Subsidy for Flower and Coco, survivors of feline panleukopenia (Anita Chen's)

Flower and Coco are two rescued cats of Anita Chen’s. Both came down with feline panleukopenia, a frightening disease, also known more commonly as feline distemper which is caused by the feline parvovirus. Interestingly, the feline parvovirus was discovered first, and is thought to have mutated to become the canine parvovirus which affects dogs.

Ref: http://animalcare.my/2012/01/20/flowers-cat-with-feline-panleukopenia-cat-parvovirus-anitas/

Anita Chen persevered together with Flower and Coco, and sought the necessary treatment. We pledged to subsidise the treatment and Anita kept us up to date with news (please do a word search and you’ll find the posts). Anita also administered RetroMAD1 to complement the conventional treatment.

RetroMAD1, an experimental drug, has shown significant success in assisting the recovery of canine parvovirus. There is no cases of success with feline parvovirus as yet, but there is definitely no harm in trying. Flower and Coco were given RetroMAD1, and both are well now.

Here is their amazing story of perseverance, effort and never giving up…

From Anita a few days ago:

Flower and CoCo have stopped receiving treatment on 30 Jan and are currently at home, recuperating and getting stronger by the day.

About Flower & CoCo.
Flower and Coco are siblings together with another kitten called Tam Jr. They were rescued from an open-air car park, in late August of 2011. They thrived and was growing healthy and strong.

However, Tam Jr succumbed to the virus [feline distemper] and passed on the evening of 18 Jan. He was a healthy and boisterous fella. He started vomiting on the morning of 16 Jan….visited the vet on 17 Jan and he was put on IV as he was very dehydrated but by the next evening he was very weak.

A week before the incident with Tam Jr, Flower and Coco was send in for neutering. By 16 Jan, Flower’s incision had healed beautifully but Coco’s incision started showing signs of being septic as she would constantly lick the area. Not only that, she was also loosing weight and was lethargic. CoCo visited the vet the sametime as Tam Jr and was put on IV and given antibiotics to fight the septic incision. However, Coco remained weak and not interested in her meals, even though antibiotics have been administered.

Coco

Coco cuddled by Anita’s mum.

Coco’s wound.

On evening of 19 Jan, Flower started showing the same symptoms as Tam Jr. With advise from Kah Yein and fellow rescuers, I seek a second opinion from another vet the next day, 20 Jan. And after a blood test was done on Flower, she was diagnosed as feline distemper positive. As such she was admitted and put on IV with anti-vomits, anti-bleeding and antibiotics. Antibiotics was to safeguard her against any secondary infection. Anti-bleeding was stop the internal bleeding of her intestines and stomach. However, I was warned that the lucky ones manage to pull through and there are also the greater numbers on the ones that don’t. During this time, CoCo was still receiving her daily dose of antibiotics and IV but with not much improvement. Her incision remained very red, with discharge and open. As such the vet administered a slightly larger dosage of antibiotics. At this time,I was also willing to seek an alternative to healing CoCo’s incision and after talking to some rescuers, they suggested gel gamat. As such, ran around looking for gel gamat and vet was also willing to give the gel a try.

After visiting Flower on morning of 21 Jan, I decided to discharge her and refer her back to my regular vet which was closer to home and would be easier for me to monitor during the CNY holidays, as she was already very weak and unable to move much. I wanted her to be home, in case she didn’t make it and not want her to be alone. I was willing to learn how to administer her meds to her via her IV and also to change her IV when it finished. From 21 Jan, Flower was home quarantined and administered IV and meds round the clock. I prayed for Flower to pull thru for one more night and from there for the next 4 days. Coco too was home quarantined, as vet suspected that she might also be carrying the distemper virus. With the administration of the gel gamat, Coco’s incision showed signs of drying and slowly sealing.

22 Jan : Coco, showed signs of improvement, ie. willingness to eat on her own as opposed to being force feed previously. There was also visible improvement to the incision, it was less red, the outer parts were drying and didn’t look like there was puss. Flower, having pulled thru one more night, showed signs of being a fussy cat, she didn’t like the paper lining her cage to be wet and would protest loudly for the paper to be changed immediately. But she was still not eating and purged foul smelling and bloody poo poo. The only good thing was that the blood was not fresh blood, which possibly means that her intestines was slowly recovering. And another good sign was that she was grooming herself.

By 24 Jan, Flower’s IV plug has shifted, as such she was not able to stay on her drips and had to be force feed water. Vet tried other areas on her other 3 paws but each time the veins would burst. Was advised by rescuer to feed her essence of chicken, to strengthen her. She has also started protesting for being in a cage. Coco was doing better by this time and able to eat on her own but only wanted wet food. So, she was feed A/D and Fussie Cat with multivitamins and chicken essence.

25 Jan….would mark that it has been 5 days that Flower survived and fought the virus. During all this time, I have left some kitten kibbles on the off chance that Flower would want to eat. During this morning, all the kibbles was gone! Checked the floor, there was none. When visiting the vet, gave Flower some A/D and she polished it all off with no hesitation! This was a very good sign and shows that she was slowly recovering. She was still given antibiotics, anti-vomit [to be in the safe side] and anti-bleeding as she was still passing bloody poo poo but not foul smelling.

Flower and CoCo was taken off antibiotics by 30 Jan and anti-vomits and anti-bleeding was no longer given to Flower by 28 Jan. Daily food intake has remained constant with multivitamins and lysine added to fortify them on their road to recovery.

Just wanna say thank you to you and others at AnimalCare for your prayers towards Flower and CoCo….hugs.