In December I got 2 siberian kittens, red tabby brothers, and called them Jaffa and Tango. They were shy and it took a few weeks before I could handle them and schmoogle them. Jaffa was always smaller than his brother and he gradually seemed to lose even more ground. Then he started panting and struggling to breathe and I rushed him to the vets. Unfortunately he passed away while under anaesthetic for some tests. The vet's diagnosis was that he had succumbed to wet FIP - feline infectious peritonitis - a nasty and incurable illness caused when the Corona virus converts to FIP and the cats immune system basically attacks itself.

Tango seemed lonely without his brother so I got a red tabby Maine Coon kitten, called Kellog,  to keep him company. They got on well and played together, but the last 2 weks Tango had been quiet and not playing with Kellog. He also went off his food so I took him to the vets on Wednesday concerned that he was quiet and not eating, he also seemed to have lost weight. The vet said that she needed to take blood samples and I should leave him there for a few hours. Unfortunately he was far sicker than either of us realised and he needed to go on a drip - the upshot is that he never came home and sadly lost his battle with wet FIP on Sunday night.

I can't believe that I have lost two kittens to this illness. I am now worrying over Kellog - he went in for a blood test yesterday but it will take a week or more for the results to come back. Even then they may be inconclusive - having the corona virus doesn't mean that he will definitely get FIP. Some cats carry the virus with no harm for their entire lives. Most cats have the virus but gradually shed it over a year or two. A small percentage have the virus and convert to FIP.

I've had this journal for a while now and never really used it, I ended up here cos a lot of people post fic to their journals now and not to the main archives and it was the only way to read a lot of fantastic fic. Having said that I thought about posting my own early Stargate fic here - I've not written anything for 5 or 6 years and left a couple of fics as wips. I'm hoping that if I repost my early stuff from 10 years ago that it might kickstart the creative juices. We'll see. I'll dig thru my files and start posting the fic soon.