Free isn't

Once we got the kitten home, we noticed she was tiny. In fact she was terribly thin. Hair that looked fluffy glinting in the sun looked spindly and sparse. She was ever so adorable though. She expressed affection freely and was so very playful.

We put a towel on the bed between our heads and she slept there all night. Little could we guess that she was incubating all manner of worms.

She had her vet visit and was diagnosed with roundworms and tapeworms. During the worming process we got to witness the evacuation of the worm kingdom first hand. The vet thought she might be six weeks old (instead of 8) and she might or might not live. I prepared mentally for kitten death - I heard the term "failure to thrive" which to me still smacks my face with kitten death. She continued to live - poorly but cutely. There was no diagnosis on the bare patches of skin. We applied a topical solution.

She didn't want to eat anything except the gravy of that cheap nasty catfood the "farm lady" (as we have dubbed her) had fed her. We were at wits end - she wouldn't eat kitten kibble - she wouldn't eat. We tried canned kitten food and she started to eat.

That didn't help the hair loss. One would have thought she'd have gotten healthier but no - she looked just terrible though she didn't complain and seeing her standing on her hind legs to do jazz hands revitalized our human will. We named her Margeaux because she deserved a fancy name.

We thought it must be mange (a parasitic infestation) and back to the vet she went. This time she "fluoresced", meaning that the light showed infection all over - ohhh it had to be ringWORM, a gift that gives to others.

To this day, I treat two spots and Dee treats a couple too. Little Margeaux was shut away in a room we called "the cat apartment". She had to be force-fed oral medicine and scrubbed (yes scrubbed) once a week with a sulfur treatment that turned the gray cat yellow and transformed her into a whirling frenzy of claws. She smelled like a rotten egg.

Meanwhile she was picky but fed and pathetic but lived. For free, she entertained - displaying amazing litterbox skills. While Laura Ingalls left "the captain's log" for us each day on top of the sand, Margeaux managed her litter with the grace of a Tasmanian devil. She bit and chased everything that caught her eye. We dabbed cream onto ourselves but we couldn't resist snuggling the kitten. Dee worked a few more shifts to cover Margeaux's expensive habit (the vet) and we were excited that at least the cat's ringworm was gone. As she started to grow real cat fur, we saw a lovely beautiful cat emerge.