Charlie has made remarkable progress. He is fully integrated in with the other kittens. They play together and sleep together. He is eating, drinking and still gurgling. Mike says he sounds like a washing machine! His belly is slowly shrinking, but his gurgling is getting louder. The vets tell me his lungs sound fine, so when I put my ear up to his tummy, that is where I hear the gurgling. I have no clue what it is. He is such a love until I have to put his ointment in his eye. Then he turns into a fighter. I think I figured it out tonight, it isn’t the ointment that bothers him, it is the scruffing of his neck. Even though I am gentle, it puts pressure on his throat when he fights and I still think he has a bruised throat.

We also adopted a horribly abused German Shepherd. We were told he is 2 years old, but suspect he is much younger. He was used in a puppy mill as a stud. Everything is new to him. We have had him now almost three days. We call him Baron. I took him for a walk today in the woods and he was like a kid in the candy store. Someone has beaten the hell out of this poor dog, and I can’t fathom why? He is good with the cats, he was sexually interested in Kody even though she has been spayed- but we got him neutered yesterday. He is a real joy and we can let him outside now without a leash and he stays with us.

This morning as I was sweeping the cat room, Charlie started playing with the broom. I thought to myself “ok you, you want to play?” I took the ping pong ball out of the Drinkwell and tossed it on the floor and he scampered after it! He batted that ball from one corner of the room to the next and it made my heart sing! He is eating now everything I put in front of him. He is also still gurgling and still lurching his throat, but he is almost 100% better than when he arrived here!

Later on, I opened the doors to the kittens’ room and let them meet each other. Charlie and Shimmer had a good time playing, although he and Trump have some alpha issues to work through. Charlie spent a good 20 minutes with the other kittens and it was grand!

Charlie was left alone for a few hours while we took Chandler up to her new home in Portland! I couldn’t be more pleased with the couple who adopted her. She has this huge house to roam around in, a seven year old boy to love her and two adults who understand cats quite well. It was a long drive, but worth it. Plus she will be an only kitty! Which she will love once she adjusts to the major changes.

Charlie had a bath today. Holy smokes! The water turned rusty red from flea dirt! I thought he might be bleeding it was so red, but it was flea dirt and dead fleas. I threw some towels into the dryer so he was wrapped up in warming towels until he dried. Mike and I took turns holding him. he isn’t eating right now, but as gentle as I was, he still didn’t like the bath. So, I suspect he is just a bit upset.

Baker went to the vet today, he didn’t break his leg (thank God) but they did find he had an infection. he is on amoxy. They also took another stab at cleaning his ears= he and trump have the worst case of ear mites I have ever seen.

Here is Charlie after his bath

Passed an interesting night with Charlie. His respirations droppped about midnight and he was looking so tired, like he wanted to give up. We sat together in the silence. All I could hear was that gosh-darn gurgling noise he makes like a washing machine on the rinse cycle. I got to thinking about how his nose is so dry, but he sounds like his lungs are full of fluids. (The vet said they sounded remarkably clear). I told him it was okay to give up. I was kneeling down next to him and he looked over at me. Even though his eyes are covered with all that milky whiteness, his meaning was clear. He wanted to keep on going.

I went downstairs and dug out my baby vaporizer and plugged that in. I gave him more fluids, but I punched through him, darnit! I told him I was so sorry for turning him into a sprinkler, but he just doesn’t have anything to grab on to! Then I kissed his orangeness and went to bed.

About 3:00 a.m. we were startled awake by a huge crash! I turned on the light in time to see the rest of the one side of the bedroom ceiling collapsing! Apparently, we had a leak that got into the insulation. It hadn’t quite made it to the floor yet, but the insulation got heavy and the weight crashed down the drywall and ceiling tiles. It looked like it had snowed pieces of icy boulders. An hour later, the soggy mess was bagged for garbage and I was wide awake.

Upstairs to check on Charlie, I almost didn’t want to go. I was afraid of what I might see. What I saw delighted me! When I came to the screen door, Charlie hopped off his bed and walked over to the door. Stepping over the barrier that keeps him from having contact with the resident kitties, I was greeted by a kitty head bump!

He is now drinking water on his own! I suspect he did it out of self-defense. I don’t think he likes being a sprinkler! But I had taken a ping pong ball and dropped it in the Drinkwell bowl. The current carried it to where the water comes pouring out and it started making this strange sound. Charlie went over to investigate, batted at the ball, then licked his paw. He looked at me, then bent over and started to drink! He also left me two more deposits of parasite for my viewing pleasure. Yuck! Poor kitty- he has such a load of worms.

Right now he has the heater on, his thermal pad is available and the vaporizer is doing its thing. It’s 10:30 a.m. and I am headed for my first cup of coffee of the day.

1:00 p.m. He is eating on his own! I am so relieved. I made a small bowl of warmed A/D and put it in front of him and he scarfed it up! Thank You God!

Hourly checks on the Charlie through the night until 3 a.m. when I fell asleep. Chappy woke me at 6:00 a.m. As a precaution, I am keeping my charlie clothes in a plastic bag at the foot of the stairs. Even though he is fully isolated from the rest of the group, if he has what I now suspect he might, I could carry the organism to the rest of my group.

I am not as a rule an alarmist. In my work with these cats, I have never encountered one that had symptoms of FIP, well except when I was told Guinevere had FIP before I took her home from the shelter. I remember telling the shelter workers they were crazy. Guinevere was 17 years old then, they gave her less than three months- almost a year later, she is still going strong.

Last night when I was comforting Charlie, I was scratching the back of his belly with one finger. I heard this sound like fluid gurgling inside his tummy, and when I made contact with this larger than normal bulge on his side, it sounded much like a drum full of water would sound. It was a soft raspy sound, not typical or normal.

When he goes to eat, I almost cry because he sounds full of fluids, like a faucet that won’t stop running. He lurches his throat and leans forward. It is quite sad. He ate a little bit last night, then quit eating which started the force feedings again. He was fighting this so much that I finally decided to just quit them and let him get to sleep. That was at 1:00 a.m.

This morning, he is off his perch where he slept last night. He isn’t what I would call an active kitten, and he left me a present of roundworms which I was so glad to see. His eyes look a bit better but he is still very sleepy and somewhat dehydrated.
Poor baby…..

If I am right, then there is little that can be done for Charlie, except to keep him in a fairly stress-free environment, and keep him comforted until he passes. There is no cure, there is no test for FIP and if your vet says differently, well he is lying. The virus the coronavirus is carried by every cat especially in multi-cat homes. But it is the benign form of the virus being carried the majority of the time. Situations such as trauma, stress, lack of proper nutrition and illness can cause this virus to mutate into FIP. I put up another high barrier in front of the door so if the other cats do manage to sneak up the stairs, they can’t get close to Charlie.

I could be mistaken here. I am not a vet, nor do I play one on the Internet. He doesn’t have the fevers that go along with FIP but just to be safe, my clothes will be changed and I will take care not to bring anything dangerous into my home for the other cats.

9:24 a.m- after talking to my good friend Dusty Rainbolt- kitten rescuer and author extraordinaire, we both started hashing out his symptoms. Now, after consideration, I am leaning towards this just being a really bad load of rounds. The worms get into the lungs and other organs so this could account for the gurgling- once they break away, they can also get lodged in the throat as they die, so that could account for the hard swallowing and lack of appetite. It could also explain the swelling on one side of the belly. He does look better today, he doesn’t have the high fevers and if he did have FIP, Dust and I are in agreement that he would be getting and looking worse, instead of being a tiny bit mobile.

12:56- Talked to the vet early and his take is if this were FIP kitty would be probably be dead by now. With the obvious injury to the eye, it could be likely he had a collision on the road but that doesn’t make sense to me because such a little kitten hitting a car wouldn’t survive it, especially considering how fast some of these idiots drive.

The only thing I can do is the best I can and keep him in my prayers. He just got another helping of fluids (the only thing he is eating). I feel so bad sticking him with a big ol needle and making this huge pocket of fluid inside him, but if anything is going to pick him up, the fluids will. He keeps getting quickly dehydrated (damn worms). He has moved off the heating pad and is sitting on the floor right now under the chair looking at me like “woman if YOU touch me one more time with that pointy thing, you will feel a lot of pointy things!” He is a fighter, I will give him that.

6:52 p.m. His respirations are slowing. I talked to a vet friend I know from Cat Writers and she has suggested some holistic measures for him. I will be starting them in a few minutes- including Vitamin E, C, probiotics and enzymes. He just got 60 ml of fluids again. His body is so depleted, the pockets don’t hang around long.

Meet Hard Luck Charlie- Charlie for short. Tonight as I was getting ready to just get into my grubbies and relax, there was a knock on the door. This man was standing on my front stoop with this kitten in his arms. He had found it on the highway on his way home. His passenger was someone who had adopted a kitten from me about two years ago, so he brought the orange kitty to me. I took one look at this little boy and ran him to the vet. He has no body weight except for (what I hope) is worms and not something else. He has had trauma to his eye, he was lousy with fleas, emaciated, dehydrated. He got de-wormed, de-flead, an antibiotic shot, supportive fluids and his eye treated. The vet said he would be better off with me than in a cage, so he is upstairs and he just looks so miserable. He finally ate some of the slurry I mixed him about an hour ago. It is going to be a long night- I just put the coffee on at 1:00 a.m. He is making this gurgling noise in his throat, but his nose is clear so there is no visible URI. He also vomited what looked like gravel. 🙁 If anyone reads this, he could really use your prayers-