I don't think he has been more sad in his entire little cat life. Can I just say having a cat in a cone is a pain in the neck for the humans? This is a cat who is used to coming and going as he chooses through cat doors (or if his humans open other doors for him), enjoys eating more than any other activity in the world, and already drinks water in a very weird way. My life last night consisted of rigging up a raised cat bowl purchased from Dollerama (glue gunned it to a wooden cutting board, also from Dollerama), creating another glue gunned raised bowl contraption (in case the top of the other one was a bit too wide for the cone to fit over), also attached to the cutting board so he doesn't tip it over with his cone, and experimenting with the best way for him to drink water (none are perfect and all cause great amounts of water all over the floor).
He showed up one morning, a few days ago with a bit of a gash on his cheek (I'm guessing one of two stray cats was the culprit). We put antibiotic ointment on it and it seemed to be healing. Then two days later, it was bigger and uglier. Of course, this was the weekend. We could have had a vet look at him but $200.00 just for the vet to show up on a Saturday (not including the actual fee, or treatment) did not meet our budget, so we applied hydrogen peroxide as instructed over the phone and things seemed to be healing nicely. That was until he scratched it open again. Ugh!! More treatment, and again, it seemed to be healing nicely, until he did it again.
So today, I am taking him to the vet (no emergency hour $200 fee on a Thursday) for a shot of antibiotics and a once over and we keep the dastardly cone on him for who knows how long... and I watch him run into things as he navigates around table legs and edges of doorways. In all of our years of being cat owners we have never had to have a cat in a cone, so this is new for us. He managed to wriggle out of it twice until we got it "tight" enough.
Anyone want to chime in with their own "cone head" stories?