My ADHD brain in blog form.
Posted in Cat
When the time comes, the hardest part of being a pet parent is giving your furbaby a dignified exit. I feel it is our duty to gift them freedom from pain and suffering if at all possible. It is a small return for the gift of their love, their presence in our lives. Bumbledore gave me, us, so very much. He completely changed our lives and taught us just how much love can heal. So, we gave him peace, at the expense of our own.
Posted in Cat
Time flies, and we’re now two years out from Athena’s FIP diagnosis. Find out how she’s been since my last update post.
Posted in Cat
Today, Jim and I are celebrating the anniversary of a momentous occasion. One year ago, Athena was declared cured of FIP. Allow me a moment of pure, unadulterated joy that our little goddess is not only still here with us, but going strong. Even just five years ago, there would have been a high chance we wouldn’t be able to say that.
The U.S. has taken a step forward in FIP treatment. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announced that they have effectively decriminalized vets providing treatment to FIP patients. Stokes Pharmacy started selling a compounded treatment — in this case a pill form — on June 1. While we’re still a ways from the legalized treatment available in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands — I can’t find any other countries listed as having legalized the treatment — it’s definitely a huge improvement. I can only hope that this development will make treatment more accessible, both in availability and price.
Now, back to Athena.
Posted in Cat
This post is a continuation of my series on Athena — her diagnosis, treatment, integration into the household, and life after FIP. If you haven’t already, I suggest taking a look at my previous posts on her. You can find them on her tag page.
Posted in Cat
It’s hard to believe it’s only been a year since Athena’s diagnosis. So much has happened in the last 365 days that it feels significantly longer. The important part, though, is that Athena has improved, drastically, from the left to right below.
Posted in Cat
This post is a continuation of my series on Athena — her diagnosis, treatment, integration into the household, and life after FIP. If you haven’t already, I suggest taking a look at my previous posts on her. You can find them on her tag page.
We’re just over one years since Athena’s health saga started, and just shy of one year since her diagnostics. This time last year we were desperately trying to get her to eat and gain some weight. I’m planning a post for the one-year anniversary of her diagnosis — Christmas Eve — looking back on everything that has happened this past year.
Posted in Cat
This post is a continuation of my series on Athena — her diagnosis, treatment, integration into the household, and life after FIP. If you haven’t already, I suggest taking a look at my previous posts on her. You can find them on her tag page.
Let me start with two things right off the bat.
Posted in Cat
This post is a continuation of my series on her treatment and integration into the household. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading my previous posts on her. You can find them on her tag page.
Let’s get the big news out of the way: we are officially considering Athena cured. *Cue applause*
Because of this, I’m changing a couple of aspects of these posts, including the frequency. Unless anything catastrophic happens, I’ll be switching to posting about Athena every other month. If I don’t have enough to share, I may increase time between posts.
Second, as we are now considering Athena cured, I’m restarting the counts to “Post Cured.” I’m not going to count days anymore, I’m just going to count months — e.g. July 3rd is 0-Day post cured, August 3rd will be 1 month post cured, and so on.
Posted in Cat
This post is a continuation of my series on her treatment and integration into the household. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading my previous posts on her. You can find them on her tag page.
Like the previous posts, this one is in a journal-esque format. I’m covering major/important events and updates, rather than what happens each day.
Posted in Cat
This post is a continuation of my series on her treatment and integration into the household. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading my previous posts on her. You can find them on her tag page.
Like the previous posts, this one is in a journal-esque format. I’m covering major/important events and updates, rather than what happens each day.
Posted in Cat
This post is a continuation of my series on her treatment and integration into the household. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading my previous posts on her. You can find them on her tag page.
Like the previous posts, this one is in a journal-esque format. I’m covering major/important events and updates, rather than what happens each day.
Posted in Cat
This post is an overview of Athena’s third month of treatment. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading my previous posts on her treatment. You can find them on her tag page.
Like the previous posts, this one is in a journal-esque format. I’m primarily touching on major/important events and updates, rather than what happens each day.
Posted in Cat
This post is an overview of Athena’s second month of treatment. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading my posts on her first week of treatment and her first month of treatment. If you want to dive deep into her story, check out her tag page.
Like the previous posts, this one is in a journal-esque format. I intend to only touch on major/important events and updates, rather than what happens each day as I did in the first week post.
When Athena was diagnosed with FIP, Jim and I had no information about what to do or expect. With research, we’ve learned a lot, but there are things I wish I’d known before starting her treatment, both to spare her some trouble and to better prepare myself.
Please note: At the time of writing, I do not have any experience with the oral (pill) form of treatment. It looks like we’ll be starting oral treatment soon, so I may have some “lessons learned” a bit further on.
Posted in Cat
Phew! This should be my last Athena-centric post for a little bit. I look forward to some variety in my writing again, despite how proud I am of my recent posts.
This post is an overview of Athena’s first month of treatment. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading my post on her first week of treatment. If you want to dive deep into her story, check out her tag page.
Like the first week post, this one and future monthly updates will be in a journal-esque format. I intend to only touch on major/important events and updates, rather than what happens each day as I did in the first week post.
I questioned writing this post because it seemed a bit over the top. But, this is my blog, and I can write about whatever I want.
Also, I could use a chance to write something easy. The recent Athena posts have been exhausting. The posts about her illness and FIP, especially, each required hours of research to turn veterinary and diagnostic reports into something understandable.
Posted in Cat
com·pen·di·um [ kuhm-pen-dee-uhm ], noun: a brief treatment or account of a subject, especially an extensive subject; concise treatise
Dictionary.com
Like my previous post about Athena’s road to diagnosis, this post will be more technical. I’ve done my best to link to highly technical information — rather than include it in the text — in an attempt to make this more “readable.” Where I’m unable to easily link to the information, or when I have to use medical terms that don’t have a plain language equivalent, I’ve provided explanations through [def] (definition) links.
Posted in Cat
This is the second installment (chronologically) in Athena’s history. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading the first installment on her life before she got sick.
Be Aware: This post is rather different than usual as it serves a dual purpose. While I’m hoping that this account of how we got to a Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) diagnosis will be helpful and/or informative to others, I’m also providing this for transparency with regard to our GoFundMe campaign.
To hopefully help others on the road to an FIP diagnosis, I’m including some more technical information alongside my more typical plain language. I’ve done my best to link to the highly technical information for those who are interested, rather than include it in this post. When I have to use medical terms that don’t have a plain language equivalent, I’ve provided explanations through [def] (definition) links.
To address transparency, I’ve added an “accounting” section with an itemized list of the charges for each vet visit to explain the amount we requested. Perhaps that information may also help someone trying to determine if they can cover diagnosis and treatment because it is expensive.
NOTE: We live in the DMV — District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia — area, where the cost of living is rather high. Therefore the prices I include are almost certainly higher than they are in other areas of the United States.
Posted in Cat
Before I get started I want to note that, for the rest of January, Fridays will be “Feline Friday” as I share the Athena posts I have planned. Also, be aware that this post is rather long. It covers from November 2019 when we first met Athena up to October of 2022.
Alright, yes, my title for this post leans toward cliché, but it’s true. Athena definitely adopted us as her humans before we officially adopted her into our family. But, for you to understand, I have to look back a few years, to November of 2019.
We were in our garage when “MEOW! MEOW!”
“Oh, hello little one!” Jim spotted the adorable little furball first. “How are you?”
“MEOW!” The kitten couldn’t have been more than 6 months old. It was all black and puffed up, sitting next to the downspout by the garage door.
Posted in Cat
When I wrote in my fundraiser post that I’m planning some posts on Athena’s story up to her diagnosis, and updates on her progress, I intended to start with her life before her illness. However, given the timing, it seemed prudent to provide an update on her first week of treatment. My next post will be about her life pre-diagnosis. If you’re interested in that, subscribe to my blog (link below) or bookmark her tag page.
