I’m allergic to cats

If you follow me on Instagram, you know we have a cat. But what most people don’t know is that I am actually allergic to cats.

Juanito, pictured above, is my first and only pet. Gabriel had grown up with both dogs and cats but I wasn’t so lucky. I remember begging my mom to allow me to have a cat when I was just entering elementary school, I think one time I even told her that I would give up TV for an entire year if she allowed me to have a cat. I remember I had a classmate, I didn’t necessarily get along with her but once I found out she had a cat, I was obsessed with her, trying to spend lunch break with her so she could talk to me more about her cat. Yeah, laugh at me all you want, I was a desperate little girl who was obsessed with felines. On the other hand, my mom kept on refusing my requests not because she was heartless but because at that age I was likely not going to keep up with the responsibilities of having a cat. Also, at the time we lived in a tiny apartment in China, and I totally understand why she didn’t want her home to smell like a litter box.

I waited till I was 28 years-old to have my cat just like I waited till I was 30 to have my son, because I believe you need to be mature enough (both mentally and fiscally) to independently care for a life.

I graduated from business school in Washington DC in the spring of 2016 and then moved to Detroit for work. Gabriel started business school around the same time in St. Louis, Missouri—yes we had a long distance marriage for 2 years and I do plan on writing a blog about our experience in the near future. By the summer of 2017, I had already worked for a year, and Gabriel had finished his MBA summer internship in Detroit, signed a full-time offer with the company, and ready to head back to St. Louis for his second and last year of business school. We got super serious about adopting a cat and started visiting shelters before Gabriel went back to St. Louis. When I was at work one day, Gabriel visited a shelter and met a 4 months-old kitten who meowed at him a lot and seemed really want to be adopted. Gabriel always recalls that he could feel the kitten telling him, “please adopt me, I really would like to have a home”. It was also interesting that this kitten looked very much like Gabriel’s childhood cat. Before I visited the shelter again to finalize adoption paperwork, I saw a picture of this kitten from Gabriel—if you have watched Sex & The City, there was a scene where Charlotte saw a picture of Lily (her adopted daughter) for the first time from the Chinese adoption agency and she started bawling and said to her husband, “that’s our daughter”. That happened to me when I saw the kitten in a picture, I got emotional and said, “oh my gosh, that’s my little cat”.

Around the time we were adopting our cat, I was binge-watching “Desperate Housewives” on Hulu and became obsessed with the show. I named our cat after Gabrielle Solis’ daughter Juanita, and since our cat is a little man, he is called Juanito—it’s Spanish for Johnny.

Soon after I hugged Juanito for the first time, I realized that I am allergic to cats—I would sneeze and have a bit of running nose every time I am around him. I am getting better over the years and believe if I sacrifice a little on my end for him to have a warm home, then it’s all worth it. Since his initial adoption, we moved houses in Michigan, and in the mid of the pandemic we moved across the country with him to Seattle. As a very shy cat, those moves have not been easy on him but we are proud of how he adjusted each and every time. His sweet nature has made it super easy for him to get along with Freddy as well, even though he was very scared when we first brought Freddy home from the hospital—Juanito had never seen a baby before so he was very confused with a human the size of a cat coming to live with us, haha.

Those shelter days are long behind him. Nowadays Juanito enjoys his daily wet food, occasional rotisserie chicken, and salmon snacks. He loves to watch cartoon with Freddy after dinner, and spends him day napping in different beds throughout the house.

I have had a lot of DMs on Instagram asking me details about my cat, so here you go. Every time we tell people Juanito’ story, we are always told that we have changed his life forever, but I want you to know that he has changed ours as well.