FIP Story:We rescued Desmond and his friend Jack from a local shelter just before Christmas 2008. We had recently lost our beloved 15 year old cat to cancer and our house felt so empty without him. We originally planned to adopt a pair of adult cats, but we fell in love with 9 month old Desmond and 6 month old Jack as they slept curled up together in the kitty bed in their cage. About a month later, we started to worry about Desmond; he was less playful and his appetite seemed to be decreasing. Then I noticed that he was sitting with his legs all tucked underneath him, just like our sick cat had done and I said, this is not how a kitten acts. We took him to the vet, hoping it was an upper respiratory infection, but the vet suspected FIP right away; three other cats from this shelter had also been recently diagnosed with the deadly disease. Desmond had the tell tale sign of wet FIP: straw colored fluid in his abdomen. At first, I refused to believe it was true, but test after test pointed to FIP and two FIP experts agreed with my vet's diagnosis. The only thing to do was keep my sweet kitty as comfortable as we could, as poor Des came down with one symptom after another: granulomas in his lymph nodes increasing in size, high fevers that wouldn't respond to antibiotics, and uveitis in his left eye. We tried everything we could think of to help Des, including an expensive but futile visit to a homeopathic vet, and all sorts of medicines and special foods to ease his symptoms and help him eat. A few weeks later, Desmond stopped eating completely and the vet told us his kidneys were becoming affected. Although he was very weak, he would fight like hell whenever we tried to give him his medications and we felt he was trying to tell us that he just couldn't fight this disease anymore. We had to say goodbye to our sweet Desmond on March 14, 2009, just five days after his first birthday. We are so grateful for our short time with this special kitty and we miss him everyday. We pray that Jack will stay healthy, but he is lonely without his best friend. Our vet told us that when animals this young get sick, every day counts. I think we gave Desmond a happy life for as long as we possibly could, and I take comfort in the fact that we didn't let him suffer. I know we will never forget Desmond; he will have a place in our hearts forever.