Disruption Comes on Little Cat Feet

Last week I found out for sure that I am allergic to cats.

I am so allergic to cat dander that the scratch test had to be diluted by a factor of 25 just so they could read the reaction.

My wife, whom I will call Obedienta, and I own a black long hair cat named Hana No-Neiko No Sawyer-san, Hana for short.

Actually, Hana is Obedienta’s cat. Before Hana, Obedienta had Travis, who got eaten by our neighbor’s dog. Before Travis, she owned Murray. I’ve lived with a cat for eight years, which is as long as I’ve lived with my wife. I love my wife, but I do not, nor have I ever, loved a cat.

The reason I went to check for allergies is that I have had the same nagging flu symptoms that most of California seems to have been suffering this year. But, unlike the rest of Los Angeles, I nearly died last summer of spinal meningitis, which started with an earache.

My sore throat not only wasn’t going away, it was starting to give me an earache and my doctor was getting nervous.

He suggested allergy testing.

When the nurse put the little micro-drop of dander in there, my arm turned into a water balloon. There was no question: I was acutely allergic to cats.

So, it was a fairly straightforward problem, I thought. I would go home and tell Obedienta we have to send Hana to her mother or sister, both of whom love cats and have several already. Hana is threatening my health. Ergo, Hana has to go.

Some background: Obedienta is the mother of our two children, aged 1 and 2. She is also a licensed architect who has put her professional career on hold because we believe that we should raise our kids ourselves, even if it meant taking a financial bath for a time. I work full time downtown and have published a few novels in the past couple of years that help with the income, but we are running at a net loss of nearly $1,000 per month.

So Obedienta and I had started out “equal.” I worked and she worked. I was willing to be the one to stay home full time while she continued working. I would fit in novels during nap time.

But I had a hard time with breast-feeding and in a short while we were trodding the traditional path: Obedienta as the mom and I as the dad who goes off to work.

Thinking it’s no big deal, I stroll in with my news about Hana. After all, I’m not saying we take her to the pound. She’ll have a good home, friends, perhaps a more interesting social environment, an upscale diet.

Obedienta wouldn’t hear of it.

I went through the roof. After my working full time for three years, supporting her and the kids, the stress of two jobs when my health is threatened, how can she refuse--how can she even think to refuse--to give up her damn cat?

When the plaster settled, it turned out that Hana wasn’t the issue. My suggestion that Hana had to go became for Obedienta the symbol of everything she had compromised to be a mom, every way she had changed. Hana was all she could claim as her own--not hers and mine together, not the family’s.

Hana was the urban house, published projects, financial success, lost parties, womantalks, everything that our decision had robbed from her.

But then your husband tells you we’ve got to ace the cat.

He’s allergic and you love him. You love your kids, too, but whatever happened to having your own life? When does it come back? What should you do?

And on my side, how much of my working life is my own? Didn’t I, too, give up a lot to have a family? I love my wife. How can I ask her to ace Hana?

Why, way back in the early days, didn’t we decide to have a turtle?