Help! I have fip anxiety....

I had a kitten who developed the wet form of fip. We decided to euthanize her in January, it was very quick (about 3 days) from diagnosis to full progression. In less than 24 hours, I was heartbroken and gave into my broken heart and my kids and got an older kitten. The house was scrubbed top to bottom professional and with bleach. Litter boxes, cat posts, and food bowels were tossed. Yuki (probably about a year old) has been relatively healthy except a few issues: 1) she has a hard (I mean hard, not squishy) belly that is distended. She is worm free, but has had constipation issues in the past and 2) occasionally she will have runny eyes--clear discharge. It doesn't last more than a day or two and it almost looks like allergies (red and swollen). Yuki eats well, except she refuses wet food. She does drink some water. Her stool is normal. She does have a layer of fat under her skin, her coat is shiny and soft. Yuki plays and acts normal other than being swollen she's pretty healthy looking. For food she is eating Earthborne. I am so paranoid that she has fip too! Any thoughts? Please help....I know that we should have waited to get another cat, it wasn't very responsible of me to bring her in so soon.

FIP itself isn't contagious, but the corona virus that mutates into FIP is.  It's a very common virus that lives in the intestines of many cats and it is spread cat to cat through the litterbox, contact with feces, or even it sometimes manifests as a respiratory virus that they get over.   It can be harmless for their entire lives or it can mutate.  As long as you have a cat under two years old (and the PetMD article says 3 years old), there is a chance of FIP popping up.  After that age, it seems their immune systems are developed enough to prevent that happening UNLESS their immune systems are compromised by disease.  So in terms of your FIP anxiety, it would be best to try to let it go because it is one of those things you absolutely cannot control.  Your other kitten had it in her before she ever came to you.  The new kitten either does or does not.  You could get her tested for the Feline Corona Virus, and if she was negative, you would know she would never get it, but if she was positive, then you wouldn't know for sure so knowing would make your anxiety worse.  The good news is that a treatment has just been discovered in a lab, something that stops the virus from multiplying, and cats have actually been brought back from that terrible stage that takes them so fast.  It isn't available yet, but it will be.  That's a huge step forward because they have been looking for a cure since he 1960s and this is the first time they have found something that works.

Something you CAN change is her diet, however.  Her hard stomach is probably related to having an all dry food diet, which is not healthy.   If she was raised on dry food, then she is habituated to it, but you can change that gradually.  Here is a printable version of tips on how to do that.  If you read the rest of the catinfo.org web site, you will understand why to do that, and what health benefits there will be in the future.  http://www.catinfo.org/docs/TipsForTransitioning1-14-11.pdf