Can a Cat Allergy Stop Love? Not For Wes & Raphael!

Welcome to the Wednesday Cats of Catster! Each week, we share a narrative from considered one of our cat-loving Catsters. This week is about Wes and his fiercely cuddly Russian Blue, Raphael.

There it was, in shiny purple letters. They weren’t ashamed to inform me that I used to be allergic to Raphael.

In some ways, it was one thing I ought to have already identified. Though getting him was among the best issues I’ve ever performed, it did include its challenges. Why did I all the time appear to have a blocked nostril today? Why was I crying when no romantic comedy was on the TV as we speak? These have been the questions I requested myself as I labored by way of containers and containers of tissues, my grocery order turning into laden with increasingly more objects for sneeze assortment.

However I couldn’t admit the reality to myself or anybody else. “Perhaps you’re allergic?” “Unimaginable,” I’d retort, with bloodshot eyes and a nostril twice its regular measurement.

Two issues although began to make me really feel like I wanted a solution. First, any time I went away and Raphael was at residence, my problematic nostril would all of a sudden turn out to be….not so. Second, I used to be identified with Bronchial asthma final yr (maybe because of a number of unlucky Covid collections). My physician knowledgeable me that if I used to be allergic and didn’t understand it, that may very well be exacerbating any signs I may be fighting.

That was it. I needed to know. Despite the fact that I knew. I needed to know.

And now I do know.

A few vials of blood, a few pages of paper, and a phone call have been all it took to show somebody’s cat world the wrong way up.

They knowledgeable me that it was sufficiently extreme that I shouldn’t:

1. “Cuddle Raphael”
2. “Kiss Raphael”
3. “Even method a cat you have no idea”

This was worse than when the dentist instructed me glowing water was unhealthy in your enamel (“Now they’re even attempting to take water away from me?! What’s left?!”). Have been they attempting to kill me? To tear out my coronary heart? Apparently they weren’t attempting to kill me, however my cat may be.

I instructed them in no unsure phrases that though I might nearly restrain myself from petting an unknown cat, I merely couldn’t resist snuggling, cuddling, hand-holding, kissing, petting and customarily nuisance-ing my little boy, Raphael. In any other case, what’s life for?

Regardless of the heartache I felt, I don’t remorse getting the assessments performed. It’s all the time higher to know than to stay unsure, and it’s helped me make some significant changes to ease the burden:

Maybe essentially the most important is that I now take a every day (or each different day) antihistamine. For my stage of allergy, I’ve discovered this to be fairly efficient at lowering any issues I face, and it’s made cuddling with Raphy significantly simpler.

I attempt to clear the flooring greater than I did. Beforehand we’d go over them a number of days per week, and mop them as soon as per week. Now to lift the dander out, we throw the home windows open and attempt to give the flooring a going over as soon as a day. It’s arduous to inform what distinction this has made, truthfully. However maybe the very act itself makes my mind really feel higher.

Lastly, I now solely cuddle Raphael as soon as a day and provides him a kiss each different day…

Okay, you caught me on that one, clearly not. I kiss him as typically as I can and cuddle him as a lot as he’ll let me. If something, generally he appears extra allergic to me than I’m to him!

I feel having a pet is a privilege, not a proper. Life adjustments, and throws issues at you, and it’s important to roll with it. I’d by no means decide anybody for making a choice that they really feel they should make, however my relationship with Raphy received’t change one bit just because I do know that he makes me sick. I received’t permit it to. As a result of it isn’t his fault, and he wouldn’t do it if he might assist it. Hopefully, someplace in that beautiful mind of his, he is aware of how a lot he means to us and that nothing might cease us from loving him.

Now, I’d like to know, has something sudden occurred after you bought a cat that attempted to face in the best way of your love? Did you discover some nasty allergies, or was one thing else the offender?

P.S. For those who’re studying this after studying an announcement on the web site that I’ve died from anaphylactic shock, please get a tiny pair of handcuffs and arrest that legal cat!