Utterly Devastated....2 months later

I have delayed putting up this post as it has only been the last week or so that I have been able to look at pictures of Rupert, aka Poopy, without crying.  He had been looking a little bloated for a few days and I thought he was constipated and needed a vet-administered enema or, at the very worst, surgery to correct the obstruction.  

He was still eating, drinking and playing as usual, so I figured whatever was going on couldn't be all that bad.  Could it?  I WISH that would have been the case, but sadly it was not.  I took Poopy to the vet on saturday January 30th, and I got the worst news ever for my soul kitty Rupert.  It turns out that his distended abdomen was from fluid accumulation. The vet aspirated his abdomen to obtain fluid samples and sent them off to the lab along with some blood work.  The vet had to use an 18 gage needle, in two separate aspiration spots, to obtain a sample and drain some of the fluid it was so thick.  His belly was leaking so badly from the pressure, he has to be bandaged up. After the aspiration, his abdomen looked bigger than when it did that morning and seemed to have filled up quite a bit in his pelvic area.  

The x-rays were terrible.  No internal organs are visible from below the rib cage because of all of the fluid that has accumulated in his abdominal cavity.  I knew this couldn't be good....

I asked our vet what he thought it was and not to sugar coat anything.  His response sent fear to the pit of my gut and nearly made me vomit all over the exam table - FIP - Feline Infectious Peritonitis.  For those of you who don't know about FIP, it is a fatal disease of which there is no cure and not much is known about it, which made things even more frustrating.  On top of that, the vet discovered that he had a grade 4 (4!!!!!)  heart murmur, not that that really mattered at that point.  He was dying, given 30 days left to live.  The vet scheduled an appointment for Poopy to have an ultrasound on monday to take a closer look at his heart and abdomen, as there is a small chance that it could be congestive heart failure or either a tumor of sorts, but along with his other symptoms, the vet is 95% sure he has Feline Infectious Peritonitis.  I left the vet's office in a daze.


The next day, sunday, the results came in for the blood and fluid samples.  Not good.  The results were confirming FIP.  It was at this point I cancelled the ultrasound.  There was no point, nothing was going to save him.  The vet said that we should consider putting him to sleep sooner rather than later, as breathing was going to become increasingly difficult for him.  Slowly and surely, he would be "drowning" trying to get his breath. 


Hubby and I decided we would put him to sleep that following saturday and we would spend as much time with him as we could.  I wanted to get as many pictures as possible.  

Boy's Club

L-R: Dexter, Rupert & Orion

Priscilla & Poopy

These pictures were taken on sunday night, the day after seeing the vet.  On tuesday morning I noticed that Rupert was "gasping" for breath, something he had not been doing the day before.  When I looked in his eyes, I knew it was time, he was not going to make it much longer and I did not want him to die fighting for air.  There were other signs also.  He had distanced himself from the others, was laying in one spot only moving to go to the litter box, eat or drink and he had stopped sleeping with me.  Rupert always slept with me, but the last two nights he had not come to bed.  

One of the last nights Poopy slept with me

On a tuesday night, just three days after being diagnosed with FIP, we put him to sleep.  As I held him and watched him take his last breath, a part of me died.  I held him in my arms and cried my heart out for my soul kitty.  I have never felt so devastated over the loss of a pet, mind you, I have never had a bond like this with a pet before either.  I can't even begin to tell you how painful this was and still is. I decided to have him cremated and his paw prints were cast and now sit at my computer desk, beside my computer, one of his favorite spots.  

Rupert will always be very special to me.  He chose me as his human.  He came right up to me, swatted my hand and climbed all over me.  When we were leaving, he followed me down the stairs, he was the only one who came down the stairs to see me off.  When I found out we shared the same birthday, I knew it was all meant to be.  There are still days I tear up when I look at his picture, writing this made me cry.  I still feel like a part of me is missing.  

In loving memory of Rupert (Poopy) "Commando Kitty"

20 May 2010 - 02 Feb 2011