Hoo man, i’m gonna put my hand up for living in one of the most polluted streets in Sydney for years before my pregnancy, and then moving into a brand new appartment next door to that street after the bun started to cook in the oven.
Like, fresh beige carpet fumes! Super fresh - oh yeah baby, i could feel the vapours excreting from it. Could feel & smell the vapour - hovering a good 50cm from the ground at least, but you could still smell it whilst standing up… just so much stronger when you lied down on the bed …which wasn’t sitting up higher on it’s frame because we had just moved in and had so many weeks of lying down so low and right up next to it before we got the house sorted out.
I was freshly pregnant too! Found out on the first week of moving in! How nice!
That smell certainly didn’t help with the nausea, but i wasn’t too thrilled about the neighbour’s indian cooking permeating into the master bedroom through the ceiling ducts with all those pretty little “spotlights” either.
17 weeks into my pregnancy, my first major attack of Multiple Sclerosis gives me the most fucked up experience of supreme acute pain in my life, taking a good 3 years to recover sensation from the neck down. Lost function of my hands during the process and am ever so grateful that they’re still here with me & functional to knock wood with now, let alone type & feed myself!
The smell of mould in the neurological ward of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital that had no windows you could open and that fucking carpet - it was WET, totally soaked and smelt like urine crossed with mouldy penecillin. That wasn’t helping with the nausea either.
Do you realise how unpleasant it is to walk on mouldy-wet-urine-soaked carpet with a pair of socks? It wasn’t that much fun bare foot even! It’s fucking disgusting.
I remember asking my husband;
“Darling, can you please bring my can of Impulse?!”
Spritzing the air with nice-smelling deoderant to try and counter that stench didn’t help and i was at the absolute worst moment of my life. I was supposed to be grateful for the room, because at least i had a room to myself. Frankly, i think being in the company of other neurologically challenged patients in conditions monumentally worse than mine might’ve been a lot more comforting in helping me deal with the pain i had to live with myself. Atleast my other vitals like normal brain function and ability to communicate with my family wasn’t compromised as it was for others!
The pain i endured, that fucking pain i just had to live with and not be able to take anything for it because i was pregnant. This was further amplified by doctors not believing me too, thinking it was just a figment of my imagination, just “in my head”. Well they certainly did get that very fucking wrong. It wasn’t all in my head at all, it was in my fucking spine. I’ve eversince been so annoyed to see TV medical shows make commentary that MS just happens in the bloody brain, coz that was the same attitude of so many of the RPAH registrars.
“Results showed no lesions in the brain. It’s not MS”
Hello - don’t forget the spine. You know, the tail of the brain you fucking quacks! Forgive me, i’m angry. I was treated very poorly by some of the hospital staff in there and i still need time to vent that other branch right out of my life in detail.
One profusely traumatic childbirthing experience later, i end up with the next worst horror to contend with - an unconsolable child, refused to latch, unable to breastfeed, unable to bond and hoo, that severe PND which followed sure wasn’t fun, but it obviously made me so much stronger as i’m not dead yet. 5.5years later, my son’s diagnosed with autism. How nice!
My MS has been in long remission. Started to get better in my last year of living in toxicville and since my move out of there into the mountains last year, it’s been so non-existent in my life that it feels like it’s completely gone now, but maybe i’m just being cavalier. I haven’t had a relapse or flare-up for such a long time. Maybe i’m just lucky, for now - so let’s knock some more wood.
Anywayz, i’m putting my hand up by listing pollution, the toxic shit & the carpet fumes in particular, as one “probable cause” on that same story which constantly says “genetic susceptability & some environmental trigger” whenever you look up “what causes autism” or “what causes multiple sclerosis” and all the other auto-immune diseases in this world that share that exact same bloody fucking story.
I’m happy to let the researchers and scientists work on the molecular level of testing really tiny microscopic things in tests tubes, while i’ve gotten awfully curious as to the social side of the research. Aren’t the people who “catch” the dieseases the best experts on themselves? Aren’t they the ones with the stories of what sorts of events transpired during the time that illness struck? Hey, i might as well start my adventure in this search today.
So - why didn’t my brand new appartment come with a warning sign like on those cigarette packets that say “Smoking can harm your baby”? Known to be bad for pregnant women to be exposed to and yet the whole world said;
“It’s perfectly ok to keep on building houses like this when we know that those carpet fumes are TOXIC! It’s a well known phenomena folks!”
*snorts* How nice!
I don’t forget the commentary of the builders working on the finishing touches of the Presidio Appartments in Newtown - yes, they’ve had colleagues & friends experience “new-building syndrome”.
Jesus. I almost felt inspired to design fasionable gas-mask maternity wear for pregnant women after what i’ve read in The Natural Medicine Guide To Autism, by Stephanie Marohn just a minute ago.
Looking forward to the day THE CAUSE becomes as concrete & supposedly fucking “definite” as my diagnosis of MS!
So - what happened when some kind of auto-immune diesease or autism began to enter in your life? What do YOU think is the cause in your life at the moment? What were the events that occured which lead up to the “attack” or diagnosis? What are you doing now to help your life feel better, either mentally or physically or everything?
Bah. Just feeling rather venty at the moment so i’m just gonna let it all hang out loose like this in a scream and then get back into my usual journey of laughing at life.
If you haven’t been on Newtown Mums - you’ve got no idea of how much i used to bitch about that fucking beige carpet …because it was so hard to keep clean …even moreso with a toddler learning how to toilet train.
Like, we paid $420/wk to live in that appartment and I’m so glad we moved right out of that fucking place!
Enjoying the fresh air over here - while it lasts, that is…
Though my life with my son hasn’t been easy, we have been fortunate to be incredibly blessed by it in other ways. He’s gifted & bright, has an incredible sense of humour and i treasure the fact that we can enjoy experiencing proper face-to-face hugs together now. To experience affection with your child, in a hug. The upside of not being able to have so much of that at the begining like other mothers have had - it makes me all the more grateful & appreciative of the moments that i can have that closeness with my son now, and never take it for granted. It always means the world to me.
Onward & upward with the journey of learning how to DETOX.
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