Brix is very sick

and our hearts break for him

It’s probably easier to do this here than through a social media post, and I feel that writing it out is good for my own mental health.

It can also probably answer the questions people might have without me having to wade through the thousands of comments, which is overwhelming. We are so thankful for them and the lift us up in the darkness.

Sunday evening, Brix didn’t really want to eat his supper. He picked away at it, which was weird. He is REALLY food motivated and comes RUNNING for supper. Looking back, there were other warning signs on Sunday.

Brix spent most of the day sleeping in his hammock on the wall. Sleeping in the hammock isn’t anything new; he loves it. But sleeping there all day was unusual.

Brix also comes and greets us when we come home from town, just like the dogs do. He hangs back and stares at us, which I’ve come to know is one way cats show affection. They want to see their people, make a little show of saying, “Here I am, and here you are.” It’s cute and not nearly as boisterous as the dogs.

Brix did not do that on Sunday.

Around 10:00, Kris and I went downstairs to do something. I forget what. When we came back upstairs, Brix was lying on the floor on his side. Kris yelled, “BRIX!” and he didn’t respond.

I rushed over to him, picked him up, and he let out a mournful yowl. It wasn’t like anything I had ever heard from him before.

As I held him, he was limp, and there was something off about his breathing.

Kris and I have learned not to take any chances with our pets. Better safe than sorry. So we drove him to the emergency pet hospital. Ironically, we had JUST been there hours before, having Bernoulli donate blood for other dogs in Canada. It wasn’t lost on me that we had JUST been there.

The Initial Intake

They brought Brix into the back to examine him. Remember, at this point we didn’t know anything. The veterinarian on duty said Brix passed his exam perfectly EXCEPT for his breathing, which seemed a little laboured. Brix had NO FEVER.

Perhaps we could take him home and see how he did overnight, OR we could do some diagnostic testing like bloodwork and X-rays.

We went with the diagnostic tests.

About an hour later, the results were back. The bloodwork was PERFECT except for his platelets, which were LOW, and the X-rays showed some concerning changes near the back of his lungs. With that information, and out of an abundance of caution, we decided to leave little Brix at the hospital for overnight observation. We said our goodbyes, and aside from looking a bit tired, Brix seemed okay.

The Next Morning

We got a call the next morning saying Brix’s condition had worsened overnight. Kris had to supervise her Math final exam, so she couldn’t go to the hospital, and honestly, I’m glad she didn’t.

When I got there, Brix was in rough shape. Like... could-die rough.

The moment I saw his little body, I burst into tears. Brix is nothing but sweet, gentle, and friendly. He didn’t deserve this at all.

He was lying on his side, only weakly aware of me, and doing everything he could just to breathe.

He was in an oxygen incubator, and on the breathing distress scale, he was a 4 out of 4.

Dr. Schouten, who owns the hospital along with Dr. Keys, met with me and explained just how dire things were for Brix. They had to start treatment immediately, and I needed to make a difficult decision.

If it was pneumonia, which she didn’t think it was, the treatment for acute asthma could actually make the pneumonia worse. But if it was asthma and we didn’t treat him for it, he would likely die.

I took a video of Brix.

Only I have seen it.

Kris hasn’t.

The public hasn’t.

It was the worst thing I’ve ever filmed.

I said, “Let’s treat for asthma.”

Eight Hours Later

Brix’s condition continued to improve throughout the day, and when Kris saw him later, he was still having a tough time breathing, but he wasn’t lying flat on his side anymore. It was still awful, but the steroids seemed to be doing the trick.

Eight Hours Later

Right before bed, we went back to visit him, and it looked like he had really turned a corner. He was up and walking, and he wanted OUT. He was pawing at the incubator door.

The team wanted to repeat his bloodwork and X-rays overnight to see how things were progressing.

The Next Morning

Kris and I were FULLY expecting Brix to be on the mend and ready to come home after seeing how well he had responded to the steroids. Instead, when we arrived, we were whisked into an exam room, which is never a good sign. It felt like foreshadowing.

The veterinary team told us the X-rays showed a huge amount of fluid had filled his little chest. This made very little sense based on what they expected to see. Even stranger, his bloodwork came back PERFECT, and his platelet count, which had been low initially, had returned to normal.

At that point, it was still a mystery... or something really bad. Something that wasn’t as straightforward to treat as asthma, and something that, left untreated, could eventually kill him.

It was then decided to perform a chest tap, remove some of the fluid, and analyze what it was.

That Afternoon

The chest tap could answer a lot of questions depending on the type of fluid they removed. If it was milky white, called chyle, it would point toward a circulatory or lymphatic problem. If it contained pus, it would suggest an infection like pneumonia. If it had an abnormal albumin-to-globulin ratio, it could indicate FIP, which many people have mentioned in the comments.

The fluid was difficult to collect, and when they finally did, it was completely clear. Almost like water. His albumin/globulin ratio was normal. There was no pus. There was no chyle.

At that point, things started pointing back toward the more serious possibilities.

Cancer can cause this type of fluid buildup, but the cells in the fluid did not appear cancerous, and after the slides were sent away to be reviewed, cancer was ruled out.

It could also be a heart issue, although the cardiologist felt his heart looked normal on the X-rays, and his bloodwork didn’t strongly support heart disease.

Late Last Night and This Morning

Brix is still a mystery, but we have started him on treatment for FIP just in case. About six veterinarians reached out through social media saying they had seen cases VERY similar to Brix’s that didn’t have the classic signs of FIP, only for them to eventually be diagnosed as FIP.

Since FIP had moved back toward the top of the list after analyzing the chest fluid, it made sense to begin treatment while we continued looking for answers.

This morning, Brix looked GREAT. Seeing him like that made our hearts so happy.

We know he is still very sick. If he comes off oxygen, his breathing difficulty quickly worsens from about a 1 out of 4 to a 2 or 3 out of 4. However, he is comfortable. He isn’t suffering. And he is fighting. That has given us more time.

The plan is to see how he responds to the FIP treatment today before moving on to more invasive diagnostic tests, such as a CT scan or more advanced heart imaging.

Right now, the two leading possibilities are:

Something is going on with his heart that simply isn’t presenting in the normal way beyond the fluid.

Or...

He has FIP that also isn’t presenting in the normal way beyond the fluid.

A ton of people are asking if we need to do a Go Fund Me for Brix or if we need help financially, and the answer is no. We have insurance that covered up to a large amount of money per year and we are ok to go above and beyond that. We wouldn’t say no to people buying our book from our website or getting a stuffie/mooseleg or subscribing to us or joining our patreon or something like that because it’s less of a donation, but does help us and folks get something cool out of it.

At the end of the day, Brix could have died two days ago. He was given a 50/50 chance.

He isn’t dead.

He is alive.

And this morning, I got to kiss him and pet him.

Every single day he keeps fighting gives the veterinary team, and now the crowdsourcing power of our social media community, more time to figure out what is wrong.

We have hope.

Hope is enough for today.