DawnOwar's Blog

 I guess I should still chronicle my experiences. I think i started this in case someone else should find it who needs it after not having much help from anyone for my situation after I basically had a bad reaction to a supposedly non-toxic essential oils based flea spray that ruined my life and my house and my stuff. Looking back i should have gone to the emergency room but i had no idea how serious it was and i had no idea i was going to make it worse instead of better and I had no idea what i was dealing with. and truthfully the doctors probably wouldnt have either. it was covid and it was before vaccines and i didnt want to risk going to the emergency room for what seemed like a mild self-contained allergic reaction. Thought id just clean up and be fine. But instead i ended up.... i think.. this is the best theory i have anyway.... washing it into the washing machine and/or dryer and then washing basically all my clothes and bedding and textiles including the sofa covers and ev...

 So i've got a new washer and dryer now. As much as i love my old clothes which remain in the garage they dont fit anyway and i like not having to go to the laundromat. The washer isnt balanced quite right but im working on it so sometimes the spin doesnt work but its still better than going to the laundromat. I paid down enough of my debt for this whole episode that i felt ok buying a new set and just going forward. been looking for clothes to fit this body and go forward into now wearing something.  I hated my new job. I really tried to learn it and i did, dont get me wrong. I learned what they taught me anyway. They just werent teaching me. My awful boss would give me attitute if i asked questions. She had it so I had to stop in the middle and let her check before i did the rest of the work and then she'd never check it and the work piled up. which means people think im helping them and im not really. She made me so mad one day after finally teaching me the next step in my ...

Today is the 2 yr anniversary of the day everything went horribly wrong for me and i was gonna go out and celebrate but now that its time I just want to stay home and celebrate being home and sit in my hot tub and be happy i can do all those things instead. I'm feeling a flood of emotions because of all I've been through and what a long hard road back it's been. I'm not done yet. I really thought id be done with all this by the 2 yr mark but im nowhere near close to paying off the debt and I still have more I haven't got to making yet because I wanted to pay some down first. So maybe it'll take 3 years. I hope no more than that. I'm not healed yet but im much improved. and ive got a better job which is going well enough that i feel like i can stay where im at and live at some level of happiness and work-life balance while i hopefully make the money to pay off the rest. it seems very do-able. I'm still working on getting clothes for me to wear to go out a...

 I've been out a few times. I'm ready to restart my life on the one hand. On the other hand i dont have money for that. on the other hand i had what I call "hormone fuck" a few days ago which is essentially when I don't exercise enough and i get my period and i feel sad for no reason and I just want to drop out of society because everything is terrible. It's solved by chocolate and exercise.  For real. that works. So that's what I did and i did feel better, but in the funk of it all i was feeling sorry for myself because my new job .. the guy who shares the office with me is out having a baby and im in the room all alone and we haven't been busy so I haven't had reason to walk around and talk to people, which is why i picked this job because it was supposed to be a lot of walking around talking to people and here I am again sitting in a room by myself doing nothing much of the day only now im not home with my cats and my kitchen and my things to en...

 I can't remember the exact day I actually came home for real to stay but it was around now a year ago. Maybe last week. I guess thats good i can't recall the specific day. Or maybe its a milestone i should be celebrating. I have a tiny bottle of champagne i got from a friend in the fridge the time i moved home but then had to leave again. I decided I'd drink it to celebrate when I was home for real. But its still there in the fridge a year after that already happened. I mean i couldnt know, could I? that it was gonna stick so i never drank it. I guess i could have drank it any time in the last 12 mos but im not feeling celebration. next month is 2 yrs since the awful day this all started. I I don't want to celebrate that either. I got the blues today for no real reason. Everything is fine. the cat is back to normal. I have my old sofa back. I got rid of some stuff from the garage while i had them remove the old one and I can get in there now to clean it out.  The weath...

 I signed up for notifications from Ikea if they had my sofa back in stock. The one i used to have. before. its not the best sofa in the world but it was the right size and shape for my space and the best and most important part, I could buy slipcovers for it, and i had a hot pink ultrasuede set and I loved it. Had that sofa for a few years, just long enough I was about to order a new set of slipcovers when I sprayed that flea spray that ruined my life on it and everywhere and it eventually got on and in everything from me trying to clean it and just spreading it around to more stuff. anyway, I got covid and i was down for a couple of weeks with that. Started a new job i had to spend $ for new work clothes. Would have had to do that regardless. I dont fit in the old ones that are from 10 yrs ago now anyway and my new job is more casual and i can come up with a thousand reasons i needed a whole new work wardrobe, but truthfully id have bought new clothes for any new job im sure. New...

 Since then I've got a new job, took a week off in-between to go to a local 3-day outdoor festival and see some old friends and do a little partying. The closest to a vacation i was gonna have because I have to pay bills. and by the 3rd day i was feeling a little off and by the 4th day I had Covid. My new job let me take another 2 weeks to get over Covid before I started, so instead of being out of work one week with a the vacation pay from the job i was finishing without ever having taken any actual vacation days, I ended up out of work 3 weeks with pay for only about one. Because there was also a city-wide power outtage for a day or so and i couldnt work a day and half and then .. once i'd stopped ... going back was impossible. I couldnt do it anymore. thats all it took. a day and half off unplanned and the promise of a new job and I couldnt make myself do it anymore. It was time for me to go. So i took a lot of unpaid time off that last week, thinking it'd be covered wit...

 I think its good ive lost track of how long i've been home now. The big developments in my life since last post was that i got the hot tub set up and i sit it in every night (weather permitting) and its healing my nerve condition for sure. But slowly. but for sure. It feels more like it did in the beginning now.  I'm pretty sure with hindsight that what happened was that it got in my washer/dryer and i washed it into my clothes and wore this stuff i have a bad reaction to around in my clothes for those two months before I moved out and that's what caused the nerve damage. So it was only in the air maybe right at first, and all my attempts to clean the air were futile. Its possible that my attempts to clean the carpet and the clothes with various things including but not limited to vinegar and baking soda may have also caused the nerve damage but I don't know and i don't think I can ever know. So once i got rid of all the stuff that was directly contaminated, and in...

 I lost track of it. I stopped counting at the 6 month mark, but then i decided to do a post and its almost exactly 7 months now. 7 months and 1 week. So I only lost track of it for  5 weeks.  but still. I never lost track of it before so that's big progress. facebook showed me a post from last year, when a friend who'd just gotten vaccinated, came from out of town to visit and I wasnt vaccinated yet and I wasnt living in my house and I was still having a lot of physical problems. Just waiting for spring to try to air the house out. Which i remember doing while i waited for him to arrive on my porch. Had everything opened up and fans of all caliber going. But what I didnt know yet was that it wasnt in the air. the reaction was in my body so all that was for nothing. But it did me some good to be trying something after a long winter of living in the apartment not being able to open windows.  I did better in the apartment with new stuff or new-to-me stuff  so it c...

 This is a milestone for sure. I am definitely home for real and i'm definitely healing for real and my life has become what I expected i was going to be dealing with after i cleaned the house once I realized I was having a reaction to the stuff I sprayed a year and a half ago. Just had no idea it would be a year and half of physical and emotional torture and expense to get to this place. I have not rebuilt by any stretch of the imagination and I am not fully healed but I am in a stable place where my symptoms are manageable and the house is full of what I need and I don't need anything else even though I still havent sorted out the clothes situation. My stuff is in the garage and Im waiting for spring or healing or both or either to mess with any of that. But I have the rest of my life I guess. I've been doing laundry at the laundromat and in pandemic times thats fine because its the only time i really go anywhere.  But the pandemic is more or less over now and I'm rea...

 These are starting to be monthly entries. Living at home feels real now and the 9 months i was in the apartment and the two i was suffering before I moved out feel like a fever dream now. Even though I still am pretty bare bonesed in the house. I have a good collection of clothes now. Not like my old collection, its almost all workout clothes and pajamas. but i can pull out different outfits to wear to Jazzercise and have matching pants and sports bras and that makes me happy.  My skin is still not right, hot baths are the only thing that really soothe it but i can go a day or sometimes even two before it gets really bad and I've been able to focus on things like cooking and eating healthy and working out and what color my hair is again instead of just how to live and how to pay my bills. My bills are still not paid. I've paid off about 1/4 of what this has all cost me paid off and ive worked long and hard to make that happen. But i'm starting to be more comfortable with t...

 Oh dont get me wrong, im healing.  And im home long enough now with everything i need, if not everything i want back in the house and it feels like i really live here again. Which is so great.  That was just the worst. I cant explain what I've been through even though ive been blogging it all along.   Still so much unknown but at least i can move forward living in my house now. I never figured out anything really. How much of this was chemical exposure and how much was nerve damage. I may never know but I'm kind of banking on the chemical itself just becoming inert eventually and i can move my clothes back in the house and wear them again.  and the washer/dryer same. It all may be fine and it may just be my body. No way to know without risking starting over and im healing now for real. Its slow but its for certain healing.  my heart doesnt seem to do weird stuff anymore and i havent felt sick to my stomach since about halloween. ive been sleeping pret...