I am not a veterinary technician (licensed or otherwise). I have never worked in a veterinary practice or hospital. I am simply a cat owner.

My husband and I started with one cat, Io. She was soon joined by another cat, Jordan. Years later they were joined by what we called our unplanned child, Fritz the cat. Io was born in a warehouse in Port Kearny, NJ. Jordan was a rescue from Jordan Ave. in Jersey City, NJ. (He was one of those "if he's alive in the morning, we'll take him to a vet" kind of cats.) Fritz was from Cleveland, Ohio, where he lived with my aunt, until she died an untimely, early death.

When Jordan was about 10 he had massive kidney failure (reason unknown). His creatinine level was 22.5 (normal is about 1, elevated is about 6, and the vet said cats with a level as high as 17 had been known to live). He pulled through several days at the vet's office, and we were told we could take him home and give him subcutaneous fliuds.

I was the kind of person who could not even watch the vet give my cat a shot. Now I was supposed to stick what seemed like a giant needle into his back and make him hold still for many many minutes while fluid from a bag dripped into him. And we were supposed to do this every day!

To say I was distraught is an understatement. I had never had any interest in doing this sort of thing with animals! I was afraid of needles. In the beginning it was very rough. I cried, my husband held the cat, I cried, I couldn't get the needle in. The cat got mad. I cried because he was going to die because I couldn't do this thing I didn't want to. It was awful.

Eventually, we all got the hang of it. For the first six months, I just sweated and shook for hours before I had to give Jordan fluids. I dreaded it. Looking back, I don't know why, really. He was a good cat. I had help. We could afford the care. It was just having to go down a path I never even knew existed. This was around 1997, and I had never heard of giving fluids and I didn't know a single cat owner who had ever done it.

We thought Jordan would last a few months. He lived another three years. Wow. At some point we had to go to a family event for a weekend. It was very hard to find someone to give him fluids while we were gone. To top it off, Io had since been diagnosed as diabetic and now she needed insulin twice a day. Friends will feed your cats, but they sure are not willing to stick needles into them!

Io died before Jordan did, which was a shock to us. We moved to a new house, and acquired a new cat, Callisto. Jordan died shortly thereafter. Heartbroken, we were however relieved that all this medical care was over.

No rest for the weary who can't take a vacation! Fritz is then diagnosed with BOTH kidney failure and diabetes. Unbelievable. Fast forward to a couple more years of this, and two new cats, Weeble and Wobble, moving in with us. (Can you guess that these guys have a few problems?) ;)

Fritz died. He hung on as long as he could. After he died, I reflected on all I had learned to do for him, and Io and Jordan. I was volunteering (and still am) at Whiskers cat shelter and took up doing medical care there, including administering fluids to cats at the shelter.

I thought about how much trouble we had finding a person to take care of our cats, and how limited our travels had been for years (can't even go away for one night!). Other big changes happened in my life, and I left my corporate job. Friends started asking me to take care of their cats. I started thinking about starting a cat care business.

Our household now consists of Weeble, Wobble, Leda (who had been named Weeble when we adopted her), and Callisto. We get to just feed them, pet them, and clean litter boxes. No needles. But, I thought it seemed like a shame to not put those now comfortable skills to use. Over time, Twenty Toes Cat Sitting emerged.

And no, most cats do not have Twenty Toes, but special cats do! :)