A Chance At Life: A Kitten’s Story

One hot day we found a kitten living under a house with no mother in sight. The kitten was about 3 weeks old. It was emaciated and living only on water in 105 degree weather. We brought him home and started nursing him, first with formula until he eventually graduated to eating solid foods. He was given the name Zidane, after a character in Final Fantasy 9. He had a respiratory infection so he was given medication which helped him get better. In no time he was running, jumping and playing like any other healthy kitten.

He was extremely tiny and that’s when the idea came to mind to take a photo of him with the iPhone 6 Plus every month to show how much he would grow. One month was missed during the holidays and, unfortunately, his 12 month photo would never be taken. He started feeling ill, not wanting to eat much and strained to potty. We took him to a wonderful veterinarian and she thought maybe he was just stressed because of a new puppy that came into the home. She ran some simple tests but they came back normal. She gave him some medication to help with eating. A few days later he was refusing to eat or drink altogether. We decided to take him back to the veterinarian again and they ran more tests on him.

The poor thing had so much fluid building up inside his belly. He was diagnosed with FIP (Feline Infectious Peritonitis), a fatal disease. We then had to make the painful heartbreaking decision put him to sleep. He started out life left to die all alone, but we found him just in time. We were not going to let that happen. We gave him a life filled with lots of play, love, and friendships. He had a wonderful 11 months of life. When our family said our goodbyes, filled with tears, we stayed with him until he took his very last breath so he wouldn’t die alone. He is truly missed.