I got a cat. She has three legs and half a tail, and her name is Muther Fluffer. I grew up with cats. In fact, I can still remember my mom bringing home our first one. She was in a box with the four flaps folded in place. As my mom pried them open (way too slow), one of Molly’s eyes was protruding before her body ever did, and I was sure it was going to pop out of her head. Instead, the box finally popped open, and Molly went flying across the floor, out of the room, and under some piece of furniture, not to be seen again for days. I, however, spent the afternoon searching the floor for her eye that I was sure she lost in the whole unveiling. But when she finally resurfaced, her eye was in place, and she was fine.

It was probably sometime in late 1982 or early 1983 because I still have photos of her sitting in her favorite place. Her favorite place was under our Kenner Star Wars Ewok Village playset, and that was out for Christmas of 83’, shortly after the movie’s release. Her full name was Molly Strongheart. Not sure where we got Molly from, but Strongheart was one of me and my brother’s favorite Dungeons & Dragons characters, and she was tough like him. And his toy also came out in 1983. The point is, I’ve had cats in my nose since the 80s.

One day, several years later, after we’d moved from the suburbs of Illinois to the country burbs of North Carolina, my brother and sister came home with a kitten from a litter down the street, and Molly had a new friend. His name was Pumpkin, and he was an orange cat and one of the sweetest souls I’d ever know. Molly and Pumpkin had one of those love-hate cat relationships where Pumpkin would come out of nowhere and pounce on her, pinning her down and terrorizing her. And she would fight to get free, only to remain right by his side instead of running from him. During and after the time we had these two lovebirds, many cats came out of the NC woods behind our house. And me being the “I gotta take in every animal I can” kind of kid I was (and still am) made sure that as many of those cats as possible stuck around for as long as they could. Little Bob was a tiny, ferocious sweetheart, and Slobber was another kind, orange gentleman. Then one day when I was older, I pulled a mostly new, baby kitten out from under the engine of a car and gave her to my mom. Iris, aka, Little Cousin was so nice, and cute, but she peed on everything.

I lived with every one of these cats and loved them all, and was allergic to all of them.

I don’t know if it started when we brought Molly home when I was seven years old, or if I’d had allergies before that, but I do remember that sometime around 1985 I was diagnosed with allergy-related asthma, and tested, and the tests came back that I was allergic to everything. At the top of that “everything” list were cats, and I started taking this really disgusting syrup that was supposed to help me breathe. Eventually, my parents became hip to modern medicine, and I was put on a Ventolin inhaler, which eventually morphed into an Albuterol inhaler, which I still kind of use to this day. But that’s where the psychology starts!

Once I was put on the inhaler my physical life pretty much ended. Sure, I needed it, especially when I was around cats, grass, cheese and all other foods, but I also used it as a crutch. I made excuses whenever running was involved, and I always had a way out of chores. There were a couple of full-blown asthma attacks at school. One in particular where I was introduced to coffee because the school nurse thought it would work better than my inhaler, which I’d forgotten to bring to school that day. I didn’t drink coffee again until I was 40 years old.

Looking back on my young life with cats I think the reason my face never imploded and the reason I could live with them sleeping on my bed was because my mom kept an immaculate house. It seemed like she vacuumed and swept every hour on the hour, and you dare not step in her pile! But one day I left home, and my inhaler came with me.

One of the worst allergy, and all-around life experiences I ever had was when I was lucky enough to go to London for the wedding of one of my best friends. The small group I was traveling with stayed no more than a few nights at someone else’s house, all of which were strangers to me. Until the very last night of the trip, when we ended up at the home of Yoda the cat. Unlike my mom, Yoda’s owners had seemingly never cleaned their apartment, and Yoda’s essence had created a new material covering everything in the home. Similar to Dagobah, where the real Yoda lives in Star Wars, and everything is covered in mud, but just replace that mud with cat hair. It was bananas! I immediately felt it. My face exploded, my eyes popped out of my skull, and my lungs were closed for business. They immediately took me to a neighbor for the night, but by morning I was snot. I was virtually a living, not breathing, snot man. And I had to get on a plane for 11 hours and fly back to the States that day. And during the flight, when the cabin re-pressurized, or whatever happens when your ears pop, I experienced the worse pain known to the human head. I was crying. I seriously thought my brain was going to explode out of my ears and I’d be responsible for some international incident, on a plane, over the ocean.

Shortly after this, and unrelated to almost everything in my life at the time, I tried to join the Marines. I was in a place of limbo with my life, but for some reason felt a strong urge to serve my country, or just be useful. I don’t know what was truly driving me back then, but it seemed like my next step. And I was fit as a fiddle, but they turned me down because of my dependency on my inhaler. No joke, I hung up the phone and threw my inhaler in the garbage on the spot and literally didn’t use it for nearly 10 years.

Now you may be clapping, and yes there were times when I thought I could have used it. But whether pride or focus, I refused to go back to it. And you may think that what comes next kind of defeats my whole psychology of cats and allergies thesis here, but remember, there were zero cats involved in my direct life during that 10-year inhaler hiatus. However, every time I’d visit my family I’d really struggle with breathing issues, and despite acknowledging that I did have legit issues with cats and allergies, I’d just struggle through it. In fact, there was one time during my sister’s wedding week when we were all staying at her place when it got really bad with her cat. Luckily her husband was an EMT and got me an inhaler. But as soon as I got back home, in the trash it went. Really dumb, I know.

Now flash forward almost 15 years from that point. I hadn’t lived with cats for most of that time, but I did eventually fall back on using an inhaler at some point. I still had allergies to a lot of stuff, and as I got older, my lungs got less and less able to handle the grass, the pollen, and the pizza. I’m now 46, and I’d say over the past 15 years or so I got in the habit of using my inhaler 2-3 times a week, usually only before bed, and usually only in the fall and spring.

When I moved into my current apartment, my dog Mooge and my neighbor’s cat, Muther Fluffer, kind of became friends. And by friends, I mean Mooge (a small Papillion/Chihuahua mix) had the skill of charging into her apartment if the door was cracked and going straight for Fluff. And Fluff would gladly greet her and try to play. But alas, my neighbor also has two dogs, a 90-pound beast named Forrest, and a three-pound teacup Chihuahua named Breakfast, and they tormented Fluff every chance they got.

Muther Fluffer had shown up on my neighbor’s doorstep a few years prior with a broken arm and half her tail chewed off. She rescued this cat in every way, taking her to the vet, paying for her surgery, and giving her a home. But the living situation between the three animals never really took, and Fluff spent a large part of her life there hiding from the other two, and forcing her to become a true MFer.

After my Mooge passed a couple of years ago, I rescued a new puppy, Egoom, and in so many ways, he has followed in her footsteps. One of which is his love for charging into apartments and befriending your cats. Just like his big sister, he and Muther Fluffer became friends, and every time he was in there, she’d come out to greet him and play for as long as the other two dogs would allow, which never was too long.

Eventually, my neighbor started talking about finding MFer a new home because in self-defense she’d scratched the dogs’ eyes and face, and as the dogs got older the tensions grew. So, I decided to think about the situation as little as possible, throw all regard for my lifetime of allergy discomfort to the wind, and say “Hey, if you really decide to give MFer up, please let me know first.” Because at the very least, she had one less leg and half less of a tail to be allergic to. And then that day came.

It was this past Spring, and one of the worst allergy seasons I’d experienced in over a decade. It was so bad that I’d gone from using my inhaler once every couple of weeks to the aforementioned 2-3 times a week. And on top of that, I was about to add a cat, which I hadn’t lived with for almost 25 years at this point. I’d also, literally the day before, renewed my prescription for a brand-new inhaler because I’d been using it so much. So, we decided to do a trial run and see how I could handle breathing new cat-flavored air.

That was 3 months ago. Muther Fluffer is sitting right next to me, and Egoom is sitting right next to her, and I haven’t used my inhaler once in the time she’s been here.

I think back to the time that I tried to join the Marines and just closed my brain off to having my inhaler as an option. I think about my possible determination to make this work for Fluff who needed a new home she could feel safe in. I think about Egoom getting a new sister. I think about my Mooge bringing all of us together. And I think about me desperately wanting to not be dependent on something that wouldn’t be readily available in the pending zombie/AI/civil war apocalypse.

But in all seriousness, and not to diminish anyone’s allergy experience, nor mine, but was it all in my head? There’s no way all of it was in my head because 7 to 13-year-old me really had trouble breathing at times. And regardless of how clean my mom kept the house, I still absolutely needed my inhaler after snuggling into Molly or Pumpkin or Slobber or Little Bob. But I do think that there was a point where, after Yoda of course (that dude was no joke), I’d mostly grown out of my allergic reaction to the list of stuff the doc told 7-year-old me I was allergic to. I eat anything I want, I roll around on the grass with my pups, and I Dr. Evil it up with any cat that will let me. But through all that, I don’t think my brain would let me truly let go of my inhaler.

I don’t think it was until I knew Fluff was coming to live with us that something in my head switched. I felt like she really needed a good home, and I hated the thought of it being with complete strangers. I knew me and Egoom could give that to her, and I wanted a friend of my Mooge’s to be a part of our lives. But I also didn’t want that to be at the cost of my own health and mean that I’d be forever and increasingly dependent on an inhaler for a good, deep fresh breath of air.

So, I kept my inhaler, right by my bed. And that’s where it sits right now, and that’s where it’s been since Fluff got here. There have been several times in the past three months that I’ve thought I needed it and reached for it. But in those moments, I stop, focus, and breathe deeply. Sometimes I even do little things to help, like taking a shower or at least washing my face. And the difference between my cat allergies and my everything else allergies is that cats always affected my lungs. Everything else was an itchy, watery, snotty thing. But I think anyone with any allergies will agree that sometimes just getting clean and resetting, getting the grime and day off of you helps you breathe more free and clear. But I wonder if I had had the right reason in the past if I could have overcome this dependency on my inhaler sooner, and been able to breathe better more often. Or if it was a dependency at all and I’m just building toward coughing up the biggest hair ball ever.

Now all that said, I still get slapped hard with sneezing and very watery eyes when spring comes around. I think pollen allergies are inevitable, especially when you have a flowering tree literally trying to come in your window like the one in Poltergeist minus any of that clown bullshit. And I’ll take allergies over clowns any day of the week!

So, what’s the takeaway here? In my experience, and absolutely with what I’ve gone through with MFer, I truly think that a lot of my allergies as an adult were in my head. A kind of psychological dependency stemming from my acute experiences as a kid. Things hit you hard and stick with you when you’re little, and many of us carry those crutches and habits with us through our entire lives, not allowing ourselves to re-evaluate our issues. As I mentioned, before Fluff got here my Albuterol usage was at an all-time high since the Yoda incident. And I was prepared to keep that going. Mostly because I thought my lungs weren’t physically able to deal with the micro enemies of the world. But the mind is a strong item. I believe and have experienced, that with clarity, determination, patience, focus, and a few other heavy words, that we all can overcome things that have plagued us for years, if not our entire lives. You just have to do it and move forward.

Now, I know what most of you are thinking, and it’s an idea that really isn’t too far out there. Yes, it is possible that the evil little troll that lived in the wall in Drew Barrymore’s room in the movie Cat’s Eye is real. And that he’s just one of a society of evil little trolls that come out at night and suck the breath from your lungs just like the evil little troll did to Drew in the movie. But just like in that movie, Drew got a new cat, and that cat fought that evil little troll, slapping it into a window fan where it got shredded into a million tiny pieces. And despite the parents finding the evil little troll’s dagger, they just thought it was a toy. And anyone that knows me knows my apartment is littered with toys. So I probably didn’t even notice the troll guts stuck in my fan. And the cat got a new home, Drew Barrymore never had problems breathing again, and the world had one less evil little troll.