Woman who has to sleep up to 22 hours a day finds hope fostering cats in need

Nikita Benney always wanted to work with animals, but realised having a full-time job just wasn’t doable after being diagnosed with chronic fatigue.

Nikita’s condition means she experiences extreme tiredness and sometimes has to sleep for up to 22 hours a day.

The illness and the challenges it poses pushed Nikita, 28, into a period of depression.

But she’s found comfort and hope in fostering cats and kittens in need.

Nikita now runs a mini cat rescue centre from her back garden, thanks to a special outdoor pen being constructed in her back garden in Street, Somerset.

Having since fostered six cats, Nikita said: ‘From the moment they dropped the first cat off, everything in my life changed.

‘It gave me a reason to get up in the morning for the first time in years.

‘It felt like I finally had a job and a purpose. I was finally doing something meaningful and good.’

Nikita first noticed her health decline when she turned 14, after her beloved grandmother, Josephine, died from breast cancer, aged 72.

What started as flu-like symptoms soon became chronic exhaustion, causing Nikita to often be sent home from school as she couldn’t keep awake during lessons.

She finally received a diagnosis in 2007, when she broke down after being told there was no real treatment or cure.

Refusing to abandon her dream of working with animals, Nikita ‘scraped through’ college – leaving with an NVQ2 in animal care and an extended diploma in animal work.

‘The only thing I ever wanted to do was work with animals,’ she said.

It quickly became clear, however, that Nikita’s condition would make a full-time job impossible.

‘No one wants to hire someone who does a day’s work, then needs a week off to recover,’ she explained.

‘It’s not fair and it’s difficult to accept sometimes, but it is what it is.

‘On a bad day, I can be awake for an hour at 9am to eat, before going back to sleep until 5pm, waking up for dinner, and then sleeping at 6pm until the next morning.

Nikita immediately contacted the local council to see if her housing association would allow her to keep cats in the back garden, and was thrilled to be given the go-ahead.

In March 2019 Nikita’s local Cats Protection branch told her she was an ideal candidate for fostering and they’d love for her to look after some of their cats.

In August, Cats Protection built an outdoor pen for Nikita in her back garden, which includes an insulated cabin with plenty of soft bedding and a run, accessed by a cat flap, where the cats can stretch their legs and play.

A month later, Nikita was called and asked to take in a pregnant stray tabby called Suzie – who soon welcomed five kittens.

‘I loved her from the moment that I saw her and have come to love her even more over the months that I’ve had her,’ she said.

‘I went from caring for one moggy to having five tiny little ones to look after too.

‘Cleaning the pen, litter training, weening and getting them used to different experiences was so rewarding.Nik It felt like what I was meant to be doing.’

As well as giving her a sense of purpose, five months of fostering cats has boosted Nikita’s social life, too.

‘I didn’t have much interaction with people before the cats came into my life, but now I’m talking to people regularly from Cats Protection to keep them posted on how the kittens are doing,’ she said.