Day 95 | Time to Give up on Campgrounds?

We went into town today to finish gathering supplies for my family’s visit. Things went pretty well and I only had to decontaminate once. Way better than those horrible trips to Las Vegas! I’d go through 6 shirts sometimes!

I was sitting in the Petco parking lot when I started getting the exposure symptoms: intense back pain, a headache and mild nausea. I texted Brett, he finished up as quickly as he could, ran back and drove me away. When we got to the health food store I got out and decontaminated there. I rinsed my hair, rinsed my exposed skin and changed my shirt. As usual, I felt much better. Phew!

It was around 5:00pm when we finished running errands and started back to our campsite. Much earlier than last time we went into town! Yay! Maybe we’ll actually get to bed early tonight!

Unfortunately, my beautiful dreams of an early bedtime were shattered when some new campers showed up while I was getting out of the shower. They took the spot right next to us and I was relieved to find that I didn’t react to them. Little did I know they had other ways of crushing our sleepy dreams…

When it was time for Brett to take his shower, I started to feel grouchy, anxious and depressed all at the same time. These are often my first symptoms of toxic exposure. I knew something was affecting my brain and when I got out of the van I saw what it was. The new campers had started up a campfire in the rain and I’m pretty sure they used a bunch of lighter fluid to do it. Yuck! I went back into the van and closed the door but it was too late. My reaction was intensifying into a panic attack.

We decided we needed to leave immediately and I started to cry. This can’t be happening…

It seems a little silly in retrospect, but I was especially upset that I would have to decontaminate again. That meant my hair would be wet and I’d have to wait for it to dry again. My neuropsychiatric symptoms can make me a little obsessive sometimes and it felt like the end of the world.

Brett hopped into the driver’s seat and we drove away looking for a place to park for the night. We found a nook that looked halfway decent and decided to go with it.

I got up and washed my head again, wiped my face and arms and changed into a clean pair of pajamas. Brett did the same.

Then I sat on the bed and whipped my hair around trying to get it to dry faster. While I was waiting for it to finish drying, I started to wonder whether we should give up on campgrounds all together.

Maybe going back to boondocking really would be better and ultimately easier. The campground thing was nice while it lasted but I don’t see how we’re going to be able to keep it up now that it’s summer. Everything is filling up and people from all sorts of moldy cities come to this area to vacation. I just don’t know if it’s going to work.

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.