When Sabrina Imbler’s cat, Melon, becomes seriously ill with what is later confirmed as feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), Imbler feels she doesn’t have time to wait for a formal diagnosis and turns to a Facebook group that connects desperate cat owners with a black‑market treatment: GS‑441524. Injecting Melon twice a day at home, they enter a frantic stretch in which the acidic drug causes a wound to open on Melon’s back, and she is sentenced to weeks in a hated recovery suit called a Suitical: “Melon was so upset that she lay on her side like a tipped cow for hours, her chin glumly fixed to the carpet.” With Melon finally fully recovered, Imbler has the space to look back on the desperate measures it took to save her.
The FIP Warriors contact met me in the lobby of their building, wearing a knit cap with cat ears. They proceeded to demonstrate how to deliver the medicine on their stuffed cat, Edward. I watched as they manipulated the stuffed toy, lifting up pockets in Edward’s “skin” into which I was to drive a 22-gauge needle at an angle into subcutaneous tissue. I paid $50 for two vials of injectable GS-441524, which was acidic to keep it shelf-stable. This acidity, the contact warned me, meant the injections burned. “It’s really best if you have help,” they told me. “Will you have help?” No, I told them. My ex was out of town and it was just me and Melon. “Well, you’ll figure something out,” they said. I would have to.
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