The other morning, I went out to the enclosure to feed Morgan and found her lying so still, I thought she was gone already. I ran into the house and grabbed my fluids and pumped them into her and for a cat who would have rather run 100 yard dash over my head then to ever let me touch her- she barely moved. Damn I hate FIP.

I called a friend, and gathered her in my lap and we raced to the vet. She died on the way. Anne if you are by chance reading this, I am so sorry for this final outcome. My feline specialist when I reached out to her to help me get through all of this said she was sad, but not surprised. Just my early emails to her made her fear that the kittens were fighting an infectious disease or something worse. I know Anne, when you dropped them at my door you did tell me that they weren’t very healthy kittens and we did all we could to try and bump up their immune systems and reduce stress.

I received the family in November and was really hoping that at least one would beat the odds. I need to share the tunnel they managed to build in their spare time before they got sick. The way that the catio was built, George left a space of about 9 inches between the catio and the wall. The cats were dropping into the space and tunneling to freedom- and the only way to stop them was to block the access to the catio itself. It is a clever tunnel, I have to give them that- but they never actually tunneled which they could have done. It was just where they went to hide.

So Sweet Morgan, you could hide from the eyes of people who loved you but not from the disease coursing through your veins. You are now with your mom and your sister in a glorious place where there are now no walls, no tunnels, no barriers- just peace with no pain.

I went in this morning to talk to Mike’s PC and it was the most frustrating conversation I have had in a long time. I explained how my husband is now twitching, moaning, groaning,  mumbling and complaining about pain in his leg for the first time in years. How when he falls asleep in his lift chair, he has such deep spasms that he almost falls out of his chair and his pain keeps me  up till about 4:00 a.m. when his body finally succumbs to exhaustion and he falls asleep. I asked them to please give him some sort of muscle relaxer, and new pain med anything and this is what was relayed to me:

They do not believe that what I am describing is pain. Therefore, they want to explore this new development before describing any new medication so I have to take him in on Monday to be seen and “explored.” I believe I know my husband well enough to know when he is in pain and now when I am carefully washing his leg, he is almost in tears because he feels the pain. His leg is now like a snake shedding skin- but it’s not skin according to the “experts” but a wall of bacteria that builds up within 24 hours. He’s never complained before now so it is all pretty unsettling.

So for right now, when it comes to new rescues, I am going to be a bit selective for awhile and only take one instead of four- or try to help the caller out in other ways without taking any. Too much on my plate right now- too much sadness in my heart at all the recent departures. I just need to step back and figure out how to breathe again-