Rika Needs Your Help to Survive FIP

Our beloved cat Rika needs your help.

It was an ordinary Sunday morning in early February, we were having our breakfast in our living room, talking and watching TV. It seemd like a typical Sunday but someone was missing. Our cats Kosta and Fatoş was around, chilling with us but despite her love of cottage cheese, Rika was hiding under our couch. She always loved enclosed spaces, boxes but this wasn't like her. After all, we are in love for the past 7 years, since she was a baby kitten. We know each other very well.

A beautiful day passed and our anxiety got hyped when we found her at the same hiding place. From that day to present, it will be called as Rika's Inn.

After her reluctant behaviours, we took her to an emergency vet. At that moment, our biggest fear found us but we had not idea.

Days started to chase each other and we were dragging our loved one to one vet to another. She was slipping out in front of our own eyes. No one could find the cause of her immense anaemia. Great vets and professors got involved to find the hidden sources.

Days were passing and there wasn't any effective treatment for her illness. There were constant tests and analysis for all kind of diseases. We were eliminating one by one but our time was running out.

I clearly remember that the day our vet told me that she either got dry FIP or we will not able to find the cause of her anaemia and we will carry on to applying symptomatic treatments to keep her comfortable as much as we can.

It was an interesting feeling. As owner of 3, I knew about FIP. And all the stories that I know were ending direly. But at that moment, I was desperately hopping for she had FIP. But how can a house cat got FIP, we were carefully as much as we can.

When the results came, she was on the edge, here time was nearly running out. Her body wasn't able to produce any new blood cells and her spleen was five times bigger due to hyperfunctioning.

Next day was Saturday... We couldn't track the days anyone but now, I can see that we were in the 12th day of the symptomatic treatment. As usual, we took Rika to our daily visit to the vet. When her bidiurnal blood analysis came, we were sitting on the bench, in front of the vet. I remember that I heard the vet said we urgently need blood transfusion as soon as possible or the night will be the longest night of our days.

Finally, the day came and we supposed to be ready for this but I don't think we could ever be. The vision got narrowed down and I could only heard some howl sounds.

Everything suddenly came back, I absurly stopped him. We went inside to take notes, since it was impossible to track my thoughts. Someone had to write those instructions down.

Where could we find the blood? What was the procedure? Shouldn't we have couple more days?

It was hectic. The word, cry for help was stretching out from our hearts and everyone around us was help to spread our quest of to find an healthy male donor. Actually, we found our hero in 15 mins, it was amazing but we couldn't let our feelings overwhelm us. 3 more were waiting nearby. We waited hours to confirm for the blood match. Vets said the operation earned us a week or so.

Four days later, she took her first FIP shot. And slowly she started to regain her strength. What a feeling it was to see her walking and eating again.

Right now, we have a giant to kill. Our path demands strong determination and daily treatment for at least 12 weeks. And we need your help and support to finalize this $8K treatment.

Don't let our FIP warrior to fall again. Thank you.

(Türkiye’deki destekçilerimiz bu siteyi kullanabilirler. Our supporters from Turkey could visit this website)