Things are developing here at Le Château faster than I can write. I had an entirely different entry ready to post today, but I have had to make changes following recent events. Please feel free to mute us (if, indeed, that is a thing on WordPress) or to unfollow if the updates become a nuisance, but it really helps me in terms of record-keeping to write and post in real time about Louis Catorze’s health.
Yesterday, when we came home from a day out, Cat Daddy and I noticed that Catorze’s face was a little redder, but not alarmingly so. However, in the couple of hours after our return, he disappeared off to scratch himself to smithereens and reappeared looking like the victim of an acid attack. So we took another trip to see the vet.
Although we had initially said no to repeating the steroid shot in case it exacerbated any fungal infection, the vet felt that this level of deterioration was unlikely to be of fungal origin. In any case our priority was definitely to control the itching, so we went ahead with the second shot. Once again Catorze went stark raving psycho, screaming bloody murder and scratching both Cat Daddy and the nurse (not the same lady that he scratched before, and I can’t decide whether this is good because he hasn’t made the same person suffer twice, or bad because he’s doubled his victim count in the space of a few days).
Anyway, he is now under house arrest and we have had to deploy Le Cône. I really didn’t want to have to do this, but we haven’t had much choice; as he clearly can’t be trusted not to scratch, if we were to leave him sans Cône he would pretty soon have no face or ears left.
The saddest thing about him being Côned is that he doesn’t become skittish or aggressive around us but wearily compliant, like a prisoner of war so broken down that he finally resigns himself to his fate. He is more affectionate and needy than usual, presumably because not being able to fully see around him makes him uneasy and therefore he needs to be near us to feel safe.
I wish we could make him understand that he will always be safe with us.
louiscatorze.com 
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