MCS and Meetings - Not a Good Mix

Had an early meeting in a relatively small room today and spent the entire time with my eyes tearing and my head feeling like it was going to explode. Add to that my pounding heart and the mixture is fairly lethal. Trying to get my point across when I could barely see let alone think coherently was not easy. The day didn't get much better since the exposure to so many toxins gave me a really pounding headache and everyone on my team seemed to need my expertise in some form or another all day. Fortunately the further I got from the toxins the better I felt so by the time I arrived home, poof - no headache.

Possible Seizures

My daughter was over tonight and thinks her two-year-old severely autistic daughter may have had several minor seizures today. In addition to autism, Grayson has Klippel Fiel syndrome and the related severe health problems. We were afraid this would happen but this is the first time it's been seen. It's so sad to watch my beautiful little granddaughter suffer so. Fortunately both her parents have medical training and don't frighten easily.

Tough Choices

Did everyone get perfume for Christmas and feel compelled to wear it to work? Feels that way to me. A friend once said to me "growing old 'aint for sissies". Well she should try it with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity on top of arthritis and hot flashes. It takes a lot of courage to face going into an office every day when I know I'll have a splitting headache within thirty minutes and have to work that way all day. I've been having to take alergy meds to aleviate a bit of the headaches and lethargy caused by my body's reaction to all the toxins in the air then have to take an energy booster to combat the drousiness caused by the meds. I feel like a walking science experiment about to explode and this is just so I can get some work done. I spoke to the HR person at work about requesting that employees refrain from wearing scent to work and she said that you can't do that because they have a perfect right to wear perfume if they want to and that I'll just have to get used to it. Tried to explain to her that MCS is not a preference but a health problem but it made no difference. This is the same person who expounds diversity in the workplace. Go figure!

Not Alone After All

Walking in the door from work this evening I dumped by bag and hung up my coat then immediately started cooking supper. I'd been cooking for about thirty minutes when nature called and I started down the hall toward the BR but noticed the light was on in the computer room and wondered why since my husband was working and I should be alone. This wasn't the case however since my youngest grandson was working on a school report on our computer, verrrry quietly. . .lol. Glad he didn't just decide to walk into the kitchen to say hello 'cause he would have scared me senseless (he's 6'4" and fills up a doorway). We always know when our oldest grandson is around these days since the speakers in his 4x4 announce his presense to one and all, very loudly. My husband and I were watching a nature show on TV and I asked him what was that loud noise shaking the house. Of course it was our grandson coming to pick up his brother. He came by the house five times this past weekend and had a bunch of friends (numbers varied) each time he arrived. Our home felt like Grand Central Station. I'm going to be prepared this weekend. I'll bake some goodies and then get these huge boys to put my boxes of Christmas decorations up in the closet.

Good Day in the New Year

Believe it or not, my grandson actually remembered to come by and take down the garlands over my living and dining room windows so I'm a lot further along with removing all the Christmas decorations. You might wonder why it's taking so long but I literally decorated every room in my home except the "junk room" 'cause we entertained 27 people on Christmas Eve. First down were the three Christmas Trees and now I'm slowly but surely removing the rest.

Also today Linda left a comment on a previous post leaving me three web sites to check out for info needed by those with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) like me. Here's her comment quoted.

Here are some great sites for checking what is in your products. But remember that "fragrance" can mean a concoction of hundreds of carcinogenic, neuro-toxic, endocrine disrupting, respiratory irritants, untested and undisclosed.

Household Products Database (2005) from National Library of Medicinehttp://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/

CHE Toxicants and Disease Database from The Collaborative on Health and the Environmenthttp://database.healthandenvironment.org

Cosmetic Safety Database by Environmental Working Grouphttp://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

I'll be checking these out in the near future and report on what info I've gleaned from these sites. Thanks a bunch Linda for leaving this info.

New Year's Resolutions

I need to loose weight big time and so does my grandson so I challenged him to see which of us can loose 30 pounds the quickest. Since he's 15 and 6'4" he probably has a better chance than I do but I figure we'll both be winners in this contest.

My next goal is to learn to scrapbook with Photoshop Elements. This is one accomplishment I intend to persue with diligence since I've had the program for years (began with v1, now have v7) but haven't gotten very far with learning how to use it. I have other digital scrapbooking programs that are far easier to use so I've chosen the easier road so far. Thing is that I just can't do all the things I want to do with the quickie programs so I'll just have to buckle down and learn to use this extremely "user unfriendly" program. I've also been not too happy with the photos made with my little point and shoot Sony Cybershot. It's handy and I carry it with me always but sometimes I want to take closeups from a distance and the camera isn't designed for this. Can't afford an SLR so I did the next best thing. For my 10th anniversary with the company where I work I got to choose a gift from a catalogue and selected binoculars with digital camera. Should be here any day now and hopefully will help with some of the nature shots I'm always trying to take.

My next resolution is to clean out my "junk room" aka my library. Over the years this room has accumulated all the items I couldn't throw away but didn't have a place for. You wouldn't believe how much stuff I can pile in one medium sized room. The room is actually lined with book shelves and over a thousand books but forget trying to get to one of them. All my current books are now located in my computer room aka guestroom or sewing room.

This leads to my next resolution for 2009 - bone up on sewing techniques and use some of my fabric stockpile (10 boxes full and located in the "junk room"). Does this give you the idea that I'm a collector? Well you would be right. But as I've gotten a bit older and hopefully wiser, the time has come to stop collecting and start using or disposing. I'll be 65 on my next birthday so the time is right to do something about this propensity to collect.

Project 365

The Project 365 idea is to take at least one photo a day and scrapbook it. Just took my "picture of the day" of all my Christmas decorations that have yet to be "closeted" lol. Waiting for my oldest grandson to come help me . . . and waiting . . . and waiting. Knew I shouldn't have paid to get his 4x4 out of the shop yesterday 'cause now I'll never see him.