Sid was "my boy" from the moment he met--as soon as we entered his foster mom's home, he walked straight up to me and cuddled in my lap.  He was something of a second chance for us, too, and that made him all the more special--6 months before we got him, our darling one year old rescue, Cruze, died of something we'd never heard of before: FIP.  His rapid decline and loss at such a young age was terrible and hard to get over.  Sid looked a LOT like Cruze, so it only reinforced the "second chance" feeling.

And now, Sid, too, has succumbed to FIP--something that, when we first determined he was sick, I assured myself wasn't possible.  Who's luck could be that bad?  And while Cruze was always a sweet little thing, Sid was a big, boisterous, energetic guy: someone who met me at the door each day with a cheerful chirp and then proceeded to turn sommersaults on the floor so i could rub his belly.

He was too strong, and fate couldn't be that cruel, right?

Wrong.

So, this time, my husband and I determined we'd fight back--the treatment landscape was "officially" the same as in 2018, but in reality, the  data were there to suggest cure was possible.  And groups like FIP Warriors were available to help families access those cures.  So we connected with FIP warriors and made plans.

But Sid's belly turned septic.  And after a grueling surgery to remove the infection, it came back within a day (one day) with vengeance.  He couldn't even sit up or walk.  We couldn't put him through a second surgery (which, at this point, had at best a 30% success rate).  And so, we never got a chance to do battle with the true culprit--his FIP.  We lost to the secondary septicemia before we had a chance.

I feel Sid's absence acutely, and nothing will fill that void.  But knowing there IS a cure out there--and that people are banding together to save other cats--does give me some comfort.  I hope that, with time, this site will add more starbursts and fewer rainbow icons like Sid's.