Like many people, I find cats to be absolutely adorable. I would get slightly jealous of friends who did have cats, and often still do. Ever since I was little I have wanted to keep one as a pet and I had always dreamed of the day when I would be old enough to live in my own home and have one or two (or a dozen) cats of my own. I am a would-be crazy cat lady and I am okay with that. The problem? I am undeniably allergic to cats.

My mother has been allergic to cats my whole life, so there was always a good reason why we could never have one, and as I got older we started to suspect that I may also have an allergy. When I was somewhere around 13 years old, I finally had a legitimate allergy test done and then it because official: cats are my most severe allergies. While my allergy is not nearly as bad as that of some people – my uncle, who wears a medical mask around them for instance – it is definitely at a point where I could not live with a cat in my house.

It makes me so sad when I think about how desperately I used to want a kitten while also knowing that it is a complete impossibility now. For a time, I tried researching to find ways around this obstacle. I found a few tricks on the internet, but to be honest I had little faith in any of those. My favorite suggestion actually came from a substitute teacher that I had one time, who told me that his friends, who were allergic to cats, owned five of them that were trained to shower with the owners every morning, apparently significantly reducing the amount of dander floating around the house. While this initially intrigued me, I realized that this is probably a unlikely thing to be able to train a cat to do, as well as that it is probably not enough to keep my allergy completely at bay. At this point, I have officially resigned myself to the fact that I will have to live out my days without the disaffected companionship of a feline.

My initial reaction to seeing any cat today is still to say hello, pet it, and try to get it to play with me; I also tend to tell the cat I am allergic to it, as if that makes any difference to the animal. I am usually okay for the short amount of time I typically spend with cats, it is just such as shame that that amount of time cannot be longer. It is a little like loving candy as a diabetic, I guess. No matter how much you like it, you can only have it in small doses, and that is just the way it has to be.