Breathe, Grasshopper

I'm afraid of chemical smells. Not Weed-B-Gone or fertilizer smells or interior wall paint or Elmer’s glue-type smells, but rather industrial solvent smells.

I have an…interesting history with chemical solvent smells. There is an outside possibility that industrial chemicals caused my bone marrow failure.

Given that I had to have a bone marrow transplant in order to remain among the living, I’m a little leery of things that might cause a need for another transplant. Rational? Yeah, about as rational as people who install unsightly lightning rods to the side of their houses, attracting the lighting toward their house to save…their house.

Today, someone at work used Goop-off or some other chemical to get something off of their desk. Within five minutes, the smell permeated the entire building, the harsh chemically scent driving straight to people’s temples. Driving fear straight to my heart.

While coworkers complained of the stink and the headache, I sat at my desk, willing myself not to breathe. Understandably, this method of avoidance did not work in the long run.

I was forced to breathe the minute quantities of a commercially available cleaner. My heart raced. My palms sweated. (They always sweat, so I suppose that doesn’t prove anything). My mind fuzzed, awash in the possible harm the smell was doing to me – invading my nostrils, tearing down my esophagus, slowly killing me from my innards to my hair follicles.

A door was opened, and relief flooded into my workspace in the form of 34 degree air.

I am pleased to report that I survived. I met a fear head-on, I maintained my sanity at all times, I kept things in perspective, and I am a stronger person for it. I didn’t even put on the sweater hanging from the back of my desk chair.

I can handle anything.

(PS – I work at a computer all day. As do my coworkers. I kind of want to know what it was that got so stuck to a desk in the first place to require Goop-Off. A lunch of leftover casserole?)