"Daisies"

Hello, Friends,

The scary thing is that my fingers and toes feel nearly frostbitten even with the heat on (still running by generator after Hurricane Sandy) . . .   Repairs in progress before Hurricane Sandy have left us with less insulation, temporarily, than before.

The good thing is:  The air is totally fresh, crisp, and clean, smelling deliciously of black birch from the wood-burning boiler down below.

All of this has to do with my having fled our beloved, cozy little log cabin nine years ago next week, on a cold and blustery November morning -- gasping for air with lead-feeling limbs and jumbled coordination -- to avoid systemic collapse. There was a gaseous mixture in the house to which I'd apparently become highly sensitized -- and on November 13th, 2003, I'd reached my apex.

I would like, at some point, to highlight specific details of this experience for readers who would greatly benefit from knowing them.  I will save these details for a future post.  In the meantime, I will convey the basic logistics.

On the evening of November 13th, 2003, we landed here:  "here" being a highly organic, then-vacated home we'd owned but which my husband had been repairing at his leisure.  With this sudden, emergency relocation, any further thoughts of "leisure" or "spare time" flew out the window.  Our family was put on a new track.  We were now pioneers.  This house had been given ample time and opportunity to deteriorate while no one was living in it.

I never dreamed that, nine years later, we'd still be in "pioneer mode."

How easy is it for a toxically injured person to become homeless -- literally overnight (as I and my family would have been had we not had this "old faithful" living abode in the family)?  Easy.  Pathetically easy.  A mere snap of the fingers and -- voila! -- the old life is gone.  Just kiss it goodbye and don't waste any energy looking back.  There is no "back" to which one in this position can return.  All of the homes one might have chosen for oneself "in the old days," all of the friends' and relatives' homes which were once physically tolerable -- these are no longer options.  It truly is a metaphorical case of "Water, water everywhere -- and not a drop to drink." 

It's a cosmic revelation.  And no one on the outside will grieve with you.  I was told, basically, to "straighten up and fly right" and get my allergy shots already. There are no "allergy shots" for MCS.  An allergy is an excessive reaction of the body to a natural substance which the body would otherwise be expected to tolerate.  MCS, by contrast, is a reaction of the body to truly toxic substances of unnatural origin -- the body having been brought to an "overload" point where it can no longer "rebuff" or "shrug off" the insulting chemical toxins.  MCS, in short, is the body's (eventually visible and/or discernible) reaction to the presence of real poisons.

Moreover, there are no social supports for people who are poisoned in ways other than those that are commonly known, such as the carbon-monoxide way.  What drove me out of our log cabin did not seem to have been carbon-monoxide poisoning.  I was tested for that.  This made sense enough to me, because I was the only one in the family reduced to an emergency state.  I was also the one who cooked the most and the longest.  I had been cooking for hours on that fateful morning when I had to leave my home.  Please read on.

On the contrary, it seemed that I'd suffered from the personally disastrous interaction of (1) the combustion byproducts of natural gas and (2) other chemical contaminants lodged in the house's old carpet.  "Yours truly" had, most likely, become extremely sensitized to whatever chemical cocktail results from natural gas's benzene and toluene (during combustion) combining with old carpet-cleaner chemicals, potential pesticides used by previous owners, leftover products of cigarette smoke (known to me), and the residue of old, fragranced personal products -- plus the carpet chemicals and carpet backing, itself.  Never mind that we'd steamed the carpet immediately upon moving in.  Steaming won't remove cloying chemicals.  Furthermore, our boiler, dryer, and stove were all fueled by natural gas.

So, finally, the day came when I was physically unable to spend even one more minute under these conditions.

This history, friends, is part and parcel of your "Daisies."  Homelessness, I know full well, is always just a breath away.  

On the topic of "Daisies," I'd like to mention that my visual sense has been continually bothered by the plethora of words naming my icon.  So, please . . . just call me "Daisies."  I'm "Daisies," and I clean many things with distilled white vinegar.  The image of white, sunny, open-faced daisies in a field is the closest my mind's eye can come, visually, to what this chemically-sensitive nature of mine craves.  And vinegar is such a lovely, hardy, versatile, and sweet-smelling liquid (to me)!  I find distilled white vinegar to be a very pleasant and enjoyable substance, especially when I pour it on a cloth and wave it in the air to banish bad natural and/or chemical smells.  It works quickly that way.  I have a friend to thank for that stroke of genius.  It sounded comical until I actually tried it.  Now, I keep a cloth hanging in a strategic place so that, if needed, I can pour distilled white vinegar on it and wave it around.  My children find this hysterical.

Cheers!  :)

~ Daisies (!)