MCS and Chemical Injury Tip: Create the RESILIENT HOUSEHOLD

Living on The Ledge I have the luxury of feeling blissfully safe and blessed with wellness. It's incredible when the air is clean, the frogs in full voice and the symptoms of multiple chemical sensitivities a memory or someone else's science fiction. Building and living in our VARDOFORTWO gives me that luxury ... the safety of an oasis room where my body is able to restore itself from toxics and toxins while I rest and sleep. In a reassembled world, that luxury would be a birthright for all beings from bug to blissful old folk like me. That world will need more time and plenty of re-education. Today I had a chance (thanks to the strength of the internet here in the woods) to visit one of my most reliable earth "SOURCERIES" Susie Collins' The Canary Report. I found an article about the challenges and reality of construction and home repair for folks with chemical sensitivity or the chemically injured. The article will make sense to those who are chemically injured and have undertaken construction or home repair. It might be a stretch for those who don't get it or just don't go there.

Here is the bit of the article that most sang to me:

Households that accommodate the needs of the chemically injured need to keep operating, just like HROs, when there’s an unexpected chemical exposure. The householders have ongoing needs for sleep, food, water and medication. Much like in combat, the household of a chemically injured person may suffer severe losses due to unexpected chemical exposures: lost time, lost money, lost health, lost property. But like HROs, resilient households take the time to build capabilities for resiliency, communicate thoroughly and in a timely fashion and track and correct even minor failures. This is especially true during times of relative calm. The time taken to hone skills and correct minor problems may seem like plodding to some, but it makes a critical difference when the unexpected strikes.

Copyright © April 2009 by Michael and Judy Stouffer.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivativeWorks 3.0 United States License.

Building VARDOFORTWO required time (two years of planning, searching, testing, building and re-testing) and a good portion of the money we had. Pete and I have had to learn to become a 'resilient household of two" who take the time and energy to respectfully communicate THOROUGHLY and patiently. What sounds reasonable to one of us might not make it to the other, especially when one or both of us has been exposed to something toxic. The point made in this article by Michael and Judy Stouffer who blog at TAU TOPICS is that time to fine tune these skills becomes the ace in the deck ... or the joker you need when one more detail throws you for a loop. We have been helped by a keenly aware and sensitive counselor, to build this resilience in our relationship. Now that we are living with two other adults who are learning how to live with accomodating chemical injury these resiliency skills will be tested and we'll need to pay attention to the honing practice.

I'm truly appreciative for sources like this one that comes up when I am in one of those blissfully calm time. Perhaps this will help you too or be a place you'll remember to visit when you need it. Thanks Susie for the connection.