may I solicit a hug please? →[More:]

Our new little shelter kitty Kronos is a very, very sick kitty. Took him to the emergency vet last night after about 36 hours of no appetite and increasing lethargy (at first we thought it was related to the incredible heat). Was picking at his food and drinking/using the litterbox ok. Worried when he started staggering a bit going from the door to the sofa. Discovered at the ER that he was running a high fever and had very elevated markers for bilirubin which is typically found in older / obese cats developing fatty liver syndrome. In a very young cat (12 months old) this points to probably one of 3 things:

1) bacterial infection; certainly serious but not terribly hard to fix; could also be related to toxoplasmosis and both are readily treatable.

2) Congenital issues (shunt) causing problems flushing metabolites/waste from blood supply; also serious and somewhat more complicated and expensive to solve, but well understood and fixable through diet and/or surgical intervention (and if so, not a super complex surgery so I am told.)

3) Feline Infectious Peritonitis. Many cats carry it; a few select ones have some sort of viral mutation occur due to stress or immune suppression, which switches it into acute mode, which is rapidly, universally and invariably fatal.

we're hopeful signs are pointing to Door #1, since his fever came down somewhat after an overnight course of fluids & antibiotics. Our regular vet, who took him in as soon as they opened is putting him on a more aggressive round of antibiotics today and will run tests and do some imaging to pin down a more definite diagnosis. We talked about bringing him home tonight as our general vet is not staffed after hours and we'd rather keep him under observation.

I'm extremely worried about this little guy, and it sucks and I'm basically useless at work until I hear back from the vet later this afternoon. He's a wonderful cat, very playful and affectionate, extremely gentle, the vets all absolutely adore him, he's never offered to claw/bite or even struggle during all this traumatic treatment. Not to mention how well he has integrated into our home and with Marlowe, who is definitely confused and worried about where his little buddy was last night (he wandered the house yowling, which didn't help us sleep much either).

So yeah. I could use a hug. If it does turn out to be FIP, which is a distinct possibility due to his age and prior history (overcrowding, multiple shelter transfers, etc) then we will most likely choose to put him to sleep rather than allow to suffer and linger through the horrible multiple organ failures syndrome that occurs in these cases.