The FallOut from Fireworks - What Do YOU Think and Choose to Do? Leadership changes with YOUR input!

I read in the paper today that Colorado National Monument, which is my 'back yard National Park Service playground', is celebrating being a National Park Service site for 100 years in 2011 by ushering in the new year with a fireworks display. I was reading the paper and texting a friend about options for New Years, which at our age factors in safety and sensibility of many factors such as weather and being on the roads as well as crowds and staying up so late, I have to admit that my first reaction was 'neat! 8 pm/early -- fireworks/fun -- my side of the Valley/closeby ... perfect!' ... and then I remembered that I'm not in favor of fireworks anymore. 

Feeling like a fuddy duddy, I closed up my paper and went on with my day -- to the store and gas station, home to work on the clogged up sink, which I'd put some effort into solving in as environmentally friendly way as possible.  

I went to bed and woke up for my typical-of-late 'intermission from sleep' and started to read from my stack of magazines next to my side of the bed and found my mind drifting -- not back to sleep, but to being really concerned about what kind of leadership in 2010 would approve having a fireworks display in an area such as Colorado National Monument.  They're in the process of upgrading to become a National Park and I can only hope that with that will come different guidelines and leadership.  So I thought perhaps this was one of those things I could let go of, like the Colorado Department of Transportation digital highway sign being used to advertise the Boy Scouts Tree sale before Christmas, only slighly distracting drivers thinking it was something important about road safety on a busy State highway.  I am concerned with the people making decisions these days, in many respects. 

But this one, I couldn't let go of from my mind AND my gut, which is where I find more and more often now is leading ME better than my mind.  I used to be about as left brained as a person can be AND an atheist; after years of meditation and learning to get connected with 'the force', I now do my thinking about things and then go to my gut for the leadership.  Much like I imagine someone is offended by drunk drivers if they've had their life impacted by one in the past, I'm insulted and offended by a NPS site using fireworks to promote their publicity about an upcoming anniversary and hopeful designation upgrate to "Park" status. 

Not only have I gone to expense and discomfort to have heavy metals tested and chelated from my body in the past few years, I have previously written this year about the extra expense I go to in order to reduce my toxic burden to my body, home, and community.  I'm attaching below the blog from July 5 which was inspired by The Canary Report relating to fireworks for you to review and Comment on below.  

I realized that at the root of my annoyance and feelings of insult about this, is not simply the global concern I have for the lack of wise leadership by our government leaders on this matter (and so many others), it is that through Lumigrate I've met so many people whose lives have been shattered by chronic illness, many of which have toxic chemicals and heavy metals as at least part of the picture. 

The ultimate irony is that half my lifetime ago I hired on to work for a research office at Colorado State University funded by the National Park Service Air Quality Division, where in eight years my health went from good through not being able to work full time or walk a flight of stairs or a block's distance, and back to being better again because I got good medical advice and followed it.  It continued to increase after I left just due to being in a different environment for work at the health center on campus but by then the new building which had been a part of the problem had outgassed.  I was the 'canary in the cage' on that one -- I was the only person to get sick, but now I understand very thoroughly what caused my chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, it just was what 'caused the barrel to spill over to chronic illness'.  I suggest you download and watch Lumigrate's video on Chronic Illness: Full Barrel Syndrome for more information, as we all have different things burdening our bodies.  

Our project was lead by a brilliant man, one who retired at the end of 2010 as the only non EPA employee to ever receive an EPA lifetime achievement award.  I was the only non 'professional' staff and chose to work flex time with the workload just as the professional staff did, and it was a big workload until I could justify getting another administrative assistant hired.  He so brilliantly went about the research design that our funding was flowing in with a high need for the research and 'we' built a new building -- which was full of the cheapest government bid carpeting, furniture, and cubicle partitions our money could buy. So I was breathing in toxic air for sometimes 80 hours in a week if we had a big deadline to meet.  I wasn't resting -- the adrenals were getting just 'burned out'.  

Then I'd take off extra time when we were between big projects, sometimes having 2-3 week vacations, it was wonderful! I saw much of the US and Canada on a motorcycle with my husband at the time (another story of stress which I chose to leave in my early 30s in order to pursue my degree in OT, which he was not in support of: I felt it was the calling or mission of my life and so I got out from the control and went on to 'do what I was born to do'.  My health resumed until I was again around fumes with cadavers AND changed to eating no meat meaning increased wheat and didn't know at the time I was allergic to wheat.  

Most important to say that what I learned at that project and with that group has been invaluable to me on many facets of my life, and Lumigrate would not have occurred in the manner it did with all the video at launch had it not been for their being the hiring of a graphics artist and creative director and purchasing of all the studio equipment as part of my job all those years ago, or overall running a project that size for someone THAT 'big'.  

I also had previously received an immunization while a student at Colorado State University which was one of two brands brought in the biggest class action lawsuit prior to the tobacco industry, and my health changes had started almost immediately after that.   I'd grown up immersed for hours every day in secondhand smoke and never had been made sick by it, but the smoke at work -- yes allowed indoors back then -- started giving me headaches.  Then the photocopier, then ...... all kinds of things started happening.

Interestingly, when I shared my heavy metals test results with Dr Spurlock (MD who contributes to Lumigrate related to fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, who has worked for an environmental medicine center in Dallas, Texas as well as for Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Centers in the past and in 2011 has a clinic opening of his own), he immediately identified my past as having had cigarette smoke (lead and cadmium are in the papers used cigarettes AND important to note, those that roll joints to smoke marijuana) and immunizations with mercury.  He has educated me that there are many different forms of fibromyalgia and the type I have indicates childhood immunizations as one of the main two contributors. 

I thought back to the story of my having a very bad ear infection as an infant and wondered if that was perhaps right after I'd received a load of immunizations, much as when I was 21 and got one that was later proven to cause autoimmune disease in 5% of adults who received it.  I thought of Chris Young's Health Management presentation (see Videos, it's $0 to download too!) and the 'Law of the Lamp Post', where your knowledge keeps changing and you have to shine the light on the new information, then the "Law of the Hammer" where you then 'take a swing at fixing things' based on what the light is now illuminating. 

So my knowledge and understanding of what I believe has caused my health issues shifted even further back than I'd previously thought with that new information.  Still, I'll never forget how scared I was in my late 20s wondering if I'd have to quit working due to the fatigue and brain fog.  If I'd ever get to go out again and see my friends, or if my life was going to be scaled back to the level it was then, unable to even walk a block or lift a heavy bag of groceries. I've worked hard for the last 20 years to get and stay out of being 'down the drain' where life is unaccepable due to lack of energy or increased pain. 

While I have refused to let it 'ruin my life', it has undeniably affected it substantially. I'm not going to sit idly by and not speak up about this fireworks disply on New Years in a quiet National Park Service area where the herd of desert sheep that I've photographed and shared 2 years ago on my facebook roam, among many other animals.  Nor will I when July 4 comes rolling around -- no more watching for me! I'll find something where I'm not 'contributing to the problem' as an alternative OR take this with me and do some education along the way with those who haven't thought about fireworks as unnecessary pollution of many kinds.  

Four years ago, after having my hysterectomy a couple of weeks prior, I took my first little 'hike' at the camping area of Colorado National Monument at sunset on New Years Eve and relished in the peaceful and beautiful sunset and having a place to walk that had been cleared of snow.  I'd gone to a LOT of trouble that year juggling my patients and responsibilities as a contractor providing OT services to a busy outpatient clinic to do something major for my health and was looking forward to what the new year was going to bring.  It was one of my favorite New Years Eves of all time, I now realize.  So I imagine I can do 'something different for July 4' and find the same benefit.    

I encourage you to continue taking charge of their own health by what you purchase, what you partake of for 'entertainment', and pick your battles wisely about what you get involved with.  But be involved.  If you'd like to be involved with this in a small way, please take a minute to comment!  Every voice adds up! 

Now, here's my blog copied from July 5, 2010:

Susie Collins has a most interesting online community about multiple chemical sensitivity called 'The Canary Report'.  I have always LOVED that title because I have always said that I've felt like I am virtually like a canary in a cage, or was when my symptoms were worse.  (To use the Full Barrel Syndrome analogy, my barrel has gotten emptied in recent years so I'm not as sensitive as I used to be, but anything I used to be sensitive to, I still avoid as I know it's a toxin and my body is just able to compensate now, as hopefully all healthier people do... BUT..... <just think about it for a second>). 

So I found it welcome reading today on facebook when I saw that she posted her annual information about the polluting effects of fireworks.  I'm providing the link for you and encourage you to go read -- as a consumer I've chosen to stop coloring my hair (or do it much less frequently and in a way that greatly reduces my chemical contribution to myself, my stylist and everyone downstream from the salon's drain), pay more for hair and skin care products that don't contain chemicals which are known to mess with your hormone system or contribute to your risk of getting cancer.  I find it interesting that last night I got so caught up watching a most incredible sunset and didn't want to go out of my way to watch fireworks downtown -- maybe there was something else at work in my mind that I'd not thought of related to the 'toxins' that are their side-effect.

Traditions are HARD to change -- how we eat, which in my opinion is contributing or causing much of the chronic illness in our modern societies, is a prime example.  So, here's more food for thought -- about how we spend our resources of time, energy and money when it comes to July 4 in the US.... Yup, they're fun all right but is it worth it? Here's the link, I encourage you to take a minute and follow/read.... Thanks, Susie, for your dedication to education about this critical subject of MCS. ~~ Mardy

www.thecanaryreport.org/2010/07/04/celebrating-independence-youre-doing-it-wrong/

(You'll see on Susie's site this is a photo copyrighted 2005 Chris Conway and used by permission at The Canary Report -- I thought it was good to transfer it here as 'a picture is worth a thousand words' sometimes, and hopefully it'll encourage you to go read the Report and to follow Chris Conway as well if you're interested in this topic -- hope he appreciates the 'shout out about the fall out'!)