Newsletter 3/24/2015
For you that follow us on Facebook, you know that sadly
Cheetah lost his fight for his life to FIP.
His illness taught us new things about FIP that we did not
know before, so his loss has helped educate us for the next
kitty with wet FIP. Sadly many vets are no real knowledgeable
about FIP either because when they see them they are close
to death. We typically catch it much earlier than that.
I actually had planned on taking Cheetah to the vet the day he
spiked his fever. I had taken a long look at him the night before
while he was eating and saw the skinny hips and swollen belly.
The staff had mentioned he had diarrhea again, I remember running
the medications he had been on for diarrhea through my mind and knew I
was not looking at a wormy belly (like you often see on puppies) I remember
saying to myself that he was going to FIP on us..
Some common symptoms to watch for...
Age, more common under 2 or over 10
FELV are much higher risk
Corona positive (do not freak out on that, 90% of cats out there
have actually been exposed to it) Cats with a normal healthy immune
system will process it and not get develop FIP unless something changes
in their system.
Some may show mild upper respiratory infection or diarrhea
at the start. Then Fever that does not respond to antibiotics.
Fluid in the abdominal cavity.
Your vet will do blood panel on your cat. The white cells
may be low, normal or high depending on how long
the problem has been present. (Cheetah was high)
Red cell may be normal or low (anemia) Cheetah
was anemic. Protein will be high, Globulin will
be high (Cheetahs was normal, that was causing
confusion) X-rays will show fluid in the abdomen.
IF it is Dry FIP that makes it even harder to
diagnois, Joy had dry FIP but we did not realize
what we were dealing with until we did the necrospy,
we had never seen dry FIP before.. Next time we
will recognize it.
The problem with FIP is it can mimic so many other
diseases, you as an owner can spend thousands of
dollars trying to rule out every thing.
We finally got the results back from the FIP
DNA test from Auburn University (FIP mRNA )
and it was positive. There are questions of
how accurate this test is, if it gives false
positives or negatives... FIP is a horrible
disease and there at this time is no cure.
For DRY FIP there is a medication that some say
is having a good result, Polyprenyl Immunostimulant.
I will tell you that we spent over $20,000 2 years
ago on PI to try to help build up immune systems
on the FELV cats. Only 1 of them is still alive.
I know the next time I am looking at a swollen
belly of a cat with fluid, the blood test is giving
us strong reasons to suspect FIP, (the Albumin/
globulin ration is less than .04) we are going
to do 2 things, Immediately have the mRNA test done,
and immediately start the cat on steroids.. Steroids
helps calm the inflammation. It will NOT stop the
disease, it may buy you a few days.
If the Albumin/globulin ratio is more than .08
something else is in play and the cat is going to
Raleigh, they have the means to try to figure it out.
The thing I found so painful about this was many
people’s ignorant comments on Facebook that their
cats lived 2, 7, 10, 18 years wtih FIP. FIP is 10000% fatal.
Their cats were probably FIV (different letters,
different disease) or corona virus positive.
Carrot and I spent the day at the vet in Raleigh today
He did well and is back home. He will be back to
running in his room in a few days.
Cheetah update
I am sorry that we are starting the newsletter with sadness.
Carrot
Jake
Jake is hanging in there. He is still not eating well at all.
He is on new medication, he just started on it. He also
has kidney disease. I feel realistically our time with him
is slowly coming to a close. We are trying to love on him
lots for the time he has with us.
Good News :)
You guys did good and we won our
first round of the tournament.
This is a tournament style contest. We will
be playing our next round tomorrow on 3/25
You only have that 24 hours a day to vote
CLICK HERE TO VOTE TODAY
If we win this round of the tournament we will go
into the next level which will be played the week
onf 3/30-4/1 It will be on Facebook, please
share on your social network :)
We have been asked what are we going to do with
the Eagle Rare prize money. Part of it is going to be
used to start our Capital Building Fund.
When we started in 2005 we just wanted to help save the
lives of blind cats that were automatically being killed in
shelters with little chance of being adopted. Fast forward
10 years later, thanks to education, social media and Gwen
Cooper’s book Homer’s Odyssey, many blind cats are now
finding homes.
In 2011 we grew to be able to help FIV+ & FELV+ cats.
These healthy loving cats are typically immediately killed
at shelters or vets office because they test positive for
these virus’s.
Wendy is FELV+ She was rescued by a rescue in Miami
Florida from animal control. She came in as a stray.
They knew she tested FELV+ and had exactly 3 days to live.
She is ear tipped and very frail. She had had a rough live
before she came to us.
Journey came to us as a stray from Tennesee
and Liza from Texas. Both had no place to go, euthaniza
was the only option looking at them if we had not had the
space to take them. They are 2 of our original 12 FELV+
cats. They came to us when we opened building 2.
The new builidng will provide us the ability to save 12 more
blind and 24 more FELV+ cats. It will also have a quarantine
room, exam room, our own lab and a part time vet coming to
the shelter. (This will save us thousands of dollars each
year) We will still have an outside vet that cats will go to
if they are sick and the in PT vet is not in house.
Will you help us make this possible? Will you donate now?
Click HERE
Part of the prize money is being used to start an
Endowment Fund.
An endowment fund is set up for a life time fund
to provide for the cats. The principal is not to be
used. Only part of the investment income is
to be withdrawn each year to help fund projects
for the cats. The balance is left in the fund to continue
growing to provide more for the cats in the future.
To donate to our endowment, send your check toNCCF,
4601 Six Forks Road, Suite 524, RaleighNC 27609 USA.
Please put that it is for theBlind Cat Rescue endowment.
Your donationis 100% tax deductible. For stock gifts please
contact John Hartley, Director of Finance forthe delivery
instructions.
Popcorn is a blind 3 legged cat who really
had a rough time before she came to us.
She was found laying in the road looking like a
cat who had been hit by a car. The person that
found her was SHOCKED to see her raise her head.
They immediately stoped and discovered that she had
no eyes. They knew they were in over their heads
and started making phone calls. That is how popcorn
came to us.
Not only did she have to empty eye sockets
she was covered with fleas and had a growth (tumor)
in her ear. We got her healthy, spayed, eyes closed
turmor removed.
Fast forward a year, she is racing across the shelves
we used to have chasing Nicky (she is not overly
fond of Nicky) and took a fall. She broke her leg.
The vet set her leg and put in a bone plate.
Fast forward a few months later, she is back on the
shelves chasing Nicky and fell again. (we do not have
the shelves now) she broke her same leg again above
the bone plate. The orthopedic vet said the only choice
this time was to remove the leg. She adjusted very
quickly to not having a leg.
Introducing to you to Popcorn
A cute video of Popcorn, she has a thing for shoes
Meadow (FIV+) Says here is an easy free way to help
the cats, take 2 seconds. Just click the link and
then click button and they will pay the cats.
The money adds up. So far this month you
have clicked almost a months worth of dry food!
Here is the link (click me)
A few ways to help the cats that are FREE!
Do you shop at Amazon? If you use the link:
http://smile.amazon.com and pick Blind Cat Rescue
the Amazon foundation will give us a donation each
time you shop.
Do you like to walk/jog? Download the resqwalk
app, pick BCR and they will donate tous for
every mile you walk :) apple and droids
http://resqwalk.com
Thank you so much to all of our wonderful
eBay sellers and buyers for their generosity!
Thank you for reading!
Newsletter 3/24/2015
I am sorry that we are starting the newsletter with sadness.
Cheetah update
For you that follow us on Facebook, you know that sadly
Cheetah lost his fight for his life to FIP.
His illness taught us new things about FIP that we did not
know before, so his loss has helped educate us for the next
kitty with wet FIP. Sadly many vets are no real knowledgeable
about FIP either because when they see them they are close
to death. We typically catch it much earlier than that.
I actually had planned on taking Cheetah to the vet the day he
spiked his fever. I had taken a long look at him the night before
while he was eating and saw the skinny hips and swollen belly.
The staff had mentioned he had diareaha again, I remember running
the medications he had been on for diareaha through my mind and
knew I was not looking at a wormy belly (like you often see on
puppies) I remembersaying to myself that he was going to FIP on us..
Some common symptoms to watch for...
Age, more common under 2 or over 10
FELV are much higher risk
Corona positive (do not freak out on that, 90% of cats out there
have actually been exposed to it) Cats with a normal healthy immune
system will process it and not get develop FIP unless something
changes in their system.
Some may show mild upper repiratory infection or diarrhea
at the start. Then Fever that does not respond to antibiotics.
Fluid in the abdominal cavity.
Your vet will do blood panel on your cat. The white cells
may be low, normal or high depending on how long
the problem has been present. (Cheetah was high)
Red cell may be normal or low (anemia) Cheetah
was anemic. Protein will be high, Globulin will
be high (Cheetahs was normal, that was causing
confusion) X-rays will show fluid in the abdomen.
IF it is Dry FIP that makes it even harder to
diagnois, Joy had dry FIP but we did not realize
what we were dealing with until we did the necrospy,
we had never seen dry FIP before.. Next time we
will recogize it.
The problem with FIP is it can mimic so many other
diseases, you as an owner can spend thousands of
dollars trying to rule out every thing.
We finally got the results back from the FIP
DNA test from Auburn University (FIP mRNA )
and it was positive. There are questions of
how accurate this test is, if it gives false
positives or negatives... FIP is a horrible
disease and there at this time is no cure.
For DRY FIP there is a medication that some say
is having a good result, Polyprenyl Immunostimulant.
I will tell you that we spent over $20,000 2 years
ago on PI to try to help build up immune systems
on the FELV cats. Only 1 of them is still alive.
I know the next time I am looking at a swollen
belly of a cat with fluid, the blood test is giving
us strong reasons to suspect FIP, (the Albumin/
globulin ration is less than .04) we are going
to do 2 things, Immediately have the mRNA test done,
and immediately start the cat on steroids.. Steroids
helps calm the inflamation. It will NOT stop the
disease, it may buy you a few days.
If the Albumin/globulin ratio is more than .08
something else is in play and the cat is going to
Raleigh, they have the means to try to figure it out.
The thing I found so painful about this was many
people’s ignorant comments on Facebook that their
cats lived 2, 7, 10, 18 years wtih FIP. FIP is 10000% fatal.
Their cats were probably FIV (different letters,
different disease) or coronoa virus positive.
Carrot
Carrot and I spent the day at the vet in Raleigh today
Jake is hanging in there. He is still not eating well at all.
He is on new medication, he just started on it. He also
has kidney disease. I feel realistically our time with him
is slowly coming to a close. We are trying to love on him
lots for the time he has with us.
Introducing to you to Popcorn
Popcorn is a blind 3 legged cat who really
had a rough time before she came to us.
She was found laying in the road looking like a
cat who had been hit by a car. The person that
found her was SHOCKED to see her raise her head.
They immediately stoped and discovered that she had
no eyes. They knew they were in over their heads
and started making phone calls. That is how popcorn
came to us.
Not only did she have to empty eye sockets
she was covered with fleas and had a growth (tumor)
in her ear. We got her healthy, spayed, eyes closed
turmor removed.
Fast forward a year, she is racing across the shelves
we used to have chasing Nicky (she is not overly
fond of Nicky) and took a fall. She broke her leg.
The vet set her leg and put in a bone plate.
Fast forward a few months later, she is back on the
shelves chasing Nicky and fell again. (we do not have
the shelves now) she broke her same leg again above
the bone plate. The orthopedic vet said the only choice
this time was to remove the leg. She adjusted very
quickly to not having a leg.
Good News :)
You guys did good and we won our
first round of the tournament.
This is a tournament style contest. We will
be playing our next round tomorrow on 3/25
You only have that 24 hours a day to vote
CLICK HERE TO VOTE TODAY
We have been asked what are we going to do with
the Eagle Rare prize money. Part of it is going to be
used to start our Capital Building Fund.
The new builidng will provide us the ability to save 12 more
blind and 24 more FELV+ cats. It will also have a quarantine
room, exam room, our own lab and a part time vet coming to
the shelter. (This will save us thousands of dollars each
year) We will still have an outside vet that cats will go to
if they are sick and the in PT vet is not in house.
Will you help us make this possible? Will you donate now?
Click HERE
When we started in 2005 we just wanted to help save the
lives of blind cats that were automatically being killed in
shelters with little chance of being adopted. Fast forward
10 years later, thanks to education, social media and Gwen
Cooper’s book Homer’s Odyssey, many blind cats are now
finding homes.
In 2011 we grew to be able to help FIV+ & FELV+ cats.
These healthy loving cats are typically immediately killed
at shelters or vets office because they test positive for
these virus’s.
Wendy is FELV+ She was rescued by a rescue in Miami
Florida from animal control. She came in as a stray.
They knew she tested FELV+ and had exactly 3 days to live.
She is ear tipped and very frail. She had had a rough live
before she came to us.
Part of the prize money is being used to start an
Endowment Fund.
An endowment fund is set up for a life time fund
to provide for the cats. The principal is not to be
used. Only part of the investment income is
to be withdrawn each year to help fund projects
for the cats. The balance is left in the fund to continue
growing to provide more for the cats in the future.
To donate to our endowment, send your check toNCCF,
4601 Six Forks Road, Suite 524, RaleighNC 27609 USA.
Please put that it is for theBlind Cat Rescue endowment.
Your donationis 100% tax deductible. For stock gifts please
contact John Hartley, Director of Finance forthe delivery
instructions.
I ran out of room on the mobile page :(
there is more on the desktop version
Thanks for reading!!
He did well today, he will be back in his room wheel
running in a few days.