Poor little bugger
Well, vets trip last week wasn’t too bad - some cortizone tablets, half a tablet twice a day for 5 days. Apparently, he had suffered some sort of ‘tail trauma’, and had lost some feeling in his tail, which was why he was acting a bit weird, as if it wasn’t his own.
All was well. Well, reasonably well. Giving a cat tablets is always a nightmare - doubly so whe when you try and do it on your own. Trebly so when you are extremely hung over (Saturday morning - I have scratches all down my hand, stomach, and legs…..). But he definitely seemed to be getting better.
Then last night, after yet another shitty day at work, and wanting nothing more than to chill at home, I come back to find him worse than ever. the poor little bugger is growling at his tail, then pouncing on it and chewing it. Only trouble is, it’s hurting him, so chewing is making him cry.
I spent most of the night trying to help him find a comfortably position, and trying to stop him from chewing it and making it worse. He couldn’t sit for more than about 30 seconds, and at one point was actually trying to crawl *inside* my stomach, burying to get away from his tail, crying and whimpering all the time. It was horrible, because there was nothing I could do to stop the pain. I felt so helpless.
So back to the vets tonight.
Different vet tonight - they must take it in turns - and he thinks that he might have broken the tip of the tail. the rest of it seems to be fine, as he is moving it okay. But the tip has started to gangrenous.
The end of his tail needs to be amputated. He thinks possibly jus an inch, but maybe more, it will depend what they find when they shave it off and get to have a proper look.
He now has a collar on - because it’s his tail, they have had to give him a small dog collar rather than the usual cat collar, because they are bigger. Of course, I didn’t get even half way up the road before he’d pulled it off, so I had to go back to have it put back on, only tighter this time.
It hasn’t come off yet.
I shouldn’t laugh, but he is so funny, watching him walking into things, walking backwards shaking his head as if all he has to do is pull his head backwards.
He is so clingy. All he wants is to be cuddled. I don’t think he’s slept for the last week, and at least the collar is giving him some respite from his tail - he can’t see it, so it’s not ‘creeping up on him’ and making him jump, and even when he feels it he can’t do anything about it.
Monday he is booked in. Of course, this is possibly the worst week in the history of my job there for me to take time off - I left early tonight, but the next two days I am running a course which I have been banging on about to the business for months. There is no way I can’t turn up.
I also have some more tablets which will help him with the tail, but I have no idea how I am going to get them down him with this collar on. I can’t exactly hold the back of his head with that thing on him, making it much easier to chomp down on my fingers when I open his mouth!
Updates will follow, if I have any fingers left with which to type!