Pablo's story starts 14 months ago, when he shows a bad uveitis and serious locomotion problems. The diagnosis is FIP. He starts GS treatment and steroids therapy on the 1st of October 2020.

During one month, there is a very good response to treatment, he walks again and the uveitis disappears. Then there is an attempt to slowly wean him of steroids and his locomotion deteriorates very quickly.

By December 2020, Pablo is unable to stand up or walk, despite several increases in his GS dosage. He can eat and drink, pee and poop, but barely moves his legs. A csf tap is done in January 2021, to understand if the virus is still there. At that time the results are clear,  the liquid is inflammatory, the PCR is positive, FIP is still winning.

A first combo of GS plus an antiviral is tried, there is an improvement, but it is temporary. Meanwhile Pablo continues to live his life, he interacts, purrs, plays as he can, eats, while we are trying to save his life.
Three months later, his state is slowly deteriorating. We seem to be out of options, and quality of life questions start to be asked.
But this cat didn’t want to die!

At that point, I asked his very brave owners if they would do what is one of the most difficult thing to do when you love your cat: to trust me with his care, and give him to me. I knew he needed to be with a vet 24/7, to be able to assess his state permanently and give him all the fighting chances he needed.
So my darling Pablo came to live with me and my cats, on the 12th of May 2021. The first month was though, getting rid of all the little symptoms that make a cat uncomfortable, nausea, a bit of peeing problems, and getting to know him and his needs. At that time, we agreed that as long as Pablo wanted to live, we would do everything in our power to help him do just that.

I started a second combo of anti viral and he did improve, again mildly, but his frontlimbs were still very stiff. I did laser therapy, hydro therapy, a bit of physiotherapy. The hindlimbs were moving more and more and his tail also started to move well! Again he reached a plateau. This is when I started the third combo of anti viral, which again got us some improvement but not enough.

It had been nagging me, and all the team behind Pablo for months: what if FIP was destroyed, but those were neuro sequela! We decided to do an MRI and csf tap in August. This time, the PCR on the csf was negative, and the liquid was non inflammatory!! But Pablo had lots of neurological lesions, in the brain (hydrocephaly) and in the spine (syringohydromyely). But what was an unexpected good news, Pablo’s locomotion did improve significantly just with the csf tap!! So it was possible that this was all about pressure on the nervous system, and that he could actually walk again!

At the end of August, convinced that FIP was probably beaten, we stopped treatment. On the 27th of August 2021.
Of course, the next step was to see a neuro specialist.

It took six weeks to arrange to arrange to see top of their field specialists, at three hours of where we live. They redid an MRI (a dynamic one this time), and determined that the big problem was in the spine, not the head. But of course, reducing pressure of established lesions in the spine is one of the most difficult things to do! They had the crazy idea of finding a way to relieve pressure in the big lesion without opening the spine. Very simple on paper, incredible in reality!

The idea was to give some time to Pablo’s spinal cord to recover, combined with physiotherapy and medical treatment, to see how much improvement we could get. Then, in a month, do the surgery that would relieve the pressure permanently.

The wonderful news is that they also did a csf tap again, at day 73 of the observation period, and the csf was perfectly normal.
Today we are at day 104 post treatment. So Pablo is cured of FIP, he is a warrior now. He just needs help to walk again.

This is where we are. They managed to tap the big lesion in the spine, and relieve some pressure, 30 days ago. Medical treatment and physiotherapy have started. And he is improving!! In the last few days he has had movement of his frontlimbs that he never had since the 12th of May 2021 ever. He is more alert, more feisty and expresses himself more and more!

But money is running out.
I am not alone in this, there is an incredible team of dedicated people behind Pablo. His owners that made this difficult choice and are still taking news every day, his admin and volunteers that helped, and the meds suppliers that also helped us. Everything that was done had a cost of between 20000 and 25000 euros.
This is why I am speaking up now. We fought and fought and fought, we made it this far. Pablo still wants to live. He fell in love with my female cat Bastet, and bonded closely with a kitten that we rescued from a car engine. He is two years old, he beat FIP, he has a shot at a healthy life. We just need help to gather money for what we hope is the final lap, to help him walk again.
Thank you very much in advance

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