Warning: this is majorly pic-heavy. And very long.
As you might've seen in my intro, I lost my kitten, Jasper, to FIP about a month ago (Dec. 3). It's been hard finding someone to talk to, because I really don't know many "cat-people" in my life. I feel like most people don't really get why I'm so devastated by this loss... After all, he's "just a cat", I only had him for a few months, and it's not like I raised him from a bottle. I figure someone here will understand the bond I shared with my tiny boy. Feel free to move me if I'm in the wrong place, I just needed somewhere to talk about him.
I'd been wanting a second cat for a while; Ruby has always been SUCH a lover, but she'd been with Nick since she was a kitten, and we didn't start dating until she was about a year old. She was daddy's girl, without a doubt. Then one day, out of the blue, he showed me a picture. He'd been visiting a friend who runs a rescue out of her home, and she had kittens. He'd fallen in love with the runt, and asked me if I wanted to get him.
Um, duh! He was precious!
I had to wait a few extra weeks because they wanted to get his weight up more before sending him home with us. I think I was more involved than Nick from the get-go, even though I hadn't actually seen the kitten yet. I was just so excited, I hadn't had a kitten in years, and this would be the first cat we'd gotten together! The friend was recommending we supplement him with kitten formula, he was that tiny. So, I started doing some research. (That's the first time I found this site, actually.) Within a couple of days, I'd bought a second litter box, shallower than Ruby's, as many different kinds of canned kitten food as I could find (mostly higher-end), and a big sterilite bin with a hole cut in the side, to keep Ruby away from his kitten kibble. I'd been searching all over the internet for names (we'd decided months before to name all our cats after stones) and settled on Jasper or Mica, deciding to give Nick the final decision. I bothered him for weeks to ask for more pictures of our baby, and finally he managed to set up a visit with them.
These are the very first pictures I took off my baby cat.
Look how tiny he was next to his brother! (he's on the left, his larger littermate is on the right) They were all that bix, except for our one special boy.
Needless to say, I was thrilled when they surprised us by saying we got to bring him home with us! I got to hold him in my lap the whole way home. He was a little freaked at first, but he settled in on my lap. I think he knew he was going to his forever home.
He fell asleep in my lap on the drive, and I knew right then that I was completely in love with scrawny, goopy-eyed little runt.
When we got home, I immediately started taking as many pictures of him as I could. I wanted to document every second with him. I wanted everyone to watch him grow.
He curled up on the couch and fell asleep, so I ran to grab our deck of playing cards. I couldn't believe how tiny this kitten was!
After only a few days, he was right at home. He decided that his favorite places were on my chest or lap, or curled up against my face. He slept next to my head every night, and always wanted to snuggle and play. We decided to name him Jasper, and somehow it suited him perfectly. I bought some Nutrical Kitten to mix with his wet food, and started a list of what he did and didn't like. It didn't take long to notice that he didn't like coarser ground pates, only the super mushy ones. I watered down the ones he didn't like with a little kitten formula.
^That right there is the very first time that Ruby let him snuggle with her. She'd been a little iffy at first, but after only a few days, she'd started to accept him! I was so excited that she was starting to love our little guy. The baths started pretty soon after that! I'd been washing his face every day, but the eye goop completely cleared up when Ruby started momming him.
Just two weeks after we got him, he was able to jump onto the bed by himself (we'd had a box next to the bed so he could get up). He also made it to the windowsill for the first time!
As you can see, the eye goop had become a thing of the past, and we could properly see is big green eyes!
After just one month with us, he'd grown so much! He curled up to go to sleep and I just couldn't resist grabbing that same deck of cards from the day we'd brought him home.
Mid-August, his first vet appointment! He climbed up to the tech's shoulder and adorably misbehaved, and they proclaimed him perfect except for a minor ear infection. Let me tell you, he was NOT a fan of ear-washing!
Mommy's little monster.
He forgave me pretty quickly, of course.
The next couple of months were pretty uneventful. Lots of snuggling, lots of cute pictures. He was the perfect cat, and I adored him. He never quite figured out how to meow, but he'd follow me around and squeak when he wanted attention. If I was sitting down, he was in my lap. If I was standing, he'd climb up my leg. There was no ignoring our little ham!
One morning late November, as I was getting ready for work, I noticed him acting a bit... odd. He seemed a little wobbly when he stood, and he would sometimes start crying and wailing. Nick thought it was nothing, that he was just acting funny, but I wasn't so sure. I started thinking, when's the last time we saw him playing with Ruby, or sitting in the window? I made a vet appointment for the soonest I could get him in, and left for work. Nick texted me a few hours later saying there was definitely something wrong with our Jasper, and he'd called and rescheduled his appointment for the next morning. When he picked me up from work, he told me that he'd talked to the friend we'd gotten Jasper from (she's in vet school), and she'd told him that his littermates had died from FIP just one month earlier. She'd told him that Jasper's symptoms matched up and it was likely they'd all gotten the original virus from their mother. He pulled up an article on my phone, and I spent the ride home reading it. I was so terrified that I was losing my baby, but I wanted to believe it could be something else.
By the time I got home, my sweet baby could barely lift his head to look at me.
These were the last pictures I had before that appointment. We didn't know he was sick at the time, but looking back, it became more obvious that there was something wrong.
The vet we saw the next morning was a different doctor than the one we'd brought Jasper to for his normal checkups. He felt around for Jasper's organs, and tested the feeling in his feet, and the range of motion in his neck. He told us that there was definitely something very wrong, and whatever it was was attacking Jasper's nervous system - that's why he was having so much difficulty walking. I felt like such an awful kitten-mom. How had I not noticed sooner?
We let him know about the potential of FIP, and he said it was definitely a possibility, but he wanted to run some tests in case it was something else. That vet visit nearly bled us dry. Nick was between jobs, and I don't make a while lot, so we ended up having to dip into our rent money.
I had to leave for work again before we were able to pick him back up. Nick texted me again, halfway through my shift, letting me know that Jasper was home. He didn't break the news until he picked me up that night; it was almost definitely FIP. There was no way to 100% confirm it, but the vet was as positive as he could be. There was a small chance that it could have been something else, so he'd sent pills home just in case.
I was heartbroken. My poor baby was dying. I started researching FIP, hoping against hope that there was something I could do, but there was only grim news everywhere I looked. I found a blog from a cat mom who lost her kitten to the same dry form of FIP. That kitten had died a week after she started having difficulty walking.
All of this, and I was due to start jury duty the next morning.
That first morning away from him was the hardest. I got lost and ended up walking for over an hour trying to find the courthouse, and all I could do was think about Jasper and all the things he'd never do. He'd never wear a harness and go outside. Never play in the snow. Never climb a Christmas tree. If never get to see how big he'd get, or if he'd ever learn to meow. Everything was just piling up like the stupid snow he'd never get to see. I was supposed to have a lifetime with him, and it was getting cut short do abruptly.
Every day that week, I had to spend hours away from my baby, most of it with my phone turned off. I couldn't stand not being with him and not knowing how he was.
Every night, I'd go home and feel my heart shatter all over again, watching him struggle to do the most basic tasks. He couldn't sit up to eat, so we put his favorite wet food in a shallow dish next to his head. He couldn't get into the litter box by himself, so I filled the lid to a small sterilite bin with sand and put a piece of poop in it so he'd know what it was for. That turned out to be useless, though; he couldn't go to the bathroom without leaning on something.
For the first time since the day we brought him home, my kitten was hiding and growling. We were playing instrumental jazz a lot of the time to calm him (we'd found out a few weeks earlier that he loved it), but he was angry and confused and embarrassed. I don't think he understood what was happening out why he couldn't control his own feet. He growled if we tried to help him stand, or helped hold him up to use the litter box. He whined if he couldn't get comfortable by himself. It was heartbreaking to watch, but it was terrifying to be away from him. He got so much worse every day. He purred a lot during that week, though. I know that cats sometimes purr when they're scared or in pain, but he only ever purred when he was in my lap, so I like to think that I was able to offer him some comfort.
One day he sat at the foot of our computer chair, one of his favorite spots to sleep, and cried until I picked him up and arranged him on out so he could nap. It's the last picture I have of him.
He was so dang happy to be on that chair.
Finally, on my fourth day of jury duty, I was in better spirits. It was my last day, and I would have four days off to spend with Jasper before I had to go back to work. I'd decided to put up our little Christmas tree when I got home; he wouldn't be able to climb it or probably even play with the ornaments, but at least he could see it. He could sit under it and maybe chew on the needles.
That day took so much longer than it should have, but I was feeling good, ready to go home and see my baby.
Then Nick picked me up.
It took me a minute to realize that there was something wrong, and minute more for him to tell me what happened.
Jasper had had a stroke or a seizure after I'd left. Nick had called the vet, and scheduled to have him put down that night. He might have just been struggling before, but now he was suffering. He didn't deserve that.
Nick went to his mom's house, just for a while. It must have been awful being alone.
When he came home, he found Jasper. Our little baby was gone. He'd died maybe two hours before I was ready to go home.
I couldn't quit sobbing the whole drive, and it started fresh all over again when I saw him. Nick had wrapped him up in a fuzzy little Christmas blanket. He looked like he could be asleep, but when I touched him he felt like stone.
Nick called the vet while I held my Jasper, and arranged to bring him in for cremation. I cradled him the whole way there. They offered us an exam room so we could be alone until the vet came in. It was the same one who'd seen Jasper after he got sick. He took each of our hands in turn between both of his, looked us in the eye, and told us how sorry he was for our loss. He assured us that there was nothing we could have done to stop this, and told us Jasper was lucky to have had a home with us. He told us he could have Jasper sent to the U for a necropsy, to confirm that it was FIP, but we declined. We knew it was. He deserved to be at rest.
He left then, and a nurse/tech stayed to go over cremation options. She was stroking Jasper's fur the whole time, which was oddly comforting for me. She said he must have gone quickly, he looked so peaceful. She thought it was a kind of blessing that he was at home, and I had to agree. Jasper never liked the vet like Ruby did. He was happiest at home with us.
She left us alone to say goodbye, and told us to leave whenever we were ready.
I wasn't ready. I'd never be ready. But I kissed his head, told him I loved him, and we left.
I still feel lost without him. I'll have dreams that he's alive and well, and then I'll wake up and he's not next to my head. I can't listen to jazz anymore without crying, but I've constantly got one Frank Sinatra sing stuck in my head. Just one line. "Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars"
Well, my little jazz kitty is playing in the stars now. Chasing star mice
As you might've seen in my intro, I lost my kitten, Jasper, to FIP about a month ago (Dec. 3). It's been hard finding someone to talk to, because I really don't know many "cat-people" in my life. I feel like most people don't really get why I'm so devastated by this loss... After all, he's "just a cat", I only had him for a few months, and it's not like I raised him from a bottle. I figure someone here will understand the bond I shared with my tiny boy. Feel free to move me if I'm in the wrong place, I just needed somewhere to talk about him.
I'd been wanting a second cat for a while; Ruby has always been SUCH a lover, but she'd been with Nick since she was a kitten, and we didn't start dating until she was about a year old. She was daddy's girl, without a doubt. Then one day, out of the blue, he showed me a picture. He'd been visiting a friend who runs a rescue out of her home, and she had kittens. He'd fallen in love with the runt, and asked me if I wanted to get him.
Um, duh! He was precious!
I had to wait a few extra weeks because they wanted to get his weight up more before sending him home with us. I think I was more involved than Nick from the get-go, even though I hadn't actually seen the kitten yet. I was just so excited, I hadn't had a kitten in years, and this would be the first cat we'd gotten together! The friend was recommending we supplement him with kitten formula, he was that tiny. So, I started doing some research. (That's the first time I found this site, actually.) Within a couple of days, I'd bought a second litter box, shallower than Ruby's, as many different kinds of canned kitten food as I could find (mostly higher-end), and a big sterilite bin with a hole cut in the side, to keep Ruby away from his kitten kibble. I'd been searching all over the internet for names (we'd decided months before to name all our cats after stones) and settled on Jasper or Mica, deciding to give Nick the final decision. I bothered him for weeks to ask for more pictures of our baby, and finally he managed to set up a visit with them.
These are the very first pictures I took off my baby cat.
Needless to say, I was thrilled when they surprised us by saying we got to bring him home with us! I got to hold him in my lap the whole way home. He was a little freaked at first, but he settled in on my lap. I think he knew he was going to his forever home.
When we got home, I immediately started taking as many pictures of him as I could. I wanted to document every second with him. I wanted everyone to watch him grow.
After only a few days, he was right at home. He decided that his favorite places were on my chest or lap, or curled up against my face. He slept next to my head every night, and always wanted to snuggle and play. We decided to name him Jasper, and somehow it suited him perfectly. I bought some Nutrical Kitten to mix with his wet food, and started a list of what he did and didn't like. It didn't take long to notice that he didn't like coarser ground pates, only the super mushy ones. I watered down the ones he didn't like with a little kitten formula.
Mid-August, his first vet appointment! He climbed up to the tech's shoulder and adorably misbehaved, and they proclaimed him perfect except for a minor ear infection. Let me tell you, he was NOT a fan of ear-washing!
He forgave me pretty quickly, of course.
The next couple of months were pretty uneventful. Lots of snuggling, lots of cute pictures. He was the perfect cat, and I adored him. He never quite figured out how to meow, but he'd follow me around and squeak when he wanted attention. If I was sitting down, he was in my lap. If I was standing, he'd climb up my leg. There was no ignoring our little ham!
By the time I got home, my sweet baby could barely lift his head to look at me.
The vet we saw the next morning was a different doctor than the one we'd brought Jasper to for his normal checkups. He felt around for Jasper's organs, and tested the feeling in his feet, and the range of motion in his neck. He told us that there was definitely something very wrong, and whatever it was was attacking Jasper's nervous system - that's why he was having so much difficulty walking. I felt like such an awful kitten-mom. How had I not noticed sooner?
We let him know about the potential of FIP, and he said it was definitely a possibility, but he wanted to run some tests in case it was something else. That vet visit nearly bled us dry. Nick was between jobs, and I don't make a while lot, so we ended up having to dip into our rent money.
I had to leave for work again before we were able to pick him back up. Nick texted me again, halfway through my shift, letting me know that Jasper was home. He didn't break the news until he picked me up that night; it was almost definitely FIP. There was no way to 100% confirm it, but the vet was as positive as he could be. There was a small chance that it could have been something else, so he'd sent pills home just in case.
I was heartbroken. My poor baby was dying. I started researching FIP, hoping against hope that there was something I could do, but there was only grim news everywhere I looked. I found a blog from a cat mom who lost her kitten to the same dry form of FIP. That kitten had died a week after she started having difficulty walking.
All of this, and I was due to start jury duty the next morning.
That first morning away from him was the hardest. I got lost and ended up walking for over an hour trying to find the courthouse, and all I could do was think about Jasper and all the things he'd never do. He'd never wear a harness and go outside. Never play in the snow. Never climb a Christmas tree. If never get to see how big he'd get, or if he'd ever learn to meow. Everything was just piling up like the stupid snow he'd never get to see. I was supposed to have a lifetime with him, and it was getting cut short do abruptly.
Every day that week, I had to spend hours away from my baby, most of it with my phone turned off. I couldn't stand not being with him and not knowing how he was.
Every night, I'd go home and feel my heart shatter all over again, watching him struggle to do the most basic tasks. He couldn't sit up to eat, so we put his favorite wet food in a shallow dish next to his head. He couldn't get into the litter box by himself, so I filled the lid to a small sterilite bin with sand and put a piece of poop in it so he'd know what it was for. That turned out to be useless, though; he couldn't go to the bathroom without leaning on something.
For the first time since the day we brought him home, my kitten was hiding and growling. We were playing instrumental jazz a lot of the time to calm him (we'd found out a few weeks earlier that he loved it), but he was angry and confused and embarrassed. I don't think he understood what was happening out why he couldn't control his own feet. He growled if we tried to help him stand, or helped hold him up to use the litter box. He whined if he couldn't get comfortable by himself. It was heartbreaking to watch, but it was terrifying to be away from him. He got so much worse every day. He purred a lot during that week, though. I know that cats sometimes purr when they're scared or in pain, but he only ever purred when he was in my lap, so I like to think that I was able to offer him some comfort.
One day he sat at the foot of our computer chair, one of his favorite spots to sleep, and cried until I picked him up and arranged him on out so he could nap. It's the last picture I have of him.
Finally, on my fourth day of jury duty, I was in better spirits. It was my last day, and I would have four days off to spend with Jasper before I had to go back to work. I'd decided to put up our little Christmas tree when I got home; he wouldn't be able to climb it or probably even play with the ornaments, but at least he could see it. He could sit under it and maybe chew on the needles.
That day took so much longer than it should have, but I was feeling good, ready to go home and see my baby.
Then Nick picked me up.
It took me a minute to realize that there was something wrong, and minute more for him to tell me what happened.
Jasper had had a stroke or a seizure after I'd left. Nick had called the vet, and scheduled to have him put down that night. He might have just been struggling before, but now he was suffering. He didn't deserve that.
Nick went to his mom's house, just for a while. It must have been awful being alone.
When he came home, he found Jasper. Our little baby was gone. He'd died maybe two hours before I was ready to go home.
I couldn't quit sobbing the whole drive, and it started fresh all over again when I saw him. Nick had wrapped him up in a fuzzy little Christmas blanket. He looked like he could be asleep, but when I touched him he felt like stone.
Nick called the vet while I held my Jasper, and arranged to bring him in for cremation. I cradled him the whole way there. They offered us an exam room so we could be alone until the vet came in. It was the same one who'd seen Jasper after he got sick. He took each of our hands in turn between both of his, looked us in the eye, and told us how sorry he was for our loss. He assured us that there was nothing we could have done to stop this, and told us Jasper was lucky to have had a home with us. He told us he could have Jasper sent to the U for a necropsy, to confirm that it was FIP, but we declined. We knew it was. He deserved to be at rest.
He left then, and a nurse/tech stayed to go over cremation options. She was stroking Jasper's fur the whole time, which was oddly comforting for me. She said he must have gone quickly, he looked so peaceful. She thought it was a kind of blessing that he was at home, and I had to agree. Jasper never liked the vet like Ruby did. He was happiest at home with us.
She left us alone to say goodbye, and told us to leave whenever we were ready.
I wasn't ready. I'd never be ready. But I kissed his head, told him I loved him, and we left.
I still feel lost without him. I'll have dreams that he's alive and well, and then I'll wake up and he's not next to my head. I can't listen to jazz anymore without crying, but I've constantly got one Frank Sinatra sing stuck in my head. Just one line. "Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars"
Well, my little jazz kitty is playing in the stars now. Chasing star mice
sorry that ended up being so long, guys.
