Poor little kitty has hurt one of his claws

On around Tuesday, my parents kitty cat somehow hurt one of his front left paw claws in between me going to bed and then a few hours later, him meowing in the hallway and waking me up, limping!

I have no idea how he could have hurt his claw - it's the one on his front left paw, the second from the end near the smallest paw/claw - because when I left him on the couch in the family room so that I could go to bed, he was fine.  A few hours later, he wakes me with his meowing and I noticed that he was limping, at first thinking that maybe I was imagining it because I was still half asleep! But no. He was definitely limping.

After almost a week of him being in pain and it hurting even more on Friday, I guilted my mother into taking him to the vet. I called the vet surgery and asked to speak to one of the vet nurses, told her the situation and then asked her to speak to my mother so she could explain that the cat needed to see the vet for an examination.

My mother talked to her and apparently made an appointment with her, but neglected to tell me. She didn't want me to know that I had guilted her into it, so she said nothing to me. I made an appointment with the the vet at the same time she was due to see the vet and it was only when I told my mother that I made an appointment with the vet that she told me that she already did at that time too! How stubborn can a person be?

Anyway, the vet saw the kitty cat and agreed with what I had suspected - something wrong with the claw next to the smallest one on the front left. She bandaged that paw, up to mid-leg and gave him some medicine (non-steroid anti-inflammatory - NSAID). My mother complained bitterly about the vet fees, to me afterwards, as if it was in the thousands of dollars, when it was $160. She promised when she got the cat as a kitten that she would take him to the vet regularly, get him desexed and checked out - of course she has done none of it. Her promises are always full of empty air, meaningless!

Kitty cat has not been happy since he got his foot bandaged, he's always shaking that paw to try to get rid of the bandage, but it is not going anywhere. I think the medication doesn't agree with him as he gets very stressed a little while after he's taken it, breathing fast, getting drowsy and lethargic and today we only gave him about 1/2 of the dose he was supposed to have! I think tomorrow he wont get any medicine to see if that make a difference. I don't like to see him in pain or stress.