Day 142 | The Power of Decontamination

Yesterday, I wrote about how I’m not having to worry about mold contamination nearly as much as I used to. Well, it turns out that sometimes not thinking enough about mold is detrimental, as it was on this unlucky afternoon.

When I finished doing the laundry today, I was sluggish, confused, and gloomy. I figured I was just worn out and dehydrated from the physical exertion of hand-washing clothes in the hot sun. So I took a sodium tablet, drank a bunch of water and sat down.

I tried to write but I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t focus long enough to even write one sentence. So, I just gave up and waited. Nothing changed. Except now I had the added stress that I wasn’t getting anything done.

Ugh! What is wrong with you, Ana?! Why can’t you snap out of it and push through?

My body would have none of it. It was exhausted. I wasn’t able to do anything until dinner time when I got up to throw together a simple salad. It took more effort than normal but I got it done.

It’s really hard to make salad out here on the prairie, especially if you’re not the kind of person that’s into chasing lettuce in the wind. I definitely wasn’t into chasing lettuce today, so I assembled the salad in the van.

I made a plate for each of us and Brett ran back to the fridge to put the salad dressing away before sitting down to eat. Only he got into a conversation with our hosts and didn’t return for a long time. I decided to go ahead and eat without him. Then I went back outside and sat in my chair just as tired, gloomy, and fuzzy-brained as I was earlier.

Brett returned shortly after only to find that Ramona had climbed into the van and was eagerly eating his salad. She had already gobbled up half of it without my knowing it. I immediately burst into tears that quickly escalated into panic.

What was he going to eat now?! Why didn’t I notice?! What is wrong with me?! Everything is wrong with me! I fail at everything! I can’t even do the simplest jobs!

As I was sobbing Brett suggested that I should probably decontaminate. The emotional intensity of my response was clearly not in proportion to the situation (which wasn’t really my fault anyway). I only cried harder and said it wasn’t going to work because I was too tired to go to the spout to fill the water bottle.

Brett reminded me that he could fill the water bottle for me and headed off to the spout. When he came back, I rinsed my head and exposed skin and changed my shirt. The crying stopped immediately. In a few minutes I was almost back to normal. My mood was stable, my mind had cleared and my energy was returning!

You’ve got to be kidding me! I wasted my whole afternoon feeling miserable when all I needed was just a quick rinse and a change of clothes! Why didn’t it occur to me? It should have been obvious!

I laughed at myself. Oh well… I was already feeling too good to be upset.

Later this evening when I was singing and laughing Brett said, “It’s funny how much better you feel!” Yes, it is. It really is funny. It’s so absurd that something as simple as decontaminating could stop symptoms in their tracks. Even now after I’ve seen it work countless times the effectiveness still surprises me.

I don’t know where the contamination came from and I don’t even really understand why washing it off makes such a difference. I do hope someday we’ll have solid science to explain this phenomenon. But the fact that I’m laughing instead of crying is all the evidence I need to to keep going. Mold avoidance doesn’t make for an easy life but the results have already surpassed what I imagined.

By the way, Brett and I made a beautiful PDF of my favorite resources for suffering souls. I created the content and he made it look fancy with his superduper graphic design skills. It’s available for free to my email subscribers. Click here to sign up and receive 5 Resources for the Suffering Soul.