Sadly, I now have two cats to medicate twice per day. I have been giving Chase his insulin shots twice a day for a few years now. He is the perfect patient. I have two Type 1 Diabetic sons so Diabetes, insulin, needles and shots are no big deal around my house. We learned all about this horrible disease when my youngest son was diagnosed at age 11. He’s 20 now. I learned how to give shots and not think twice about it.

When the cat was diagnosed, too, we took it in stride. It helps that Chase is patient and loving. He’s a big marshmallow who comes and asks for his shot twice a day because he knows he’s going to get love and treats. I can say the word “shot” and he heads for the treats counter.

Ginger is loving, but she’s not as trusting or as forgiving as Chase is. She’s also tiny – only 7.5 pounds on her best day. She’d lost weight recently so we headed for the vet and a series of tests. She was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. She now needs medicine twice a day, too. The only problem is she doesn’t eat anything other than crunchy dry food so hiding a pill in food or compounding the medicine into a soft chew is not an option with her. She wouldn’t eat it. I also don’t want to force a pill down her throat twice a day. She’s so shy and timid and it was hard to earn her trust. I won’t do that to her. So we had a third option – transdermal medicine.

The theory is great. You dial up a dose and using a glove, you rub it into the inside of her ear, and it gets absorbed into her skin. The actual practice of it is not so easy. I watched videos online of how to do this. The cats in the videos were like Chase – placid, calm and accepting.

My first problem was when I dialed the medicine up. It squirted out of the syringe and onto my Mac keyboard. I wasted two doses and I had to carefully wipe it off the keyboard. It’s not supposed to get onto my skin or I could absorb the medicine. The second problem was getting it onto the cat. She was less than happy with the goo in her ear. She let me do it, but she didn’t want to talk to me for a good portion of the evening afterwards. The third problem was getting the glove back off. I did it the way the video said – turn it inside out and pull it off. Somehow some of the medicine got onto my ungloved hand.

I have to give her another dose in a few minutes as we start her second day on the medicine. Let’s just say I’m less than thrilled with the prospect. I’m not sure how or why I ended up with two cats to medicate. Maybe I should’ve been a nurse.