I’m so heartbroken. I found out on Tuesday that my five month old kitten has FIP. I’ve been crying almost nonstop ever since. She’s my best friend and I am going to lose her soon.
A little bit of a back story: I’ve wanted a kitten since I was about ten years old. My mom finally let me get one four months ago, this January. I graduated high school last year and am taking a year off before doing community college so I’ve been home with this kitten pretty much 24/7. She became my only friend (I was homeschooled). I got her during a really hard time in my life and she helped me get through it. I had depression and she pretty much cured it. She gave me a purpose in life. Sometimes I would have no motivation to get out of bed but after I got her, I would be happy to get out of bed and feed her and play with her. She sits on my lap all day and follows me around the house. She wakes me up purring and kneading, and when we go to sleep she purrs and kneads too. My mom works all day almost everyday and she kept me from being lonely. She made me feel like someone cared about me. I probably got too attached to her because of all this and it’s really hitting me hard.
She doesn’t deserve this. She’s the sweetest kitten ever and she’s only 5 months old. I thought I would have her for at least 10 years. I wasn’t expecting her time to be cut short so abruptly. One day she was fine and the next she wasn’t. I have really bad luck and I can’t help but feel it’s because of me. Maybe if someone else adopted her she would have never gotten this. I feel so guilty. FIP is basically caused by stress + a weak immune system. She’s had an URI basically her whole life that I know contributed to it. It went from being really bad till she was about 15 weeks to more like a cold ever since. The lady we got her from told us it was genetics and it would always be like that. I believed it. I fed her royal canin but had to change to something cheaper because I couldn’t afford it and now I’m thinking that maybe if I kept her on the same food this wouldn’t have happened. One time I had to give her a bath because she was playing in her litter box and got poop on her. I know it caused her stress so what if it triggered the FIP? I probably could have got her clean enough with just a washcloth. She started eating less about a week before she was diagnosed and I probably should have taken her into the vet then and got the high calorie food that she is on now and maybe she wouldn’t be so thin right now. I know it’s not really my fault but I could have done better and the guilt is killing me. She’s helped me so much and I can’t save her.
I know no one is prepared to lose a pet but this literally came out of nowhere. I thought I would have so much more time with her. This might seem stupid to some people, but I don’t know if I can make it without her. She’s been my purpose and pretty much the only thing making me happy and showing me that she cares about me. It feels like only bad stuff happens to me and if anything good does happen, it either gets ruined somehow or taken away from me. I don’t even know if I should get another cat because with my luck this will probably happen again.
How am I supposed to heal from this?
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