JUST ADD BOMBS

 

My house in Wallingford, site of many woes these past months.

Three days ago, on January 20^th, I made it the airport for my end-of-year flight back to DC. It felt like no small feat. It was the end of a long, weird year. 2013 started with me freshly turned forty, swiftly followed by freshly single, and as a result with no place in Seattle to live so lingering on, like stale forgotten flowers, at my parents’ house for six months.

 

Also this year I was bitten by a tick, either while swing dancing, or on my way home from swing dancing in urban DC. That was June, which I largely spent wiped out on antibiotics. In August, finally out of my parents’ house and optimistically settling into my aging craftsman house in Seattle, I launched a basement remodel that I’d expected to take one month and instead took five, (and probably took five times the money I’d planned on, although I stopped totaling up the expenses, as a way to avoid crying).

 

The first couple months of the remodel, with people coming and going and making tremendous noise and wanting to talk to me no matter what I happened to be doing, were difficult. It was all so antithetical to my quiet, hermetic, artistic way of being that I had to control myself from screaming on a daily basis. I was working with people who were mind-bogglingly difficult to work with, and with others who were as lovely as angels, if angels ever came to earth in the form of plumbers and carpenters and handymen—carpenters and handymen who make a tremendous racket as they tear apart portions of your house and then expect to have conversations with you about it, whether or not you’re trying to eat lunch or take a nap or be quietly artistic at that moment.
 

 TROUBLE, CHEMICAL-WISE

That was the first part of the remodel, when I was chronically refraining from screaming. Round about mid October, just after the new concrete floor and had set and the new windows were installed and the first of the framing went in, I got sick from all the chemicals in the construction materials. Suddenly one afternoon my arms shook and my teeth chattered, although I wasn’t cold, and my heart was racing about two hundred and fifty beats a minute. All I could do was watch my flapping hands while I sobbed uncontrollably and thought about how impossibly hard it was to put one foot in front of the other.

 

The tiny part of my brain that still operated rationally connected how I was feeling to the intense smell of carpenter’s adhesive that had risen from the basement and filled the first and second floor in the last few days, no matter how wide I opened the windows. This rational brain screamed at the much bigger, louder irrational part of my brain until I managed to pack up a few things, find Cleo’s leash and her food, and go to spend the night on my friend Ghusun’s couch.

 

It should have come as no surprise to me, that this had happened. I have had extreme chemical sensitivity for years. On a regular basis I fret about inhaling perfume and air fresheners. I scrutinize the labels of all food and skin products I buy. i worry about the finish on furniture and I hold my breath when a diesel truck drives by. Certainly I was going to buy low V.O.C. paint for the house, but I didn’t stop to think that the plumbers used chemicals when installing pipes, and the carpenter used chemicals when gluing in the framing, and the concrete sealant I’d put on the basement walls, to keep out water and prevent mildew, was chock full of chemicals. No wonder I was trembling and shaking and paralyzed with panic.

 

Ghusun told me to stay as long as I needed. I thought I’d be at her place for a week or two, until the remodel was done. Six weeks later I was still there. Her living room was now my home. Ghusun, caught up in her own professional worries, was too distracted to notice how much time had gone by, or that I was now closer to her roommate than her temporary guest. We’d developed a routine that included me cooking dinner for both of us, or making large elaborate salads which we shared each night. Then she did some work she’d brought home from the office and went to bed, while I took Cleo for long walks. I was deliberately staying up late so I’d be asleep and out of Ghusun’s way while she got ready for work in the morning.

FURTHER COMPLICATIONS, FOUNDATION-WISE
 

By then I’d discovered that very important parts of my house, large wooden parts that connected the walls and floor to the concrete foundation, were rotting, and also that other parts of my house had no foundation at all. But not to worry because these things were slowly being taken care of, although at times they were even more slowly not being taken care of, because the people who had agreed to take care of these things went to other houses to take care of other things that they’d also agreed to take care of, before they’d agreed to take care of my foundation-related things. Thus these other things took priority over my things, although my things, being related to my foundation, were very, very worrying to me.

 

Also for various reasons, my foundation things had to be taken care of before the rest of my basement remodel could be taken care of. My house now looked like a patient cut open on a heart surgeon’s table, and the doctors had walked away. For days and weeks it stayed that way, lonely and abandoned. Sometimes I picked rocks out of the mounds and mounds earth that had been dug up around the foundation, and I put the rocks in piles as a way to console myself.

VARIOUS KINDS OF WAILING

During those weeks, I was often failing to refrain from screaming and crying, but generally managing to do the screaming and crying when only Cleo was there to witness it. I was living too far from my house, which I still needed to go to every day, not to mention the drives to the Home Depot and the Green Depot (more on that in another post) and as a result I drove more than I should and my tendonitis came back. I stopped going swing dancing and scarcely wrote at all. I didn't want to leave Cleo alone at Ghusun's, so she rode in the back of my car and gave out operatic wails every moment we were in motion, no matter how many dog toys and bones and toy-treat-dispensers I bought to distract her. The back seat of my car was slowly being coated in dog hair.

After six weeks at Ghusun’s, I decided I could impose on her no longer. Through airbnb I rented a townhome one block from my house, which was empty while the owner stayed in England for visa issues. This townhome was nice, but lacking in south-facing windows, and the darkness made me feel I was suffocating sometimes, but on the whole I was better off being in my neighborhood. I missed Ghusun, who had come to feel almost like family while I was living in her apartment.

 

 

My house at last attached to new foundation.

 

 

At last the foundation of my house was fixed. The people who had promised to come work on my basement, however, were not coming to work on my basement. I called them every day and they told me everyday they were coming right over to put in the insulation and start the drywall, etc. And still they did not come. By then I was screaming and crying in the presence of other people, although these people were not the people who had promised to work on the basement, because, as I have mentioned, those people were not around.

 

All the while I had been postponing many planned doctors’ appointments because I didn’t see how I could change medication while I was under so much stress, or because I was looking for dog day care for Cleo who no longer had a yard to run around in, or because I was researching places to stay on the airbnb website. And also because I was packing my things and lugging them out of Ghusun’s, then unpacking them at the airbnb, then spending the good part of a day figuring out to connect my laptop to the abnormal form of wireless system in the townhome. Most of all I didn’t go the doctor because I was calling people and asking them over and over to please work on my house. All these things took a lot of time. It was not time to try to improve my Lyme symptoms.
 

LUXURIOUS PROBLEMS TO HAVE

I once not only played rugby, but my position was in the front row of scrum, and I loved every minute of it. With no journalism experience, I took a plane to Buenos Aires and was soon making a living as a news reporter there. I've climbed a volcano in Chile, and when I lived in Mexico City I endured forty minutes of sheer terror when my house was robbed in the middle of the night. Not to mention the five years I lived trapped in bed, not able to stand up long enough to brush my teeth, and without knowing the name of my illness. Also, I lived for seven years with an angst-ridden, argument prone, Marxist poet.

I have the  kind of grit that allowed me to send a short story to ninety-four magazines and endure ninety-four rejections before I finally got it published. But a basement remodel (which is a luxurious problem to have) unhinged me. I was obsessed and helpless and miserable and wishing I desperately I could walk away from my broken-open house. And yet I knew the only thing that would set things right was to have my house finished, filled with fresh air and sunlight the way it had been that summer, because the complicated balance of my health depended on a quiet, sunny place where I could be at peace.

At last I made it to see my naturopath. She told me to drink more Green Juice (brand name “Just Veggies,” made by Columbia Gorge Juice Company, and consisting mostly of kale and parsley juice). She said it would help me detox all the chemicals I’d been exposed to while living at my house. I drank more Green Juice, and the more I drank, the less I cried. The basement still did not get done, but I shed fewer tears over it. I went out to the Century Ballroom on swing dance nights. I had heavenly dances with men of all heights and ages and colors and dance styles, and some of these men even asked me for my phone number, but how could I explain that I was too stressed out to date anyone because I was renovating my basement?

Dancing: source of reliable joy.

 

Finally, the contractors actually did some work, and along the way tried to convince me that leaving out part of the insulation was just fine (they had run out and didn’t want to make an extra trip to get more), and that if water in one of my hose pipes froze during a cold snap it wasn't their fault (although they weren't sure they'd put the insulation into my walls correctly), which meant I kept running over to my house whenever I could stomach it, strapping on a gas mask and inspecting things I didn't quite understand in the basement, so as to reassure myself things were OK.

Just as things were nearing the end, said contractors tried to convince me that the floors were beautifully stained with the soy-based colorant I'd found (called SoyCrete), when the floors were half-covered with spills and streak marks that looked like the work of a two-year-old, while the other half the floors looked like no colorant had gone it at all.

 

I had to argue and cajole and send many an angry text message to get these men to agree to redo the floors. I drove back to the Green Depot for a non-toxic stripper called Eco Etch Pro and more of the floor colorant made out of soy beans, which the contractors had used so disastrously the first time. There were now less than four days left before I flew home to DC.

The HVAC guys came to add a ventilation fan to my heating system (this was now three days before my flight home) and in the process put holes in the newly finished drywall and broke a newly hung door. I made frantic phone calls to negotiate with the HVAC company about having these things fixed that very same day because the floors needed to be re-stained that night and the last light fixtures installed before I left.

And then I was twenty-four hours away from flying home. The basement was finished. I had paid the HVAC guys. After I’d seen that the floor was done right, I had paid the knuckle-headed contractors. That afternoon I would pay the angelic handyman who was repainting the second floor, and the next day I’d write a check for the absent-minded-but-angelic electrician.

I was recounting all this on the phone to my mother while I walked down the glossy oak stairs of the gloomy airbnb townhome. Suddenly I lost my footing. My socked feet slid straight out from under me and I landed flat on my back, my spine smashing down on edge of a step. It hurt, and kept hurting excruciatingly that day and the next. Lifting things, like my shoulder bag, was painful.

 Nonetheless I managed to get organized and packed, and paid everyone for their work. The next day I made it to the airport with two suitcases, a carryon, a forty pound dog, and dog crate. Thank heaven for curbside check-in.

Cleopatra, seasoned traveler.



 

At last it was just me and my carryon, walking and wheeling our way down the long hall of Concourse C. I found a seat at the gate. My back hurt but I had done it. I had limped to the finish line. It was January 20^th, the solstice, the shortest day of the year. The long, crazy twelve months of 2013 were behind me. I took out my organic parsley, carrot, and cauliflower salad. I had piece of good, goat milk cheese I’d found when cleaning out the fridge the day before. This was lunch and I was enjoying it.

The man sitting next to me turned to me and said:

“Excuse me, but are you going to be here for awhile? Would you mind watching my bags while I go get something to eat?”

Yes, someone in a crowded airport really asked me that. As if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Meaning what? Had the harrows of this year left me so beaten down that the words “Will gladly be decoy for time bombs” were now tattooed to my forehead? Had I been steamrolled to such an extent that I was now flatter than a doormat? I had once been a confident, go-getter-Ivy-league-graduate, dancing like a Peanuts character at Christmastime. And now I was apparently just a worn-out old-maid, eating hippy vegetables, an easy mark?

After looking at him for a few beats with what I’m sure was an astounded expression on my face, I bumbled out: “That is so against the rules! That is so against the rules!” (Always articulate when it comes to setting boundaries with strangers.)

 

The would-be bomber resentfully picked up his bags and headed off towards the food vendors. I found myself wishing for the explosion to be far enough down the terminal that I’d survive.

 

But there was no explosion. Perhaps I’d prevented one from happening. Probably not but I’d like to think that just maybe I did.

 

 

CHRONIC BASEMENT

 

My centenarian house

Silence on the blog usually means I am busy writing other things. For the past two months, however, something prevented me from posting—or from writing much at all. And when something keeps me from writing, I am miserable.

This terrible something is a basement remodel. Like so many things in my life, it relates to health. This summer I moved into the house I own, which I had been renting out for the past five years. The furnace is in the basement, thus pulling air through the musty subterranean realm before sending it through the rest of the house. As someone with deathly mold allergies, I was concerned about this. Basements are moldy places, and mine had that undeniably moldy smell.

I’d heard about this sealant you put on basement walls to keep the damp and mold out. I knew I needed to do that before it got cold enough to need heat. And while I was at it, I wanted to make the basement livable, so I could rent it and get added income. I arrived in July. I thought I’d have it done by September.
 
With one thing and another (including my tried-and-true contractor wanting to charge me 65 grand for the project—I declined) the work didn’t start until August. I thought we’d still be done in a few weeks.

Soon enough, I was confused. I kept thinking the remodel should be wrapping up. Instead, it seemed to just be underway. Why wasn’t it over? Or at least progressing to the next, more manageable stage? Instead things got more and more complicated. New problems cropped up, and the best solution always required a lot of work—expensive, multilayered, nuanced work that needed my constant input, although I wasn’t the one with the miter saw or jack hammer.

And why wasn’t I able to do other things? My bigger writing projects were on hold because of the time the basement took from my schedule, but couldn’t I work on a short story, or even do a blog post?

Apparently not. Each time I sat down to write, a contractor rang the doorbell and drew me into a half hour conversation about certain problems that came up that needed my input before more multilayered, nuanced work could go on. Other times I simply envisioned writing, only to realize I’d need to spend the time making phone calls to track down more contractors.

At last all I could talk or think about was the basement remodel. I went through days with the sensation that I used to do something creative, a sort of a calling, that had once made me very happy. I couldn’t quite remember what this thing was, that I had lost. Also I remembered that my dog used to be calmer, not barking madly all day long at strangers coming to the door and strange noises coming from the basement. And I recalled that I'd once had a routine, which revolved around taking careful care of my body, so that I felt as well as possible. All these things were long lost in the past.

And then I understood. Home renovation is a malady. It is essentially a chronic illness. You think it will be over soon, and it’s not. It requires not one, but many specialists, who are costly beyond your wildest dreams. Soon it interrupts every aspect of your life, and you feel no one in the world can understand you. In the early stages, you talk incessantly about it to everyone you know, only to realize they don’t understand your harrowing circumstances. In the next stage, you realize there are people who can understand: others with the same malady. When you find them, you huddle together, commiserating, trading tips, speaking in a vocabulary you have reluctantly acquired and now feel an overwhelming need to use.

This vocabulary includes siding, framing, flashing, flashing tape, framing, weight-bearing, beams, trim, hardy plank, house wrap, window headers, galvanized, PEX, efflorescence, cement patch, service lines, sewer lines, subpanels, knob and tube, BX, French drainage, 220 outlets, pony walls. And it goes on.

There is the phrase “down to the studs.” I heard this phrase often five years ago, when I remodeled the upper part of my house, and decided to show it to potential renters while the last of the remodeling was still underway, so as to rent it faster (in case you’re wondering, this method does not work). The phrase “down to the studs” is a boast, as in “I did a renovation that went down to the studs.” I have now realized this boast comes from those who have not truly been through the flames of home improvement, those who had general contractors taking care of most everything for them, and found their trials in the difficult questions such as location of vent fans and types of light fixtures.

I am here to tell you that I am not down to the studs. I am past the studs. By around August tenth—some seven weeks ago—my jack-of-all-construction, Leonel, had pulled off the old plywood interior walls (they were so old they weren’t even made of drywall) and demo-ed the studs (also known as framing). He then, in a good Mexican fashion, laid out said studs on my front patio for later reuse, and for all visitors to the house to see. It then rained on the studs. Other scraps and scrips demoed from my basement (such as rotting, rat-chewed insulation, rusted galvanized pipes, a six-foot Eames-era accordion thing that was something between a door and a wall, a hoary chest of drawers, and a newly-broken-down shop-vac) wound up on top of the studs, and it rained on these things, too. This was because Leonel’s truck broke down and he had problems getting it fixed, preventing him from hauling things away. At last another contractor, our neighbor Paul, descended on us like a Roman god in a golden chariot (aka working pickup) and hauled all of it— including the studs once destined for virtuous reuse—to the transfer station. (For those who don’t suffer from Chronic Renovation, the transfer station means the dump.) My front yard looked almost normal again.

What is there beyond the studs? There are the concrete walls of the basement, which are also the foundation of the house. Beyond that there is dirt (we are now outside the house) which is damp from the rainy Seattle climate, and this dampness can seep through the concrete and create mildew inside the basement. Beyond the studs and the cement walls there are also water service lines and water sewer lines, and downspouts from the roof and gutters, which may or may not be tied into the sewers, or may or may not require trenches to be dug, to direct the water away from the basement. All of these I had to address—and by address I generally mean replace. The house is a hundred years old, and apparently no one before me had dared go beyond the studs.

So if you've wondered where I am for the past eight weeks, this is where you'll find me: mentally, and often physically, among the rusting galvanized pipes, in my little studless universe.

TRADING OFF GETTING OFF FOR GETTING ON

The latest installment in the "getting off" series.



More pills than I'd like to be taking, but less than I was taking before.

Four months ago, I stopped taking my antibiotics, my Lyme-killing herbs, my Ayurvedic liver support pills, my twice-daily injections of the blood thinner heparin, and the three doses of Cholestyramine, which was killing my appetite and making me constipated. I cut out iodine and B12 tablets and drastically reduced Vitamin C, multivitamins, and enzymes. I put away out other pills and powders whose names I can't remember now. I'd been taking each of these things because they each helped with specific, hellish symptoms of Lyme. Each pill or injection was warding off some aspect of misery. All together, however, they added up to so much medication that it was difficult to leave the house, eat meals at the time others were eating, or have a phone conversation without interrupting it to swallow something.

The only way to know if I could have a normal life (or a more normal life) was to plain-old stop taking stuff. But stopping taking stuff when that stuff has saved you from being too sick to walk or read or watch TV--well, it's frightening.

"Congratulations!" my doctor said. "This a big step for you to take."

"This is courageous!" said my naturopath.

"It's really, really brave," my mom said. (I was staying with my parents while I went through these medical adjustments.)

I was ready for the Powers That Be to reward me for my bravery. I was thinking all this medicine for so many years might have even cured me of Lyme. I might just not need it at all. I'd have to wait and see.

For about a month, I was OK.

Then I had trouble sleeping. I got back on the herbal protocol for Lyme. I felt stiff and fatigued getting out of bed in the morning. I ratcheted up my Vitamin C. I was better, and then worse again. I added a third herb for Lyme.... Still, I resisted letting things get too fancy. No injections, no appetite-killing drugs, no enemas.

I landed at more or less an equilibrium of feeling more or less how I had while taking a zillion medications a day, only now I was taking six or seven.

Then a tick bit me--which was testimony to how reality, unfortunately, is  not a double-blind scientific study. I decided to take antibiotics for the tick bite, and things got zooey for a few weeks. When those weeks were over, I went more or less back to where I'd been before the tick bite.

That is to say, in the ballpark of more or less; approximately more or less. I was in a different universe from being depressed and fatigued from antibiotics. I wasn't, however, in the universe of feeling ready to move back to Seattle and into a new house as a newly single person. I had my plane ticket back to Seattle, I had a house my tenants had just vacated waiting for me. I'd scheduled movers to take my things from my ex boyfriend's apartment, and I'd told all my friends I was coming back.

And I was scared, because I simply did not have energy for this looming situation.

Thirty-six hours before leaving for Seattle, something clicked. Fatigue, I thought. Thick blood. So I added in one more supplement, lumbrokinase, which is an enzyme that thins the blood. My energy shot back up immediately.

So now I'm back on the Boluoke brand of lumbrokinase. It's not heparin, which I took for years and requires an injection and left bruises all over my body. I can buy Boluoke on Amazon, meaning it's easy to keep in stock.

The reality is my experiment of getting off as many medications as possible is not going as hoped. The reality is being brave doesn't mean you get what you think you should get.

Given reality, I'm glad to be back on Boluoke lumbrokinase. It hasn't cured me of every last Lyme symptom, but I'm in Seattle now and handling the chaos of moving and setting up house with more energy and ease than I had imagined was possible.