Halfway mark

 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 pretty normally last couple of months too. Makes such a difference in everything. 

the pills i only took for 3 weeks for sure took away my anxiety but then i had it back when i was getting off the pills worried everything would come back. and truthfully some pain did. but then i sort of evened out to some version of normal .. for someone with small fiber neuropathy because of an exposure to a toxin.

I feel like im somewhere in the middle of my healing process as far as my skin and my tounge go.

Both feel like theyve been burned. dont look like anyting. I have all sorts of sensations ranging from pain to burning to itching to electric shocks to creepy crawlies and goose bumps and hot and cold sensations not relevant to actual temperatures.

still. 

but not as bad.

improved.

dramatically improved.

but not finsished healing yet. its been a year and four months. so i feel like maybe another year or so. maybe another year and four months. maybe. its just guessing. but i feel like my suffering is reduced enough.. the worst is gone so this , what i am left with now is at least tolerable. 

But i would like to not have to take baths and switch products constantly because somethino g that didnt irritate me yesterday sets my nerves off today.

or maybe its sugar.

i got covid. or at least a cold with all the omicron symptoms. no way to know if what i had really was covid or not because i tested negative. once too early, once too late. couldnt get tests because everyone got it at the same time. 

but regardless i basically stayed home and drank honey tea and ate cookies  and ice cream nursing myself with sugar and that may explain why i got worse. sugar and alcohol seem to set it off.

i barely drink anymore because i stay home all the time and im not one to drink by myself at home, but sugar is a whole other thing and especially when im sad or sick. 

i still have work to do on the house. i really want carpet again. this area rug .. i hate it.. but to get carpet means essentially moving out again at least for a few days and i'll wait on that. im just starting to feel like its home again.

also weather. ill wait till spring to mess with anything again. i feel like .. theres snow on the ground right now and im still healing anyway. i dont want to poke the bear and try any experiments when im just living in my house and healing.. like i wished i was doing the whole 9 mos i lived in that apartment.

time is on my side. the longer i wait the more likely i wont have a reaction to anything if there is any of the chemical still left in any of my clothes.

i mostly threw out everything that was for sure contaminated a long time ago.

then i couldnt really tell because I guess it was my nerves randomly firing and maybe not the clothes or the washer/dry at all... or maybe it was and the stuff was in the washer/dryer and i was wshing it into my clothes instead of out and wearing it around which explains the nerve damage essentially all over my whole body. 

I really dont know anything. I was trying to figure it out for so long. im not mad at myself for trying but now i know the best course of action was to take everything out of the house and start over fresh. with new everything. Expensive but i could have saved so much time and money if id tried this approach in the first place. 

I mean, who would ever try that approach in the first place?????

who would ever think that was going to save time and money???

such a strange and terrible thing to happen.

I'm doing the math now im on the other side and i have all my deposits back finally and im starting to pay off some of the debt i've incurred and im not entirely sure how fast i can pay this back or why its much slower than I think i thought i was going to be doing that.

but in a few more months when some more of this settles, i should get a better idea of what my new normal spending habits are and how fast i can pay this adventure off.

Now im at a spot where the house is not killing me, i have what i need here. my body is healed to a point thats tolerable and i'm not a ball of anxiety anymore because i know im ok, i know i don't have to sell my house, i probably can afford to pay for all this in some long run scenario, I have enough new clothes I like ok to keep me going till spring when i hope to reclaim some of my warmer weather clothes from the garage. I can take baths to make it more bearable. 

Thinking about getting an inflatable hot tub for my birthday. 

Don't know if that will make soaking easier or harder. probably save on the water bill but the electric bill will go up. Might be a nice treat for myself that will also help my skin heal. 

I don't really have money for anything and i havent taken more than a couple of days off in the last year and 3/4 i've been at this work-from-home job. I really feel like i could use a vacation but i dont want to spend money on that. every time i look at even the quickest closest-to-home options for a quick getaway or to do something different since im home basically all the time for almost two years now, but i'd be spending at least as much as i would if i just bought that hot tub. 

Reviews indicate people are pretty happy w them, but you sort of either get a good one or a lemon. and they don't last much past a year but for the price of a quick one or two night stay in a hotel in some city i dont really have an urge or a reason to go to other than its my birthday... if i can get a year of hot tub in my backyard for that it might be a smarter move. 

its the halfway mark. 

I don't feel anything like this is over but i do feel like im over the mountain on the way down.

Thank goodness.

My cat peed on my hairdye towel and its got black dye in it anyway so i'm not gonna take it to the laundromat and wash it by itself. I'm giving it a wash in my machine. no clue if id even know if it was ok or not... my old hairdye towel i threw out recently. it smelled like THE STUFF.. i think after so long .. moving out for 9 mos, etc, i wasnt noseblind to it anymore and it gave me flashbacks when i smelled it so i put in the thrash and got some new used towels from the thrift store to use to dye my hair. I've just not washed it till now, i think i will smell it after its washed and dryed and if it smells like the stuff ill just get new machines. if it doesnt ill work up the courage to try a tshirt and see if i can wear it.

not today tho

eventually. 

dont want to poke the bear.

im healing.

a 'reaction' to this chemical for me seems to be nerve damage so i don't want to go back there.

Maybe i just dont.

maybe i learned that lesson.

i stated above that if i knew that the best course of action was to just start completely over... maybe i just get new washer/dryer and skip the part where i experiment and try to figure out if its gonna be ok or not.

but washer/dryer is $$$$$$ and they might be fine.

i was happy to bring back my hard furniture and all my kitchen stuff is ok. probably i didnt need to paint realistically, except that the guys who installed the 2nd carpet fucked up my floors so when i pulled it up there wasnt really any choice. 

its all just so much money trying to figure this all out and buying new things and getting old stuff hauled away. and im not done with that yet either. 

bought two different kinds of cheap dressers to test to see what i like so in the spring or whenever i get carpet again and if i can bring back my clothes or even if i just buy new clothes i guess, i can get some better ideas for what i want. i dont want my old ones back. thats just a choice. theyre broken and heavy and i think their time is over. 

i really want carpet again.

but the logistics of it 

nevermind the expense.

carpet is worth having.