A Tail of Woe

We got an early Christmas gift when Nate, our male tabby, decided to come home. He was painfully thin, scraggly looking and slept for several days in a row but he was in pretty good shape, otherwise. We did notice that his tail seemed ginger to the touch but figured he had bruised it or something minor like that.

Last week, we began to find significant gobs of hair all over the house and one look at Nate's tail told us that there was a problem. The last four inches of it had bald spots and skin was peeling off in white, cheesy chunks. Not good.

I often tell my children that if I had it to do all over again, I would have gone to medical school. Believe me, if I could have a chat with my twenty something self, I'd tell her to put down the doobie and pull her head out of her arse. Anyway, since I am a wanna be doctor, I got on to the internet to do a little research in an effort to diagnose the problem with the cat's tail. Unfortunately, there were a million things that could have caused the issue and some of them were fairly serious. Dallas suggested a vet visit and reluctantly, because I LOVE this animal, I agreed.

The vet took one look, felt the tip and said that Nate had somehow damaged the last inch or so of his tail by getting it caught in something. She surmised that it was probably a door. The tip had died and there was an infection at the wound site which went from being painful to itchy. This caused Nate to lick with a frenzy and chew other parts of his tail, trying to rid himself of the itch. They amputated the dead part, removed all of the infected hair, put him on antibiotics and sent him on his way. Tail licking was out while it healed so the poor bugger was outfitted with one of those space dishes.

As you can see, he was thoroughly unimpressed.