Neko ga kaetteshimatta wa...

[Risu-chan]

I don't remember where I was rambling about the saga of the friend with the cats and me and my allergies and how much I wanted a cat to live in my apartment but didn't know if it'd work... I got the cat this evening about 6 p.m. and the experiment lasted less than 6 hours.

About 10 minutes ago Neko went home (okay, his previous "home" which is going to stay that way for the next 3 days or so). Miyu didn't come to visit; Keith figured one would be adjustment enough. Neko was an incredible sweetie all evening... I loved having him wander around and decide he wanted some people time and curl up on
me and purr and roll around in kitty bliss when I scritch under his chin, and his reaction to being combed ought to be bottled and marketed as illegal euphorics, and believe it or not he LOVED being rubbed down with the anti-allergy stuff; I managed to turn it into a game of kitty tag and he was purring like mad and trying to catch my wrist while I was scruffling at him with the washcloth with the anti-allergy stuff on it.

The problem was the sleeping arrangements. I tried to sleep in my bedroom without a cat in it and he yowled at me for 40 minutes. I tried to sleep on the sofa for 3 hours and his preferred arrangement was alternating between my face, neck, and left shoulder in 5-minute spurts accompanied by stiletto-toed feet for maneuvering. Purring madly the whole time, which made it impossible to scold him... not to mention that "less allergenic" is not the same as "not allergenic" when the cat insists on sleeping
either directly under your nose or approximately on it.

By the time I gave up, I couldn't see because my eyes were gummed shut and the roof of my throat feels like it's been painted with itch powder and I just could NOT face the number of sleepless nights it would take me to convince him that no,
I really cannot breathe or see when he shoves his sweet allergenic little face into mine and purrs like that... and doesn't stay in one spot long enough for me to even pretend to get to sleep... sigh...

If I had a multilevel apartment where I could easily keep him out of my bedroom, or if I tried a cat who wasn't used to sleeping with its owner, it might work out differently, but right now I just badly need sleep and can't manage to do it with a cat who insisted it needed to be my face-warmer in order to permit me to attempt (unsuccessfully) to sleep...

;_; I really wanted to be able to keep him, too. He's an incredibly sweet cat... but I can't keep being THAT out of it at work due to consecutive days of (a) not sleeping with cat anticipation stress and outdoor air allergies and (b) not sleeping because the cat refuses to believe anyone could actually sleep without him... ;~; waaah...!

[Lady Elanor]

Arrgh! So sorry. [img]frown.gif[/img]
Perhaps the cat can learn not to sleep in the same room as his owner but it will need time, long time.
If you really want to have a cat, you can try to get a baby cat but I think there ever is a risk. What a pity. [img]frown.gif[/img]

What is Keith going to do with his cats now?

[cutelittlekitty]

Did you take any allergy medicine or cold medicine before the kitty came over? I forgot to mention in my last post, when i'm not used to a cat i have to take something to relieve the allergy symptomes or my immune sysetm weakens and i catch a cold. i like to use dayquil. i know it's not really for allergies, but it still relieves the symptoms and it doesn't make me sleepy. i had perscription allergy medicine for a while, but i haven't needed it lately since i'm not around cats as much. once i've lived with a cat for a while (usually about 6 or 8 weeks) I can go without taking medicine. my last cat, Dahli, used to sleep right on my chest and it didn't bother my allergies at all. of course, i still had to take medicine if i went to visit someone who had cats. i've never used anti-allergy stuff on a cat, but it sounds like it didn't work well enough.

[rev.tsukiyama]

Sorry to hear that. (I love cats with a passion, I'd have loads of persians and exotics I could XD).
I suppose you have to have a lot of spare time set aside to introduce a new animal into your life. I'm moving next year and I'm going to have to find a way to move several tanks of fancy goldfish with me, not to mention the ones in the pond. Argh.
May I reccomend going to a chinese herbalist for allergies? I used to have really severe eczema, but now I'm almost cured. The Dr I went to was in Soho, and very expensive but good. I've still got perrenial hayfever and asthma and anaphylaxia, but I get prescribed drugs for them. I find regularly changing the type of antihistamine I take helps.

[Risu-chan]

I tried the antihistamine thing too. My problem is that most daytime antihistamines make me shaky (Sudafed actually gives me panic attacks) and Benadryl etc. knocks me out like a light. (Except when there's a cat standing with all its weight on one paw on my ribcage and looking down at me in puzzlement at the groggy whimpers of pain I'm making... ^^;;; this was a frequent occurrence Tues. night...)

So while I'm resigned to taking more antihistamines than regular while owning a cat, I really want to find some way to not HAVE to be on mind-altering drugs 24 hours a day for the next decade or so of cat life... ^^;;

I think I'm going to try for a cat again after the Japanese exchange students who are coming in August go home. My three-room apartment might just explode or something if it contained me, 2 cats, 2 cat boxes/beds/food dishes/etc, 2 visitors, and 2 visitors' month worth of luggage for several weeks...

and I'm going to make sure that whatever cat I get is NOT expecting to sleep with its person! My other friends' cats are fine with the idea that people go inexplicably horizontal in other rooms during the best hours for banging around the house (of course there's no point in mad steeplechases over the sofa when it's the middle of the day; the thrill of the hunt only comes out after dark). And they find plenty of ways to entertain themselves at night, ways that don't involve meowing pathetically at the doors... so I know there have to be more compatible cats out there. It's not Neko's fault he's used to being able to sleep with a person, and not my fault I can't sleep with him walking on me; it just means the two of us weren't exactly made for each other... ^__^

(At least that's the chin-up face I'm putting on it at the moment. Last night I came home to an empty apartment and sat down and bawled like a baby and then went out for some shopping therapy. On the bright side, the shopping therapy produced a couple pillows and a set of bedsheets for the sofa bed for the August guests, so that actually was justified... ^_~)