issues will see the hundreds of cats being cured of otherwise fatal FIP and treatment will become mainstream one day very soon.

The journey is stressful and vets are not able to help administer the drug leaving groups like FIP Warriors Canada the only support for kitty families with FIP. Without this group and the admins around the clock support my Sweetpea would have had to be euthanized.

Seems such a sad and completely unnecessary outcome when there is a solution and it’s just so unattainable financially for so many kitty families. This has to radically change and FIP Warriors Canada is leading the way towards change.

Thank you to all admins, other kitty FIP owners who provided unending and critical survival support through the FIP Warriors Canada Facebook page…may you all be so very blessed