I took our little kittens, Kitty and Pierre, to the vet last Thursday for their vaccinations. While I was there, I enquired about a little red patch that had developed on Pierre's face. The seemingly innocuous red patch turned out to be ringworm, a highly infectious fungus that is a pain in the neck to treat and contain (it is spread via airborne spores - humans can get it too). So for the last few days I have been busy washing bedding, soft furnishings, and clothes in a special antifungal solution, along with vacuuming the house and cleaning floors and hard surfaces with bleach. Yuck! Of course the wet, wintery weather has made the job that little bit more challenging (I don't own, and have no intention of buying, a clothes dryer).
On top of these measures to contain the infection, the poor little kittens are now in isolation in our laundry (will need to be isolated for at least a week). I've had to shampoo them both (which they hate), and give them tablets twice a day (which they hate). Pierre also needs antifungal cream applied to his now rather large red patch (which he hates more than the shampoo and tablets). I feel so sorry for them.
Yesterday, I was starting to feel like I was getting on top of it. Although Pierre didn't look any better, he didn't look any worse, which I was encouraged by. However, I was shocked this morning to see that poor little Pierre had deteriorated a lot overnight. Not only did I find new patches of ringworm on his paw, his nose had a little bit of discharge and his breathing was quite wheezy. He now has cat flu as well as ringworm! The poor little guy is now pretty sick...I'm not sure that he's going to make it :-(
So far Kitty doesn't have any sign of having either ringworm or cat flu...fingers crossed that her immune system is strong enough to fight it off.
The stupid thing is my intuition was screaming at me that adopting Pierre would be a bad idea. On one hand, I wish I'd listened to my intuition, but on the other hand I am so glad he's with us because the poor little guy needs so much help and at least we will do everything we can to help him recover. Anyway, I think we have a bit of a fight ahead. Wish us luck!
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