The Rest of the Story

I kept yesterday's post humorous so as not to be a Doomsdayer blogger. My post today is informative, regarding something a lot of us use in our homes that might be causing health issues.

For some time I've used those little Air Wick sprayers where you can pre-program the automatic sprays, 9 minutes, 13 minutes, 30 minutes, something like that. Well, I decided to get a smaller one to put in the spare room I'm organizing so Sherry and her family can have a comfortable place to sleep while they're here. Kyle and I spent sometime trying to figure out how to get the little set working. Nothing happened. It wouldn't spray out a thing. We even removed the batteries that came with the unit and put in ones I had just recharged. I put it in my car, thinking I'll just run in next time I'm near Kmart and exchange it for one that works. That would have been about a week ago.

A day or two later I got in my car and wondered if something had spilled out on the floor...lotion, maybe perfume, something. The odor wasn't really awful, but it wasn't what you'd want to wear, either. The next day it was worse, and I thought maybe it was the light bulbs also in the back seat waiting to make their way to the recycle store.

I checked daily to see if my radiator or air conditioning fluids had been seeping inside the car. I checked my spray-off-the-ice stuff. I even checked out the actual car deodorizer spray (spells like oranges). It was only Wed morning when I had to drive to Lehi to the dentist's office, with all the windows down and the heater on, that I realized it was that Air Wick thing in the front seat causing all the trouble. I locked it in the trunk inside a plastic bag and finally threw it in the garbage, though it pained me to release such a thing into the environment.

I had felt sick every time while riding to work, to lunch, back from lunch, home from work. Nights were worse. I felt like I was being poisoned, which was exactly what had been happening.

I developed a horrible dry cough, nausea, just feeling crumby and tired, smelling it, tasting it wherever I went. It felt like shards of glass were in my lungs. I tried rest, humidifier, drinking water water water, prescription Aleve for pain, and after I threw the thing out, it stopped getting worse.

Wed and Thur were terrible, where you feel like somebody should just come take you to the hospital please, but you don't because the co-pay is just scary. I had a doctor appointment with my regular doctor Friday Morning. He did testing, listening, demonstrating a little breathing apparatus and said: "It didn't turn into pneumonia, though it could have, so you're lucky. You have chemical burns in your lungs. I don't know how long it will take them to heal, but stay away from those types of products."

He was going to start me on a round of steroids, but I told him those "are from the devil himself. Thanks, but no thanks."

Each day is getting a bit better, and a weekend to rest has helped.

I'll be looking through my house to see what other items we have that can be dangerous, not to us, but to the environment as well.

So that's my story...to keep our eyes out for things that don't look like they could hurt us, but under certain circumstances can indeed poison us and cause permanent damage. Be careful of any chemical spray and dispose properly of anything that malfunctions or acts differently than you think it should.

oh, and ps. I lived to see another birthday.