tail chasing

you know how they say that animals take on the qualities of their owners? what does it say about me then that lionel needs antidepressants to deal with a compulsive desire to gnaw on his tail? like, when we take his cone off, he licks and chews his tail and bleeds all over the apartment and needs an emergency trip to the vet. and the more he goes to the vet, the more stressed out he gets. have you ever seen a cat pant? it's really sad.

we don't know why he began gnawing on his tail in the first place, but his initial wound wasn't healing well, so the vet amputated a few inches of his tail to make a clean wound which should have healed all nice and neat. but lionel is a rascal and managed to rip his bandage off numerous times and mess with it. now it's mostly healed, but he's sill fixated on his tail. what the fuuuuuuck???

giving him his medicine is difficult. the vet said that bigelow's would concoct a liquid version of his medicine with a flavor of our choosing. we chose chicken. but apparently the flavor does not completely mask the taste of the medicine, because he foams at the mouth whenever we give it to him.

but today he climbed into bed with me while i was taking a nap and curled up and purred for the first time since this debacle began. maybe he's getting better?