"A Person's a Person, No Matter How Small!" (Horton Hears a Who! - by Dr. Seuss)

Greetings, Friends!

Kindly excuse the dull black print.  This morning, it feels so much better on the eyes than a color.  It also brings some kind of systemic relief to me to see my post printed this way.  (Fascinating concept:  the effects of color on the human system and psyche -- and on tired eyes!  I'm going to try to remember that topic.)

So, if I switch colors now and then, you'll know why.  :)  

Today, I'm pondering books . . . borrowed.

I fare a whole lot better amongst new books in bookstores, because nobody has taken the books home yet.  Unless they contain glossy pages, bookstore books usually have that uniform "paper" scent.*

Libraries are another animal entirely.  I quickly learn which books the smokers like -- that's the easiest call.  Next down the line are perfumed books.  My physiology -- capable guide! -- dictates which of these I can take home with me and which I must return to the shelf immediately.  Due to the nose-numbing effect of some synthetic scent components, however, I'm occasionally surprised, at home, to find I've chosen a book with a much stronger scent than I'd originally detected.  This, then, becomes a book I cannot read.

Finally, we have the "laundry/chemical cleaner/air freshener" scented books, which smell as though they'd been filed between dryer sheets.  These are the most interesting breed of all.  They positively "radiate."

If I, myself, have not personally plucked the books off the shelves and carried them to the checkout desk, I miss the opportunity to weed out, in advance, the truly "nonnegotiable" books.  When little hands choose and carry the books to the library clerk and out the front door, I discover the "nonnegotiable" ones "on the way." 

The children's books seem to get the worst of it.  As we drove home from the library the other day, my daughter was proudly reading one of her chosen books in the back seat.  Suddenly, I became aware that a pungent smell with a caustic texture was relentlessly burning into my nose.  I asked my children if they'd used the strongly scented shampoo, or if they'd put on some clothing from a previous, highly scented outing.

My son said, "It's the book."  It definitely was.  I sighed.

"I'm sorry -- could you please put it way in the back?"  I had to request.  The scent had now surrounded us all.  It began to burn my daughter's eyes.

These are moments of enlightenment.  Lest readers think that it is just I, and others like me, who fare poorly amidst chemical scents . . .

Children also feel the burn.   In how many ways might their little bodies and minds be paying for this "everywhere" exposure to innumerable toxic fragrances?

This is a daunting question.  I happen to have two very pertinent links on hand for just such an occasion:

Missouri Kids Health Coalition:  Air fresheners and fragranced cleaning products - Letter written by Dr. Anne C. Steinemann, Ph.D.

Cleanerindoorair.org: "Toxic Chemicals in Fragranced Laundry Products and Health Effects" by Dr. Anne C. Steinemann - Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington

And one more, just from the heart:

"Bless the Beasts and the Children" - Carpenters

(Totally natural voice of gold, so kind, so healing -- beautiful Karen, rest in peace.)

May these links bear many good fruits to you and your loved ones.

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

*P.S.  I wish to extend my respectful recognition here to those whose chemical sensitivity causes new books -- and various inks -- to affect them adversely.   If you have any words to share regarding this experience, your thoughts would be most welcome!

Who Needs Beauty?

I recently wrote the following thoughts in a letter regarding the proposed large-scale abstraction of water from the River Shannon:

". . . To gut a picturesque river is to take something from the heart of the people, to demoralize them -- even if unintentionally.  That, in turn, can have a profound effect on family life and economics."

Is beauty a small thing?

I have found, through the rigors and deprivations imposed by chemical sensitivity, that the loss of beauty in one's surroundings can, itself, be debilitating.  Others have lost beauty in their surroundings as a result of poverty, natural disasters, war, and other illnesses and injuries.  Whichever way it occurs, the loss of beauty brings on visual gloom.  Life goes spare and bare.  You can tell yourself a million times a day that mere visuals shouldn't get under your skin this way, that this or that task must get done no matter what -- but how do you honestly feel while doing it?  Do you feel cast down, thoroughly engulfed by a sense of visual "greyness" or hopelessness, and drained?

Or consider, for example, an old section of your hometown that you used to love as a child, perhaps once filled with abundant grass, flowing river, and thriving trees.  Imagine that a slime-filled reservoir or dried-up riverbed now disfigures that lost haven of sweetness . . . . .

How would it feel to look at that, remembering the lushness of creation that once existed so peacefully there under the skies?

Speaking for myself, such a sight would make (and has made) me queasy in the depths.  Something would forever after feel very wrong, out of joint, and exceedingly dismal -- were that my hometown.  (And, in fact, my hometown has changed in some sad ways.)  If I were forced by circumstance to remain living there, something in my life would be irrevocably altered.  I would find myself battling a reflexive sinking of the spirit at every turn, plus a grim sensation of things slipping away in a more dramatic, global, and rapid fashion than they would have at the steadier pace of nature alone.

When we invade the peaceful workings of nature in extensive, sudden, and perhaps unnecessary ways, we disrupt time -- our own time.  We put ourselves on a new clock.  We then find ourselves racing against this man-driven clock, accelerating our own demise.  Man's clock is erratic and unpredictable, subject to whims and appetites, supply and demand, greed and need, and money.

The more spiritually aggressive drives of man often dispense with beauty and the purity of nature as though they were of no consequence beside the things that "really" matter.  They dispense with the purity of nature because they already do not mind infiltrating their fellow man with innumerable toxins and pollutants.  Humans have become acceptable reservoirs for mass-produced and mass-distributed toxins.

Beauty?  Who has time for beauty?  Only artists and dreamers?

Perhaps.  But if they didn't bother to preserve beauty, each in his own way, humanity would go mad.

It's very difficult to earn a living when one must white-knuckle one's way through a persistent sense of futility and decay.  It's very difficult to inspire one's family in spiritually uplifting and creative ways when one's physical surroundings appear increasingly devastated.

The destruction of beauty takes a more severe toll on us than we might imagine.

Far from being a frivolous concern, beauty is one of our basic human needs.  It helps kindle that fire deep down in our souls that will fuel us during long nights and tough times.  It hones our sensibilities in periods of desperation and need, reminding us of the human charity which must always come first.  It puts our minds on a higher plane of awareness and sensitivity; so that, when a practical solution is called for, our concerns will already be at that higher level and we will be much more likely to handle our resources with care.

Who needs beauty?

We all do.

Wishing you havens of loveliness --

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

A Walking "Echo"

Greetings to you on this sultry (U.S.) Saturday morning!

You know, I've long been fascinated by the five senses.

I refer now and then to such things as having "a nose like a bloodhound," or a "bionic nose."  By this, I mean that a chemically sensitive person often develops an extremely heightened sense of smell.  Conversely, toxic injury can also cause the sense of smell to decrease.  In my own case, the sense of smell has increased exponentially.  I was not born this way.  The physical, sensory difference between "now" and "then" is staggering, approaching the mind-bending quality of science fiction.

Having loved perfumes/colognes as a child and young lady, I now smell more of the base chemicals and less of the fragrances.  Or, the base chemicals intertwine with the intended scent and cheapen it for me.  I perceive, or even remember precisely in some cases, exactly where the scent is "going" -- but for me, it no longer "gets there."

Finally, when I'm around some fragrances and most hair treatments (hair sprays/gels/dyes), I smell only the chemical base.  It's most peculiar to find myself at a gathering where another woman mentions, for instance, that she's wearing her "favorite fragrance"  -- and the fragrance happens to make me gasp with horror because, to me, it smells like ammonia or a pesticide.  In such cases, physical instinct (the way my face starts to feel instantly) screams at me to move far, far away.  But sometimes I can't get "far, far away."  This leaves me conversing and honing my acting abilities at the same time.

If only I could make a movie to convey the feelings of incredulousness and absurdity that come over me on such occasions!  To do this, I'd have to film an actress spraying disinfectant on her hair, dabbing on some wasp repellent for "fragrance," then going forth to greet her guests with a smile . . . . .  I kid you not.  Despite my knowledge that base chemicals, for me, can blot out the intended signature scent, I have still found myself puzzling, on more than one occasion, as to why this or that lovely lady would have chosen to wear a fragrance that smelled exactly like a tub-and-tile cleaner.

Moving on to synthetic laundry fragrances -- these are the most vitriolic to me.  I can tolerate many perfumes/colognes without excessive amounts of residual damage afterwards; but synthetic laundry fragrances just make my head spin.  They are incredibly powerful and far-reaching.  I catch them in the air even while driving in my car.  They can cover large expanses of road when emanating from dryer vents.  Some of them penetrate even the closed air vents of the car, in which case I try to inhale as few times as possible, hoping never to get stuck in such a place.  ("Such a place," mind you, being an ordinary neighborhood of homes with dryer vents.  The very simplicity and unavoidable frequency of such venues -- so innocuous in all other ways -- only increases the peril.)  Synthetic laundry scents have a caustic, burning, "peppery" quality.  I can describe them this way because along with the heightened sense of smell comes a sense of the "texture" of the molecules.  Many times I can taste the smell, as well.   

Removing myself from the polluted venue is the first step; however, there is yet another effect of an amplified sense of smell:  The chemical scent remains in the nose, at times, for hours or days after exposure.  

In short, the chemically sensitive person can become a walking "echo" of the synthetic scents to which he has recently been exposed.

To give yet another example of this physiological "echo," the neurotoxins (nerve toxins) in synthetic laundry fragrances, non-organic dry-cleaning solutions, and chlorine can have jarring reverberations on the central nervous system.  They can turn the usual operations of the nervous system "up" to a higher (and discomfiting) degree as though generating continual low-level seizures throughout the body.  I, myself, begin to experience a strong pulse over my nose and a vibration, or "buzzing," of this same pulse throughout my body -- as though someone had plugged me into an electrical socket.  I then feel physically shaky inside, with a bodily tremor not visible to others.  I, however, perceive a slight shaking of my hands when I go to grasp or arrange objects.  Playing the piano, setting the table, coordinating steps of activities either mentally or physically -- these things become neurologically and cognitively challenging.  My vision, also, begins to shake up and down rapidly, with some blurring; and my central nervous system feels "all revved up." 

It should frighten me, but it doesn't.  I'm too used to it.  At the same time, I begin to feel slightly "drunk" and sleepy (a heightened pulse beneath stupefying fatigue), so any thoughts of apprehension don't have the energy to persist, anyway.  

I appreciate, however, how such complications could worsen in the future.  As the "canary in the coal mine," I can report to you that the toxins in these products are severe, indeed -- and perhaps just as severe, later on, to those who cannot feel their "echo" as I do and who therefore immerse themselves in them as a way of life -- eventually developing cancer or Parkinson's or some other progressive, devastating disorder.  It is my firm belief that the role of pervasive common chemicals is not appreciated in the etiology of these life-threatening developments.

I've touched upon smell, sight, taste, and the "texture" of synthetic-scent molecules -- but what of the sense of hearing?  This, too, has become more acute for me in my toxically injured state.  Is this, then, also connected to the phenomenon of chemical sensitivity?  I honestly do not know.  I know only that I often have to cover at least one ear at social gatherings which include amplified music, if I get too close to the source of the sound.

If you look at all of this through a different lens, it begins to approach some of the heightened sensory experiences of the autistic person -- or, more scientifically stated, of what is presently called "autism" in many persons who happen also to experience such things (in addition to cognitive, speech, and other physiological differences).

I strongly suspect that there is much uncultivated ground between the topics of toxic injury and at least some of the physiological phenomena which occur under the umbrella of "autism" . . . with possibly some related causal factors behind each.

I've explained these peculiar sensory developments, above, in order to shorten the process of identification for those who might be becoming chemically sensitive.  So many aspects of functioning can be affected by chemical sensitivity; if you chase down each symptom, you still might not find any answer beyond the obvious categorizing of each symptom into a medically recognized disorder or two.  These medical disorders might, in fact, be real -- but are the triggers, or causes, of the disorders properly appreciated?  If they are not recognized and appreciated, then the understanding of the disorders is compromised:  Their occurrence and progression will appear to be more random than they really are.  If you never recognize that you're reacting to chemicals (in those cases when you actually are), then how can you defend your body against the effects of their repeated assaults?

If one's sense of smell is beginning to increase in the strange and noticeable ways described above, this could be a red flag alerting one to the possibility of chemical exposures as a cause.  Other things, of course, can contribute to an altered sense of smell.  The implications of such other causes can be serious.  Tracking one's own chemical exposures and (possible) follow-up symptoms, however, is a simple and completely cost-free way to begin digging for causes.  This "tool" is available to everyone immediately.  The window of heightened symptoms generally occurs, in my own case, anywhere between a few minutes to two days after exposure to a triggering chemical.

Tracking chemical exposures and symptoms is neither convenient nor fun.  Still, I would be remiss if I did not suggest it as a way to gain valuable -- and perhaps life-prolonging -- information.  The next step would be to educate oneself as thoroughly as possible on the potentially "triggering" chemicals present in many common products.  Please make liberal use of the information tabs, above.  I am always searching for new pieces of research and anecdotal reporting to add to these link lists.

In the meantime, cheers (!) and a comfortably cool weekend to you --

~ Carolyn