Inside MCS

Click on this picture...unless you're scared...I'm more afraid of new asphalt and heavy traffic.  This is the view out the front window of our current home.   We've been working at getting out of here about a year and a half now.   Safe housing is a major issue for canaries and attaining it almost always means better health, greater tolerance. 

For us it has meant a huge but welcome change. Super-downsizing,  building and preparing to move into a tiny house on wheels, especially while adapting our lives to living with MCS has been a lot of work.  Avoiding toxic chemicals and keeping them out of our living space is quite a challenge, and staying patient and positive for ourselves and each other, of daily importance.

 There's lots of foot traffic on our street, which gives the lively feel of community.  

But someone with MCS must see the dangers that lurk.  Our minds are trained to be observant this way, to live more healthfully; to survive.  

So we automatically see toxic invisible blends of perfume trails as people walk by, like floating lab experiments.

  

We realize each house has a dryer vent operated by a misinformed public who thinks you have to poison yourself with a mystery liquid or fibrous synthetic waxy "dryer sheets" to smell "mountain fresh" and be acceptable to the rest of society. 

Most have constant cozy fires inside and a dirty chimney chugging thick lingering smoke that creeps in the cracks of our old damp duplex.  

As the landlords slop through the mud, they laugh outside our windows that don't really close, about "grandfathered in" conditions, like drainage too close to the dwelling and old windows.  We struggle to keep this place liveable.  

Cars spew exhaust continuously and sit still in peak hours. 

Neighbors light barbecues and cigarettes out back.

Cars bearing yellow "magic trees" of vanilla-rama with the cellophane still half on (save some magic for later), idle, come, and go.  

Febreze, Glade and Scentsy are the new "clean".

Clothes attain high-heat infused "rainforest " fragrance and all the apartments smell like Safeway because no one washes the contaminants off of their their groceries.

 This is unthinkable for us now.   Some will never consider this in their lifetime.

All of our groceries are put into glass jars or aluminum foil.  The trip to the store is done weekly,  right when they open so the store had all night to air out and there are few others there to contend with.  I'm able to go myself this way, instead of sending DK, like I do for most things.   Exposures are no picnic for him either, and I get to keep a little independence with all my new limitations.  

Ludwig comes along and Henry stays home with DK. 

The store I frequent keeps produce and laundry/cleaning products  opposite sides of the store, a much appreciated move.  Laundry stuff is the worst, but some stores send fragrance to your system through their "ventilation" units, to intoxicate you.  They don't announce, "Attention shoppers, you will be stumbling around in a stupor, buying more, not noticing the scent because Americans are used to it",  they say it with hydrocarbons and fragrance chemicals whose untested ingredients are "trade secrets".

We use salt with boiling water, vinegar with baking soda, african black soap and our secret weapon: powdered milk (Thanks, Harry!) to remove scents that we pick up on our clothing or to take fragrance and chemical out of new clothes.  Otherwise soap nuts or black soap with a little Bob's aluminum free baking soda clean clothes just fine.

There are 2 women who seem to be the ones covering the cashiering when I go to grocery shop.  They both know me, ' the masked lady with MCS and her sidekick, the weinerdog' (who gets a walk by the Sound before he waits in the car while I shop).
The  cashiers both wear gloves to check my groceries, to guard from hand sanitizer and other personal products they may have used.  They have a kindness and understanding for my situation that I am grateful for.
Going into public with a mask requires courage.  I am stared and scoffed at.   I've been called a terrorist, a pirate, a bandit, an Arab (in a derogatory tone), Zoro, a cowboy, a robber, an anarchist,  'so ugly I have to cover my face', a hypochondriac, oh, and crazy.
People turn away, look away, and run away.  They almost never smile or say hi.  I'm not trying to whine, but it can be very dehumanizing.  It is a conscious, exhausting effort to try to rise above it.
Just yesterday, at our small neighborhood store, a very large man tried to intimidate me by staring me down and standing inches from my back as I waited in line with some ibuprofin, wearing a mask covering my nose and mouth and headscarf to cover my hair and neck.  I guess he thought I had a bomb strapped to me under my pink tie-dye tee-shirt and that I was taking him and all these convenient snacks down with me in my reign of terror.

I could smell his Brut deoderant. 

This little guy requires a lot of excersise.
This enormous graveyard is just a few houses away from our place.  It has been a sanctuary in the neighborhood,  for all 4 of us.   

Ludwig loves to look for elusive squirrels and other animals' poo (annoying.)    

Hank is more of a bird watcher and the cemetary sightings include pileated woodpeckers, flickers and hawks.

I always wear a mask when I go out, but sometimes, it hangs around my neck when we walk here and I can catch a breath of, well,  something like fresh air.

C

Pretty, huh?

Malathion, under a microscope.

The EPA set in place new restrictions on 3 organophosphate insecticides, to protect streams and rivers from contamination. The guidelines were put into place because experts say that the pesticides: Malathion, Chloripyrifos, and Diazanon, are disrupting the salmons' sense of smell, and threatening their existence.

I was exposed to all 3 for almost a decade through Michigan's mosquito abatement program. We had an open well, extensive food gardens and few restrictions on where or when I could go outside to play. If the mosquito truck drove through, we'd chase after it, a fresh layer of pesticide on the skin meant more play time. Funny, the mosquitoes kept biting me, apparently it doesn't work that way. It was intended that the poison cover areas where the lil critters breed.

They used more than 1 poison so that the bug wouldn't build a tolerance to the 1.  I was only 3 years old when we moved to this neighborhood and I believe it is what caused my Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.  

People with MCS generally come from 4 groups:

-Industrial workers

  Acute and chronic exposure to industrial chemicals

-Tight building occupants

  Off-gassing from construction materials, office equipment/supplies, tobacco smoke, inadequate        ventilation

-Contaminated communities-like Saginaw, Mi!

  Toxic waste sites, pesticide spraying, ground water contamination, air contamination from nearby industry

-Individuals

Indoor air (domestic), consumer products, drugs, and pesticides

First used as nerve gas agent by US in WWII, organophosphates dissapate very slowly once introduced to the body.  Malathion becomes 60 times more toxic above 77 degrees F. So once it enters the body, toxicity heightens, and Malaoxon forms. Binding irreversibly with cholinesterase, which is an enzyme produced in the liver that exists primarily in the pancreas and plasma,with small amounts in the blood and all body tissues and organs, the chemical interferes with the function of the nervous system. Neurosynaptic junctions (nerve firing) to muscles, glands, and other nerves, impairing all organs.  

When the detoxification pathways of the body attempt to break it down, they are damaged, injured.  This is chemical injury, resulting in MCS.  My body is challenged when asked to break down the many chemicals I am exposed to daily.

They still spray my mom's neighborhood back in Michigan, and the US applies more than 60 million lbs. of organophosphates to over 60 million acres annually for agriculture.  

The Home Stretch

Eight and a half months since we started building.  All things considered, that's probably not too bad.  Other blogs lead me to believe a year is average.  We're hoping to be done just ahead of that, but I've learned how the pressure of a goal date doesn't change the details that need tending to now.

DK has had his hand in each detail, and won't have it any other way.  He's meticulous about details.    If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.  Patience.  That's the key.

I believe he inherited this trait from his Grandmother, Mary Ouye.  He never got to meet her, but her spirit is alive in him nonetheless.  He had her portrait tattooed on his side recently by an amazing artist here in Olympia:  Brian Childs owner/tattooer  at Spidermonkey Tattoo.

One of his Aunties-Charlotte (also in photo) is in town with her husband.  DK is hoping to see her today, and I'll be there in spirit.  A family BBQ is just not healthful for this hopeful canary-not right now.

So, the sunny forecast has changed to include rain and clouds, as it does often here.  We've worked around it and done some indoor tasks, like sealing up minute cracks where boards meet,  from the inside with Meangreen.

 DK shortened the gable end eaves and we've cut all the window frames for the outside during breaks in the weather.  We may bring the frame peices to our current dwelling and stain them under the cover of our carport.

Plans are coming together on working out soffit boxes, and staying water tight.  We're also trying to envision our floorplan better. We bought plans for the Tarleton, but we're really switching it up by having a bathtub rather than a shower stall.

Another small yard sale is in the works.  We've got to load our cds onto a harddrive and unload them, along with our large dryer and other miscellaneous stuff.  I've been measuring everything, to try to imagine what will fit nicely into our space.

If it doesn't bring us joy, or have a very useful purpose, it's outta here.

Some keepsake type things will be photographed, kept digitally.  Having less makes what's left feel like more.  Hmmm.

We saw a deer at the beautiful place where we will move our house to upon completion.  She was peace, what I wish to be, and she looked right at me.  Trails indicate where they pass through.  How exciting!  We will keep this place natural for them.

There are human trails, too.  Theirs include firepits, trash, dog poop and ...a deer carcass.  We clean up on a regular basis and watched in sadness as the deer's discarded body decayed.


We believe it is good that we will be stewards, guardians of this place.

There is an owl in the area that we've heard on several occasions.  Frogs and snails and blackberry vines underfoot neccessitate a slow gait.  Stumps surrounded by 10 year old firs and cedars offer perfect seating areas throughout the 40 acres.  Tall trees protect the creek, which is salmon habitat, and encircle the land, ensuring that there is always clean, fresh air.  We are so lucky.  This place will heal me.  Maybe it has already begun.

Scented products are so prevalent, potent they are a public health hazard

Happy Mother's Day, Now take that perfume to the Hazo house and love yourself, your mother and mother Earth, read this:

THE OLYMPIAN | • Published May 10, 2010

For me, people used to be in two categories — smokers and nonsmokers.

Now people are divided into two other categories — scented and unscented.The first group could light up whenever and wherever — work, church, social gatherings, on public transportation, restaurants, even hospitals. The rest of us suffered in silence with sore throats, burning eyes, headaches, asthma, nausea. It took 40 years of excavating the truth from under corporate propaganda to reveal the health toll of secondhand (even thirdhand) exposure to tobacco smoke — cancers, asthma, dementia and more. Children, with still- developing bodies, were especially vulnerable.

The similarities to smoking are striking: same toxins and health effects, just a different delivery method.

These are addictive chemicals that damage the user’s sense of smell, increasing the need for more product to achieve the same effect. There’s no government regulation and another big lie that the public is not at risk from exposure to their dangerous products. Employers and businesses are too timid to establish scent policies, citing personal rights. Sound familiar?

Many say, “I don’t wear perfume.” But they use so many other scented products — soaps, lotions, powders, sprays, hair and laundry products — they are literally off-gassing toxic chemicals all the time, contaminating the air and making themselves and others ill. They leave a chemical residue on everything they handle, everywhere they sit. Males also overuse scent, cleverly labeled body spray.

Overpowering scents are now the rule, not the exception. As one cancer patient complained, “At least smokers put them out now and then. Scented people never stop smelling.”

Laundry scents are especially noxious. Wearers can be detected at 25 paces. Dryer vents perfume the outdoors, forcing neighbors with fragile health inside.

“But chemicals are everywhere,” some say. That’s a good reason to reduce exposure however we can.

It’s challenging to avoid synthetic chemicals in our air, food, water and buildings. Why saturate our clothes, bodies, homes and cars with them? Do we really need scented trash bags? Deodorizers (perfume) on motion detectors? Fragrance in gum?

To create consumer brand loyalty, manufacturers hide increasing amounts of chemicals under the undefined term “fragrance,” protected as a trade secret. Scent-pushing ads exploit our insecurities to convince us such products make us cleaner, fresher, more attractive. In truth, most say they don’t like other people’s fragrances.

Scented products now are so prevalent and potent, they are a public health hazard. The human body can tolerate only so many assaults before the immune system goes haywire, triggering cancers, autoimmune illnesses and other problems. The chemicals in cosmetics are known carcinogens, estrogen-mimickers, and neuro-toxins (nerve-killing), hence, their link to breast and other cancers, dementia, ADHD, learning disabilities, autism, birth defects and lung diseases (see safecosmetics.org).

About one in seven people, including me, have developed multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), a condition in which even minor exposures to chemicals in common household and personal products provoke strong physiological reactions.

“Sensitivity” is a misnomer. I’m sensitive to the sound of a child crying, but it doesn’t give me a headache, sore throat, nausea, dizziness, muscle aches, persistent rashes, cloudy thinking, exhaustion or an asthma attack. Nor does it make me avoid public places, social gatherings, health care facilities and travel.

People with MCS are like the canaries lowered into the coal mines — the first to succumb to poisonous fumes, warning others to steer clear.

Moderately sensitive people (one in four) worry they are heading to MCS. Probably so, if they continue to have chronic, low-grade exposures to chemicals.

But there’s a choice. For every scented product, there’s a fragrance free one, often cheaper and just as effective.

In his later years, my dad apologized for smoking near me during my childhood. “We didn’t realize back then how dangerous it was for others,” he lamented. I didn’t tell him he should have passed on his aftershave, too.

My father didn’t know any better. Now you do. Go fragrance free — if not for yourself, or people like me, then for the children.

Evonne Hedgepeth, Ph.D., a health educator and writer, founded NW Canaries, an e-mail networking group for people with multiple chemical sensitivity. She can be reached at evonne@lifespaneducation.com.

Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/2010/05/10/1233678/scented-products-are-so-prevalent.html#ixzz0nX4zbZeR

MAY is MCS Awareness Month

  Like many canaries, when I go out into the world I wear a mask.  Mine consist of a peice of carbon felt inside a bandana or sometimes a longer scarf, worn over my nose and mouth.  Sometimes a canary can tell someone is curious about his/her mask.  Unable to linger in contaminated places,  I ordered this card to help raise awareness.

DK clued me in when I told him my idea.  He told me to do a google search for free business cards.  I ordered 250 of these for about $5 shipping.