What Nobody Ever Told Me About Having a Cat
I spent 45 minutes reading.
Here's what I learned:
Cats produce a protein called Fel d 1. It comes from their saliva and skin glands. When cats groom themselves which they do constantly that protein coats their fur.
Then it dries. And flakes off.
Into the air.
These particles are microscopic and nearly weightless. Scientists call them "neutrally buoyant." They don't fall to the floor like dust. They stay suspended in the air for hours.
In a sealed bedroom overnight, they accumulate.
By 3am, 4am, 5am the concentration of Fel d 1 in a closed bedroom with a cat is at its highest point of the entire day.
That's exactly when I was waking up.
I looked at Biscuit, asleep on my pillow, inches from my face.
I've been breathing this all night. Every night. For two years.
But here's the part that really got me.
Biscuit doesn't even have to be in the room for it to happen.
The protein embeds itself into the mattress, the pillow, the walls, the curtains. Then it re-releases back into the air continuously even hours after the cat has left.
I thought about the one weekend I'd spent at my brother's place no cats, guest bedroom, slept like a stone both nights, woke up completely clear.
I'd written that off as "sleeping somewhere new."
It wasn't that.
I had been treating the wrong problem for two years. Humidifier, new pillow, sleep hygiene apps none of it touched what was actually in the air above my face every night.