Memes

My gf and I adopted a pair of kittens, half siblings. A couple months later, one of them came down with FIP. For those who don't know, FIP is basically a death sentence. Until recently, it was basically incurable and always fatal. At first, we didn't know what it was. Timmy (yes, that's actually his name) was doing just fine, then he had a twitch. Then that twitch turned into spasms. Those spasms became seizures. At that point we took him to the vet, and they had to keep him for a couple days to run tests. While he was gone, his sister would walk around the house crying, looking for him. That testing is when we found it it was FIP. I remember one time specifically, I was playing a game at my desk, she came in and looked at me, looked around the room, and just stood there meowing for him. I broke down crying on the spot. The thought that her brother was going to die, and she was going to keep looking for him tore me apart. I dunno, something about this post pulled on the same heartstrings, I guess.

For whatever it's worth, our story actually had a happy ending. The interesting thing about FIP is that it's actually a cousin of Covid. Some company was trying to join the running for creating a Covid vaccine. They hadn't made it to human trials yet, but somewhere along the way data came out saying it would be effective against the FIP virus also. The manufacturer wasn't interested in the animal component of the vaccine, so they never tried to get it approved for that, but it's possible to get it if you don't mind dealing with shady Chinese suppliers. And if you've got the cash. My gf and I did double shifts on Doordash, did a fundraising campaign, and still put nearly 6,000$ worth of meds into this cat. But it worked. He lived. He's now the best cat we've ever had. More importantly, his sister still has her brother. Her meowing for him is just a memory now.