November

 I'm home for two months now.

Well two months and one week. and counting.

I've had a neurologist diagnose me with Small Fiber Neuropathy which is a relief in so many ways. Because I'm finally actually being treated for something. He's got me on gabapentin which mostly makes me loopy and I can't take the full dosage if i still want to function but you're supposed to ramp up so i'm taking 2 of 3 pills a day for now with intentions to ramp up. 

I'm pretty functional on 2 a day now but when i add a 3rd in that all goes to hell so I thought id give it another week or so before i try again, just because I have things to do.

Another reason this diagnosis is so great is because its my body and its probably not me reacting to "THE STUFF' anymore, which i knew because i literally took everything out of the house, pulled up the (2nd) carpet and painted with two coats of a sealing primer and two coats of paint. so how could i be reacting to anything in here? Ive only brought back a couple of pieces of hard furniture, but ive had the work desk with me the whole time and i dont believe im reacting to hard furniture. Ive wiped everything down with vinegar a few times anyway and its just hard to believe that i could be reacting to hard furniture that may or may not have come into contact with a spray a year ago that was cleaned with vinegar. 

So let's assume I just have nerve damage.

Cause thats where I'm at with this right now. Hard to know where the contact with "THE STUFF" left off and the nerve damage began. I suspect there was a lot of crossover in the early days, and then again when I "infected" the apartment after trying to move back into the house, failing and moving out again and then having much worse problems in the apartment.... 

But right now the house is good. theres nothing in here thats been sprayed or washed in the machines or otherwise come into contact with "THE STUFF" or anything that had come into contact with the stuff besides the aforementioned couple of peices of hard furniture.

So i ended up at the chiropractor because the junk desk chair and the two-pieces-of-a-sectional i moved in here were taking a toll on my neck and it just became evident i needed a real desk chair and a sofa, so it was time, even though i wasnt sure i was ready, to get some real (soft) furniture.

I hesitate to spend money on anything because I've been through this so many times now i can't even count the number of desk chairs and so much clothes.. and ive donated everything back to the thrift store except things that were sprayed directly with the stuff initially, but its just been a year of temporary everything and its just weighing on me. 

I don't want to live like this. I want my house back the way it was. and my body back but if i cant have that at least im doing as well as i can be doing.

So October i tried to enjoy myself some. I was mostly not sick which is great and a little loopy from the meds so I did have some fun. I got some furniture which i hope is permanent or semi-permanent. I got a $300 used rental sofa including delivery and its pretty nice even though its not the one i used to have that i loved because it had custom pink covers but I'll get that again one day im sure. 

I got an area rug which I already hate and want wall-to-wall carpeting because this sucks but it did cut down on the echo in here and its starting to feel like home.

The more i started to get it in my head that im not reacting to anything in the house. I got clothes, new ones.. that are not super cheap, not disposable, not thrift store clothes but real clothes i like. just workout clothes from old navy. got a good sale. I'm not quite buying permanent things but im a step up from disposable at this point. and i have what I need now. Not everything i want, but everything i need to live a life with these cats in this house.

Tonight is the first freeze so im gonna try and bring the bookshelf and the things that go on it before any of my nick nacks get any further damaged for being outside and i feel like bringing those things in is probably ok now. im also going to bring in a few things that go inside the drawers in the living room that are out there too but im leaving all the clothes.

Since its nerve damage that probably means some of my clothes that were never touched by "the stuff" should be fine but i honestly dont know what is what after a year not even living here. I think i threw out most of the worst stuff but i also think i kept a few items that i really was hoping i could wear again if i solve this. I think eventually "the stuff" has to just wear off or go inert or whatever. Crazy to think i was still reacting to it 6-9 mos later when i tried to move back in and then spread it back to the apartment when i couldnt do it...  again i dont know where reaction leaves off and nerve damage begins but i really do think i was reacting to something for real.

Because it calmed down when i moved back to the empty freshly-painted house.

I mean its still there but im improving. very slowly. but the feeling has come back in that part of my back that was numb, its all pins and needles and itching but its feeling. i think thats healing. 

I hope that now im being treated for neuropathy it will heal!! I believe, since i know what caused it and ive already removed myself from the toxin in question, i SHOULD heal. I really hope so. 

I've been living with all these weird sensations all over my body and my heart racing and getting sick to my stomach and my period doing weird stuff for so long now unmedicated its just a relief to have these pills which so far just mostly make me not care that much about all these sensations.

But i do seem to be getting sick less often and my heart seems to race less often and not as intensely. my heart rate doesnt go as high as it did before when i have these episodes. i have a HR monitor on my fitbit/watch and ive found myself checking it a lot less in general. 

the real progress is im not scared of everything.

well i stll am but not like the floor like i was and the things in my house. I've started to realize im safe here. and as much as i'd like to be fine and happy just saying WHEW and living here bare bones... now im home and its starting to feel like home and it just seems more evident how much ive lost and im starting to feel depressed about it because i can't just put everything back.

A lot of its gone and whats left may start the whole cycle over again if i bring it in the house so I have to be super-careful.

I have worn a dress or two from outside that i knew was never contaminated... just put it on and went out and came home and took it off and put it back in the temporary closets outside i set up to hold all my dresses. 

Because i only have workout clothes and pajamas in here.
i'm working from home and im doing jazzercise classes most days but thats all i do so thats all the clothes i need.

My bras are super-expensive because I have an unusal size, so i have a couple of sports bras, but i just bought one "leisure bra" that i used to wear becuase its comfortable to work in ... and I'll be damned if when i put it on, the whole back didnt just about exactly match up with the worst parts of my back.

Further evidence that whats happened to me is that this stuff didnt wash out of fabrics, it just moved around the laundry into my other clothes, probably when i washed the worst things including the custom pink sofa covers... and then i wore this stuff i had this bad reaction to around directly contacting my skin for long enough it gave me nerve damage.

One year later and thats what I think happened.

It took so long to even have a good guess.

But i dont think it was ever in the air save at first when i first sprayed it and you could smell it. but that was gone in the first few days of airing out the house and using air purifiers.

and it makes sense how the cats were ok and the neighbor thought i was crazy because it didnt smell like anything to her, and how i kept getting sicker and sicker and sicker till I started fresh in the apartment with new stuff.

but i also think i did transfer it to the new carpet when i was laying around on it because i got rid of my furniture, and i do think it was really in there and i re-exposed myself trying tomove home in the spring/early summer and i did bring it back to the apartment in some measure in my clothes but i think especially in my body . i think my nerves really freaked out after being exposed a second time.

thats all theory but its the best one ive got.

I didnt even have one for so long.

So this working theory means i can bring back the rest of my hard furniture. Taking the opportunity to rethink my dressers. might repair them, might just not bring them back. i have no clothes to put in them so im not in a hurry to worry about that but im going to bring in the bookcase probably today and maybe the headboard but thats scarier since it was almost certainly sprayed and it goes by the bed.

might leave that outside.

brought in the coffee table last week and nothing else and that went ok. and i love my coffee table. made it myself. and it feels like home here now.

if thats ok then probably the headboard is ok too and another set of drawers that goes in the closet. but i think i should take it slow and focus on things i cant leave in the garage to freeze tonight.

this nightmare is starting to be over. 

I'm in the rebuilding phase now.

Just need to heal my body and my bank account and then recarpet the house.

with enough time i really believe all my things that are left in the garage will be OK. this stuff cant be forever and i think if i wait till my back heals whenever that is, and next summer if i can go through my things and find those items i kept hoping i could save them and hang them out in the sun maybe to dry up whats left of "the stuff" 

Well im just hopeful.

Took me ten years moving into this house to get everything i want and need and make it just like i like it. Its so upsetting to have to start over, but hopefully it wont take me 10 years to put it back.