Value of Life vs Medical Costs

I'm drinking Numi's Gunpowder Green Tea with Vital Protein's Coconut Collagen Creamer and Redmond Real Salt and doing some reflecting before heading to my post-operation appointment with my gynecologist.

What is the monetary value of quality of life for a person with chronic illness who lives in a first world country with access to excellent doctors? Is it worth paying $14,000 for a medical surgery that might give a ton of pain relief, may result in fewer sick days at work, possibly improve fertility, and has potential to make a person feel human again? $14,000 could buy a year of college, a good reliable car for the long-term, a down payment on a small starter home, or a new roof for your home that will last long-term. What if I told you this surgery might only benefit the person for a couple of years at a time? Is short term quality of life (that isn't guaranteed) worth $14,000, when that money could buy long term services or possessions that also give quality of life?

Yes, my laprascopic surgery for endometriosis and my cardiology visit added up to $14,000. That's before my uninsured discount and my cost-sharing program benefits. My next step, after I wake up and am thinking clearly enough, is to make some phone calls about this bill.

In 2 years I can give an answer to this question, because I've been told people with endometriosis can need surgery as often as every 2 years. It's too soon for me to say if it's benefited me at all yet, given the fact that I'm still healing and my period hasn't yet come. The problem is, I wasn't aware that I was gambling with this much money when I agreed to the surgery. I was told that surgery was around $2,000. That turned out to be true. What I wasn't told was that I would pay $750 for each of the 3 anesthesia treatments I needed during the surgery, $7,000 just to be in the operating room, and lots of other charges for the staff that helped me in different parts of the hospital. If I dug deeper I'm sure I'll find the charges for the multiple IVs I needed, the time I spent in the recovery room, etc. Had I known the cost before surgery, would I have opted to do it? Probably, yes. It's a gamble, a bigger one than I anticipated, but I believe one worth taking.

The older I get, the less confident I am. Endometriosis has definitely been holding me back from living my life. I didn't want to apply for certain jobs because I knew I couldn't get away with calling in sick for my period in that position. I have had to fight some bosses over my needs around my period for years, and this has lost me the chance to get scheduled for better shifts or in better positions. And due to all of my health issues, I've never been able to focus on a career. I'm 30 with a college degree and I'm still doing shift work. It's not below me. I have a lot of respect for us shift workers. I'm paid well, I like my job, I like my co-workers and boss. I'm not complaining. But if not for endometriosis and my other health issues, would I have a career going by now? And given the fact that I don't make a salary, am I worth a $14,000 surgery?

I received my GED at age 16, married at age 19, and graduated college at 20. I was set up so well for a life with a good career and children. 10 years later, none of that has happened. My husband and I are happy together, but we're both very stressed by money, careers, health issues, and living within our needs. His career is very difficult because it's facing budget cuts at every turn, and his Master's degree isn't enough, but a doctorate doesn't guarantee a job. So am I worth a $14,000 surgery when we have these huge struggles? Would I be financially better off not getting medical treatment at all, and therefore not working? I could save money by just being disabled at home, not contributing to the work force. But I would be miserable. Is being miserable financially smarter, and could it lead my husband to more happiness if he didn't have to work as hard to afford me, someone who can't work much?

Don't misinterpret this post -

I'm not degrading myself. I'm not putting myself down. I believe I made the right choice. If I were evaluating another person in my situation, I would say that we each only get one life to live and all life is equal. Everyone deserves to live life in the healthiest way they can so that they can participate in life the most fully. I might have self esteem and confidence issues, but I know my value is the same as any other person. I carefully considered the pros and cons of this surgery over years. I've talked to countless people who have had it done. I've discussed with multiple doctors. It was a carefully made decision.

But what upsets me isn't that I have to spend this kind of my money for my health, it's that many people simply cannot afford the surgery or treatment and have no choice but to suffer. Why do I get to have the surgery to help me when others might suffer worse than me and can't have the surgery? I accept that the medial system is the way it is in the USA - I am all for improving it, but I can't afford the stress to worry about it. So I'm not. It simply is what it is, and until something can be done to improve it, I just accept what it is. I'm thankful for the good the medical system can do me, and my doctors and all the staff and nurses were excellent and I really appreciate all they did for me. But in the end, what makes me special?

Just some of my thoughts, but I hope my experience helps some of you make the right decision for you. After this Post-Op appointment I'll write about the surgery experience itself. 

Upcoming Medical Appointments and Symptom List

It upsets me that I have so much I really want to write about in this blog, but I just can't find the energy. I've been very surprised and humbled by how many views my posts are getting. Thank you so much for the support, and I very much hope that what I'm sharing helps you!

I just can't find the energy to reply to people I really care about on Facebook messenger. I'm too brain dead. I rarely watch TV on my own because I'd rather be doing something, and so video games help me relax while being interactive, but lately I've found myself watching more and more because it allows me to just lay on the couch and zone out. My games are calling to me to be played, but I know I can't think well enough to enjoy them. So please understand that I'm not ignoring anyone - I'm just trying to make it day by day, waiting for a time when I feel up to replying to messages or writing a blog post. I'm not even up to blogging right now, but people are asking about me, so I wanted to explain.

I'm tapering off all my pills again for some doctor appointments next month. I'm going to see a Cardiologist for a Tilt Table test to officially test for POTS and an Echocardiogram to monitor my Pulmonary Stenosis (heart murmur I was born with that never "went away.") Then I'm seeing a Neurologist for POTS and Chronic Fatigue, and he's going to run a nerve conduction test. Then I'm going to see my Naturopathic doctor (Dr. Bier at HumanNatureNaturalHealth.com) for an exam and treatments. I have to be at my worst for the Tilt Table test, which means I need to taper off my pills that help me manage my day-to-day life. It also means I need to stop seeing the Chiropractor since adjustments do help my symptoms subside for a little while.

Needless to say, this is leaving me exhausted: the stress of planning the trip to New Hampshire to see these doctors alone is too much stress. Finding an AirBNB that is fragrance-free, finding plane tickets, figuring out how to pack light for a trip in the winter... my parents have done most of the work and it's still too much stress for me. Oh, and how could I forget how difficult and time consuming it was to get the appointments scheduled? I felt bad for how much work I put my doctor through to get me these appointments. Now I have to call Disability to move my hearing, which is going to be a giant headache... and I honestly haven't had it in me to make the phone call yet. My appointments only worked out on the day that my hearing is scheduled for. I'm planning on making that phone call after my tea kicks in. Or why couldn't I just do it over Skype? My hearing is set to be a teleconference over a TV anyway...

In the midst of all this, the motor and pump on our dishwasher broke, and it was out of commission for almost 2 weeks. Thankfully the warranty covered the repair!

I'm also trying to manage at work through all of this - my goal has been to not lose any shifts. This is challenging. As long as my matcha powder in my water keeps giving me the strength to work, I can work. When the caffeine isn't enough, I can't do it. And I'm getting more and more vertigo without taking my b12. I took one b12 the other day because the vertigo was too strong for me to be able to drive myself to work. The b12 killed the vertigo - it worked. But I'm not supposed to be taking it. So I'm getting really nervous about working, but I can't afford not to. I have to save ALL of my strength and energy for work, which means chores at home are not getting done. My mom was really helpful and very nice and came to stay with us twice so she could do chores for me. My husband works so much that he shouldn't have to do any, and I don't want him to lose his health from overworking.

I'm really struggling - if only I stopped having things I had to do. If work was my only obligation I could make it. But things I have to do keep coming on, one thing after the other. Why can't I just rest? Why is everything full of phone calls and paperwork? Every day I have to accomplish SOMETHING... it's always SOMETHING. I'm not well enough to do all of this. I wish I had a disability lawyer hired to handle it all for me... but the work of getting a lawyer is way too overwhelming. Even if I get diagnosed, I don't think I'll win disability. North Dakota doesn't like to give it to people under age 50 because, and I quote, "Young people are resilient." You have no idea how angry this makes me. When I finally figure out how to recover and improve my health I'm going to fight this notion in our local government and strive to educate our judges. If I was resilient then I wouldn't have a health problem worth asking for disability over now would I? I'm asking for disability BECAUSE I'm not NOT resilient enough. And that's not my fault. I didn't choose to be this sick.

I'm honestly tempted to drop my case entirely, move to another state, and try again there. North Dakota is a difficult place to live if you have medical needs, and not just because of the rough extreme weather. The weather alone makes it difficult, and healthy people just don't understand that. When you're very sensitive to pressure changes, temperature changes, and extreme temperatures, but you also have to deal with shoveling and driving in sometimes large amounts of snow and ice... it's difficult. You have to be a resilient and rugged person to live here. I used to be. But it takes energy to be, energy I no longer have. I get so much crap from people here when I get upset over several inches or more of snow - they say things like, "Suck it up, Buttercup!" or "You'll get used to it." or "The rest of us deal with it, so you can too." There was a time when I was used to it and could handle it, but dealing with it takes energy. They all have the energy, and they don't know what it's like to not have the energy. It's very insulting to me to hear things like this because I used to take pride in being able to handle the rough situations. I used to not get anxiety over a little extra hardship. They didn't know me back then, when I was healthy and could take on the world. Back when a challenge was just an opportunity to succeed. I can't think that way anymore without getting sicker.




I've been getting asked what my symptoms are that have led me to getting these tests done. Here's a non-comprehensive list:

- Dizzy and short of breath when standing up. I'll see colors spinning all around me for several seconds before things come back into focus.

- Heart pounds so hard that it makes my teeth chatter with each beat. Sometimes it feels like my heart will pop out of my neck.

- Heart palpitations, especially when laying down.

- When I measure my heart rate from laying or sitting to standing up, it often (but not always) goes up 40 or more beats per minute. Sometimes it doesn't change at all, despite feeling very weak. It also jumps all over the place when I'm laying still - it's jumped around 30 bpm when I was laying perfectly still except for breathing. It would go up and down and up and down within 30 bpm.

- Normal blood pressure is typically about 100/60, but have been down to 90/50 frequently enough. Licorice does raise it back up temporarily. After exercising my systolic tends to rise a lot, but diastolic doesn't change much.

- Sharp shooting pains in my chest. Sometimes my whole chest will feel sore like I worked out the muscles too hard.

- Vertigo that comes and goes.

- Blurred vision or very tired vision, making it so that I end up squinting when trying to keep eye contact with someone

- Constant neck and shoulder tension, sometimes so tense that it gives me an earache or toothache. I get regular muscle work done and it's not enough.

- Headache at the top of my neck that comes and goes.

- Tinnitus in my ears that frequently changes in terms of severity

- Periods of derelization and depersonalization, where reality feels like a dream that I'm not actively involved in. Like I'm viewing reality on a TV and I'm not actually in it, but have to act like I am in it... because I am.

- Adrenaline rushes and crashes. I can shake and run around like a crazy person during the adrenaline rushes, and when I crash I crash so hard that I quite honestly can't get up. I often wake up with these adrenaline rushes in the middle of the night. Very similar to anxiety attacks, but it's not anxiety.

- Legs and arms can suddenly feel like jello. They can lose strength and feel wobbly.

- Never ending bloating issues, with sharp stabbing gut pains.

- Icy cold arms and legs while my torso is sweating as though it's in a sauna.

- Sweating when I feel cold, or being freezing cold when others are comfortable in t-shirts.

- Inability to determine if temperature is safe, like when I'm doing the dishes or taking a bath I can pour water that's way too hot and not realize I'm burning until my heart rate skyrockets, my skin is bright red, and I'm sweating like crazy. Other times the water will feel way too hot and I'll sweat like crazy when it's actually colder than I normally like it.

- Pale flushed skin, sometimes associated with my skin being very tender to touch, the way skin feels when you have the flu.

- I never feel hydrated, even when I drink so much electrolyte water that my stomach wants to vomit from being over filled with water. I'm always feeling dry. Sometimes I have a problem of needing to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes, other times I'm wondering why I can't go to the bathroom more often when I feel like I'm flooding myself.

- Energy so low that it can be exhausting to just grill a steak for myself.

- Energy so low that it's difficult to hold a conversation with someone because I can't focus on listening or forming replies.

- Slurring my speech and/ or stuttering.

- Joint pain that comes and goes

- Falling asleep is really very extremely difficult, even when I'm exhausted.

- Sleep is not restful. I either wake up feeling high adrenaline that gets me moving quickly, and I crash very hard once I eat breakfast, or I take until 11 or noon to get out of bed because I'm feeling so incredibly tired.

- My tongue sometimes swells up so much it doesn't fit in my teeth.

- I can't sit with my feet on the floor without getting overly tired and weak, so I sit on chairs with them curled up towards my chest.

- I can't lay still long without getting fidgety, my body needing to move.

- I can't just sit and talk to someone over tea. I HAVE to be doing something, even if it's just playing with something in my hands, but if you want to talk to me I should be doing the dishes or cleaning something while we're talking. If I'm not moving, I crash hard and can't focus. But if I move too much I get exhausted and need to go lay down where it's quiet. So in other words, being social is draining. I like the idea of having friends, but not always the reality of spending time with friends.

- Reactive to fragrances and other synthetics, meaning: widespread muscle pain, gut cramping, heart burn, vision loss, emotional instability issues, headaches, sinus aches (I got a sinus infection from going into a very smelly Staples once), heart pounding and palpations, rashes...

- Very reactive to foods, making it so I can't cheat on my diet without paying hard for it. Hives, rashes, adrenaline surge, nervous ticks, severe anger, stomach and gut pain, very high painful heart rate, bowel and bladder control issues, muscle pain...

- Mold is my worst enemy. It his me harder than anything else. Typically with nose bleeds, chest tightness, emotional instability to the extreme, unable to breath deeply enough, widespread pain, a major sense of fear and dread washes over me...

- ALL of my symptoms get MUCH worse during PMS and my period. My periods are very very heavy and painful. Very difficult to manage.

- I can't have a slightly confrontational talk with someone without shivering and sweating, and it feels like helium fills up my head. I avoid confrontation in person. If I has to be done I prefer to say most of it through text (email or whatever) and then finish talking about it in person when the shock is over.


Here's some video evidence of my heart rate issues. I uploaded my video to youtube and would rather link to it than embed it since blogger gives me too many issues with embedding videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5uUA-Qydps


...I'm sure I'm forgetting some important symptoms, but this should give you a pretty good idea of what it's like to be me. My supplements help most of these symptoms to be mild and manageable as long as I don't over tax myself, but I'm also paying about $600/ month for them. They're working much better than anything else I've tried, but I've stopped improving and they're just maintaining me.

I need to have an MD determine if I have POTS or something else, because I need to be able to either accept that I can't improve more than this or that I can try something else to improve. I can't plan my life out around the not knowing if I can improve or not. And unfortunately, only an MD has the credentials to make that determination. No employer or assistance programs will accept anything other than the right type of MD's diagnosis. I'm not going because my Naturopathic doctor isn't helping (he's been the most helpful person I've ever worked with), I'm going because I need to go the conventional accepted route to get what I need to manage life.

And it's oh so stressful.

Admitting the Problems

I want to write, but I'm not feeling focused at all. I've decided to let this post be my outlet of complaints about my struggles, but I don't want it to just be about me. Leave me comments, either here, Facebook, or Google+. Let's all pitch in and share our struggles. Sometimes what we need more than anything else is affirmations from others that what we are going through is horrible - that chronic illness and poor health is miserable and we all struggle with it uniquely. So please, join with me. Let's vent. I want to hear your struggles too!


1. Tea/ Caffeine. I LOVE green tea. I would drink it exclusively throughout the day if I could. The problem is, I'm very sensitive to caffeine. One mug of green tea is all I need to carry me through a 4-5 hour shift at work as if I'm a normal human being without chronic fatigue. If I drank a cup every day, like I want to, my adrenals would never heal, I'd never be able to truly rest, and I'd probably struggle even more with sleep. So I have to drink Yogi's organic decaf green tea on days that I don't work. It tastes half as good, and I know it's not as good for me. :(


2. PMS. I've rarely had mood problems with PMS my whole life. I would get horrible acne, bloating, sugar cravings, and inflammation, but my mood wasn't affected much outside of making me tired. The last two months have been totally opposite for me. It was PMS from hell both months. I found myself so angry for no reason that I couldn't hold a light conversation with people. I was raging in my dreams to the point that my anger woke me up in tears. I couldn't enjoy doing anything. Everything I did, even things I normally love, irritated the heck out of me. It wasn't possible to be me. I've had very little acne on my face, but weirdly, I've been getting it on my arms and legs. I was bloating a lot, but mostly in my breasts and not my gut - ouch! Last month my sugar cravings were really hard to combat, but this month I didn't have cravings at all. My body has become horribly unpredictable. Hormones! I never used to respect them since I didn't understand them, now I have a ton of respect for them since I understand their power.


3. Money. Yes, money. If we had enough, my problems could be solved. I wouldn't have to work, I could spend a lot more on treatments, I wouldn't feel constant suppressing damaging stress, we could buy a house without any MCS triggers, I could get away from the city and order all of my groceries online to be delivered, I could build a garden and raise a couple of cows for my meat, I could... wait. I'm just dreaming now. But seriously, MONEY. It's the reason I have to work, which definitely is ruining my ability to heal. It's the reason for 90% of my stress, which preventing me from healing. But what can I do when I don't qualify for disability (it's way too expensive to even try anyway)?


4. Responsibility. Responsibility outside of making money, that is. I'm really struggling to keep up. For instance, I failed to remember to renew my truck's registration and I was expired for about a month. I can hardly keep up with house cleaning. My poor birds didn't have clean cages for about 2 weeks. It's just too much for me! I'm not joking when I tell people I need a few days of doing nothing. I just can't create the energy to spend on everything that needs work. I give about 80% of my energy to my job, and the rest of my energy I need for cooking and buying food.

Staying on this topic, I just want to lament a bit. When I was in college I had no trouble at all staying on top of homework and classes, even as a full time student with a part time job. I even had the energy to survive all of this and go through a very rough and depressing break-up. I had the energy to get married and be a full time student with a part time job. And hang out with friends. And play video games. I was normal, and I thought nothing of it. Today, this would be impossible. I'd be in the hospital from being overspent after just one day. My life is behind me - what I'm experiencing now hardly feels like "me" at all.


5. The realization that I still don't fit in with the world. When I started working again a few months ago, I had the strong attitude of "I will do this on my terms." I didn't really have a choice, it was either on my terms or not at all, because I would get very sick if I did it any other way. I've never been like this before. Those of you who have worked with me before I broke down and got sick will remember that I was always flexible, open to change, responded very well to rules and orders, and willing to do whatever it took. My natural personality says to still be this way, but I can't be. I must protect my health at all costs. So getting "my way" means clashing with others. It means being demanding, controlling, and resistant. I hate being this way. It's not "me." I create a lot of stress from trying to always stay in control of every situation.


6. The realization that I'm not in control of my situation. I really need control in order to protect my health, but the truth is that I have very little. Customers reeking of perfume or cigarette smoke still walk in the door at work. The smoke in the air from the wild fires out west are hard on my health, but it also traps perfumes and laundry fragrances in the air, making the air quality outside especially hazardous for me. I don't always have access to the food I need, and my needs are specific. My body does what it wants to even when I do everything right. I can get hit with fatigue even after lots of rest and eating and supplementing perfectly. My PMS can be out of control even when I didn't change anything. My legs can cramp up without provocation. I'm not in control at all. I'm constantly responding to every situation to make it as good as possible.


7. I don't even know what I love to do anymore. If I had energy, I would love to sew my own clothes again. If I had energy, I would love to finish writing a novel I've started. If I had energy, I would work out every day and create a rockin' body. If I had energy, I'd probably become a Faith Formation teacher at church. If I had energy, I'd love to maintain a big garden. If I had energy, I'd probably go back to school to become a health coach. If I had energy, I'd work more so my husband could work less. If I had money and energy, I'd travel a lot more often with my husband. But since I don't have energy and money, what do I love to do? I know that I love to lose myself in a great story, whether it's a book, manga, video game, TV show, movie... whatever. But that's not exactly doing. What do I love to do with the energy I do have? I don't know. I'm bored pretty often, but I just accept it and play video games, because frankly, I'm struggling to change it. I'm struggling to find the energy to actually do. I've already given up on my great life goal: having and raising children. When will this ever happen? My husband and I are getting older, and I see years of recovery ahead of me.


Okay, your turn!

How I Work With MCS

One of the most common questions I get is: "How are you able to work when you have MCS?"

The answer: "I didn't work for about 1 3/4 years because I couldn't. I'm working now because I got well enough to."

3 years ago I took a job that I was really interested in and wanted. I lasted for 1 year at the job before I had to quit because I was too sick to manage it. I tell this story in more detail in this post.
I quit that job just after I had my first appointment with my naturopathic doctor. After hearing his assessment about my health, I admitted to myself that I really did need to devote myself to full time healing. I wasn't making money during this time, and my doctor bills have been expensive. I relied 100% on my husband to support me, which wasn't fair to him at all since he ended up needing to work well beyond full time hours. This has been a major cause of stress. If I had continued to work, however, I likely would have been fired at some point. As I explained in the post that I linked to above, I could hardly look people in the eye and talk intelligently - I was not able to function like a normal healthy person most of the time. What choice did I have?

If I wasn't able to rely 100% on my husband during that time, it would have become a serious challenge, if not impossibility. A challenge that far too many chronically ill people face. I might have tried to fight for disability, but getting disability requires an expensive legal battle that usually lasts years.

I could have tried to take a lesser part time job and prayed that I could have handled it. But it wouldn't have worked out. Why? What I didn't know at the time was that a big part of my problem was Multiple Chemical Sensitives. I was too sick back then to know what all my symptoms meant, and I was essentially in a constant reaction. I did feel better at home than at work, and I assumed it was the stress of being at work that make me feel worse. Looking back, I was present when pesticides were being sprayed in our office, harsh cleaners were used on the carpets, automatic air fresheners were installed in the bathrooms, new ink was installed in the printers, etc. I was present around a lot of routine toxins. Toxins that I never used in my house. Any other lesser job would have kept me exposed to similar chemical toxins.

I have been incredibly blessed to have my hard-working husband supporting me through all this sickness. No other scenario would have allowed me to not work so I could heal. To those of you with chronic illness who are forced to work and stay very sick, live in poverty without medical help, and suffer financially due to your illness, my heart goes out to you. It's a wonder you continue fighting for your life. Someday when I'm healthy and rich, I'm going to start some sort of benefit fund for the chronically sick who can't get help. I want to do what I can to make the world a more hospitable place for the chronically sick.

It took close to a year of full time healing before my doctor was able to see that I have MCS. I had other health concerns, of course, but MCS made perfect sense. I'd been highly reactive my entire life, especially as a child. I've had a lot of food allergies, couldn't tolerate many medicines doctors had tried to put me on, many things caused me headaches (especially gray crayons,) and I regularly had unexplained eczema or rashes. At some point, my MCS did explode into something much worse. I got very sick (even got a sinus infection) from simply being in a Staples. I got dizzy with heartburn going into my church building. I went into a rage with harsh heart palpations in a JC Penny, later to have rashes all over. And so on and so forth. I had these reaction symptoms nearly every day for the year I was working, and they gradually became worse and worse. MCS makes perfect sense for what I went through.

It's been just under a year now of addressing MCS directly, but almost 2 years of healing my whole body from all its issues, and I've made a huge improvement. My doctor is amazing! But I've also put a lot of work into my healing.


How I, over time, worked up to being able to work my 12-15 hour/ week job:

1. I was spending as much time as I needed dedicating myself to healing my entire body, not just MCS. I highly doubt my MCS would have calmed down if I didn't focus on improving my overall health. You can't rush healing. It takes years to get this sick, it's going to take years to get better.

2. I stuck religiously to my doctor's diet for me. I made a few mistakes here and there, but I always suffered the consequences. My body has been incredibly picky about what food it will tolerate. I had no idea that my "clean organic" diet that I was eating before seeing my doctor was causing so many of my heath issues. It's not just about eating organic whole foods, it's about eating the right foods. As it turns out, I have no tolerance for grains, starches, sugars, alcohol, or dairy. I don't even tolerate brassica vegetables that well, but I will actually eat them in small amounts on occasion. Cutting out all the foods that I wasn't tolerating decreased my stress, improved my mental clarity, reduced the size of my gut, reduced the pain in my gut, reduced my inflammation, and allowed me actually gain energy from the food I could eat. Diet is so so so crucial!

3. I've been taking, and still take, my doctor's supplements and herbs. They're expensive, it's hard to take the 56+ pills a day, and my daily schedule gets tied to my ability to take them when I need to... but they have been worth it. They do help a lot. I have to heal all my organs which have become very fatigued and weak. The supplements are working for this. When organs such as the liver and kidneys aren't working well, they can't detox well. When they're overrun with toxins that they're too fatigued to push out, chemical sensitives only get stronger and stronger.

4. I've been taking my doctor's homeopathic remedy for MCS as well as his pills for MCS. I can't tell you what the remedy is - I just know it's made a big difference for me. I can tell you that taking his N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine and Reduced Glutathione have been, by far, the most helpful pills for MCS. I take 3 of each a day, but if I'm about to go somewhere with potential triggers (such as church or a store) then I'll take an extra one or two of each before going in. Glutathione is the body's natural antioxidant. N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine is the amino acid that's the precursor to glutathione, boosting natural glutathione production in the body. This antioxidant is very effective at cleaning toxins out of the body - the very toxins that cause reactions.

5. I get treatments. My doctor's clinic is set up with several treatments that promote healing. I do as many of them as I can afford. Each of them have provided me with a lot of relief.  http://humannaturenaturalhealth.com/treatments

6. I give myself a couple of "treatments" at home. I invested in a portable Far Infrared Sauna, which causes me to sweat profusely, meaning my skin is pushing out a ton of toxins. I also take detox baths that promote sweating and restore some minerals in my body. I use my acupressure mat very often. 

7. I regularly visit my local chiropractor and acupuncturist. (My naturopathic doctor would do these for me, but he's in a different state and I travel to see him.) I cannot emphasis enough how helpful adjustments are - they free up the nerves in your spine that go to your organs, helping the nerves to function properly so the organs can function well. Acupuncture has been incredibly beneficial to me as well, and I notice that my body slows down and reacts more harshly to things when I go a while without acupuncture.

8. I'm addressing a systemic candida overgrowth infection. Candida can cause or intensify MCS, as the candida yeast feeds on the chemical toxins. I haven't written much about this yet, but I still plan to. The candida cleanse I'm on is a big part of the reason why I haven't blogged much lately. It's taking a lot out of me.

9. I avoid as much stress as possible. I avoid as many triggers as possible. I allow my body to stay as calm as possible as often as possible. This meant installing an reverse osmosis filter on my kitchen sink, getting rid of all of my polyester clothes and blankets and replacing them with natural fabrics, replacing plastic in my kitchen with a safe substance (like glass, stainless steel, cast iron, or bamboo,) switching to only fragrance-free soaps and cleaners in my house, hiring an organic lawn care company with a safer product, hiring someone to clean the mold out of our house, and so on and so forth. It also means I no longer eat out too. I've had to alter a lot about the way I live my life in order to avoid triggers. It's a major challenge, but it's been absolutely necessary to avoid as many triggers as possible.

10. Once I felt ready and capable, I spent months searching for job openings at businesses that would have the least amounts of triggers. I found a few places in town that I can be in without getting sick, or at least not too sick. When one of them announced a job opening, I applied right away in person and tried to make a good impression. I actually ended up with a couple of offers, so I was able to choose the job that offered the least amount of hours with the most respect to my health condition, knowing I simply didn't have the energy for more than 15 hours a week. The job I chose is at a natural health products store. It's small, locally owned, and doesn't attract stinky customers that I can't be around without getting sick. The store itself is quite nice and sells foods and supplements I already knew enough about, but is challenging me to learn a lot more, which I love. The learning curve was small, it's usually a relaxed atmosphere, and it's not too often that there are stinky triggers in the store. It also keeps me on my feet moving, as opposed to at a computer all day, which would make me worse.


How I deal with triggers on the job:
This is harder to answer, but the fact is that I rely on all the healing tactics I do at home. The more I take care of myself, keeping myself clean, detoxing/ sweating regularly, makes it so I can tolerate more triggers with less harsh reactions. When I first took the job, I couldn't use the Sharpie pens without holding my breath. I got immediate headaches from them. Now I can actually use them for  a short period of time without holding my breath. I'm not sure why. Did I build up a tolerance, or is it because I'm using my sauna more and taking more baths than before I started working?

There have been a couple of times when a heavily perfumed customer needs my help. In one instance I was able to have a co-worker help that customer instead of me. I just politely said "My co-worker is better able to help you with this than I am, would you mind waiting a moment and I'll have her come help you?" In the other instance, I spent the least amount of time with the customer as possible and then ran back to the break room and took a few glutathione pills. My headache, fever, heart palpitations, and gut ache calmed down in about an hour. The truly amazing part is that I did manage to help her and was able to continue working through the reaction - that's how much I've healed!

But it did get to the point two days ago where I had to go home early from getting too sick. I wasn't feeling well all day anyway as I was overly exhausted and I was suffering some abnormally bad PMS (I'm on a new anti-fungal for my candida that is quite strong,) but then it hit me like a brick wall. I had no idea what was causing the reaction, but I got hit with an anxiety attack so strong that I had to leave. I was losing control. Once I got outside and started walking to my car I found the source: one single train cart was stopped on the train tracks right behind our parking lot. It was puffing out clouds of black smoke, which the wind carried right towards the store, and me. I didn't feel much better until the next morning, so it took the majority of the day and night to recover from that one.


In conclusion:
Healing is VERY hard work! It requires a lot of time, a lot of dedication, a lot of faith, a lot of money, and a lot of self-love. I always treated myself as "worth it." If I didn't, if I would have assumed that my life wasn't worth saving because I was a leech to society, I wouldn't have gotten better. I had to believe that God was keeping me alive for a reason, and that with enough work and medical help that I could live up to His will for me.

If you're suffering with MCS, looking for answers, I hope this blog has helped you, not discouraged you. I never looked at my healing process in the big picture. It would have overwhelmed me and scared me - I would have assumed it was too much for me to handle considering how fatigued I was! I always took it one step at a time, doing what I needed to at every moment. Before I knew it, I made a lot of progress!

I also want to stress that what has been working for me may not be what works for you. What causes MCS in one person may not be the cause in another person. There are other people who have had success healing from MCS who have used different approaches. I encourage you to read other MCS blogs, talk to natural doctors, and learn your own body. But don't give up. Don't give in. MCS might rule your life, but you can find a good life within the confines of MCS.

A detailed retelling of my break down. What it was like to work while chronically sick.

Every time I go through a period where my gut is irritated and unhappy, I'm reminded of how horrible my health was just over a year ago. I didn't know it back then, but my gut health was one of my most significant problems, causing issues in the rest of my body. I haven't detailed just how terrible my health was on this blog because it's not a time in my life that I like to revisit. I've only said as much as I needed to in order to make my point in that post. I think I will revisit it, to some degree, in this post as a way of connecting with my readers who are currently suffering. The best time to write about this topic is when I'm not feeling my best, because I want to express the pain in some way. (I'm okay- don't worry. What I'm experiencing at the moment will pass in an hour or two. I knew something was wrong when I woke up this morning because my dreams were very hostile and angry, and sure enough, my gut isn't in good shape today.)

Most people would assume that when you're deeply suffering you have two options: you either fight to survive, or you break down in tears and give in. What if neither option works for you? That's where I was at for a few months in late 2013. I simply didn't have the energy, strength, or mental capacity to fight or cry. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep living, because I couldn't see the point when I was a total vegetable. Crying wouldn't have helped because it would have taken up the tiny bit of energy I needed to stay alive. I was blank. My brain didn't work right: I couldn't think well, my memory wasn't working, I didn't feel time passing, and my dreams were so weak they couldn't even form a story. My body wouldn't respond to my will: I spent my days mostly in bed because I couldn't support myself, getting up and going to the bathroom felt like I was training to run a marathon, cooking and eating felt futile and unimportant because of how much energy it took, and everything hurt all the time.

Some days were better than others. I was at my weakest after 13 days on Cymbalta. It made me so much worse! Before that horrible anti-depressant experiment, I was functioning on some level. I was still going to my 30 hour per week secretarial job, but I wasn't holding myself together. I couldn't remember the names of people who came into the office regularly, my eyes were crossing as if I hadn't slept in days, I took much longer to complete a basic task than I should have needed, and I just couldn't get excited about things happening in the office that I should have been excited about. During the year I was at that job I got worse and worse. When I first started the job in 2012 I did feel exhausted, but capable of working. Shortly after starting the job, I got a MRSA abscess on an area of my body with extremely delicate skin and tons of nerve endings. I took 2 weeks of sick time to recover from that (much of that time was spent in the doctor's office and in the ER screaming at the top of m lungs in sheer pain.) A few months after that I lost all motion in my right wrist and thumb, finding myself in a splint and brace for 4 weeks. I had to do my job with my left hand, which wore it out. I then found my left hand in a splint and brace for 4 weeks. By that point, my exhaustion had turned into physical pain, and after several months of seeing doctors, I was finally diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It's a wonder they ever put up with me - I'm shocked they didn't fire me for being too sick all the time. It was then that I was put on Cymbalta, which forced me to be bed ridden. I missed about 3 weeks of work because it was impossible to get out of bed, even after I quit the Cymbalta. That's when my parents brought me out to New Hampshire to see a naturopathic doctor who could help me, and he's been the greatest blessing for me (along with my husband and parents, who I love very very much!) I quit my job after I came home from seeing him, because I finally learned, in detail, just how poor my health was. I knew I needed to put all my energy into recovering, not working. And frankly, I no longer had the strength to work. It was no surprise to anyone that I quit my job.

What was it like in detail?
Oh my goodness. Try going to work every day with a foggy cloud wrapped around your head and your eyes. I was always a bit dizzy. My speech was mumbled and slurred, and I couldn't find the right words to say. I had a difficult time focusing my vision because everything I looked at was a little on the blurry side. My legs and arms had a constant dull ache which would turn into sharp jabbing pains when I moved them. I had to go to the bathroom every 5-20 minutes because my bladder muscles felt too weak. I was nearly constantly clenching so I wouldn't leak. My gut gurgled and churned on a regular basis. I could often feel it pulsing (the same type of feeling as when a nerve twitches under your skin.)  My skin was almost always icy cold and pale, and I hated touching my body because it felt achy and cold. My brain refused to work, even when I tried as hard as I could to focus it. Every thought I wanted to have turned into a blurry, floating, dreamy image that would linger for a second then fly away, leaving my brain blank. I found myself thinking out loud to people, because I really didn't have the ability to think about my response before responding to them. I'm sure I said a lot of things that made no sense to people. I caught myself not breathing fairly often, and when I was breathing it was very short and shallow breaths. I caught myself staring at my computer screen for minutes at a time, having no clue how much time had just passed while I was zoned out. My coworker/ office mate would often start talking to me and I would be so zoned out that I didn't even notice. I got scared very easily, and my adrenaline and heart rate would sky rocket when someone unexpectedly walked into my office. I was also growing more and more dyslexic, in that I was often typing the last letter of a word first, or writing a number different from the number someone told me to write down. I couldn't trust that I took accurate notes. Oh my goodness, then there were the times when I was teaching Faith Formation classes as a substitute or even leading the classes of 1-8th graders through the hallways or to the church - I found myself sweating and panting from all the stairs and long hallways through the church education building. It was embarrassing to look like I was working out at the YMCA every time I needed to physically work with the kids. 

When I could no longer work and I quit my job, the time I spent my days laying in bed was miserable, but better. I didn't have to work, didn't have to impress anyone, didn't have to think straight, didn't have to be coherent to anyone... I was free of the burden of being a functioning member of society. The problem was that it allowed me to focus only on my pain all day long. I couldn't see anything other than my own misery. In a way I felt better because I wasn't spending my energy on things other than my health, but in a way I felt worse because I wasn't using my body anymore. It was a true "break down." I laid there with my whole stomach and gut churning and throbbing, my legs and arms aching and stabbing, my muscles building tension like they were violin strings getting tuned, my bones cracking and swelling with every motion, and my brain lost in the twilight zone.

I didn't know how to fight.
I didn't have the energy or care to cry.

A year a few months later, I'm writing this post while feeling about 50-60% better on average (though I have occasional periods of time where I feel 70% better.) I now have the knowledge and tools I need to fight, and so I'm spending every day fighting. The effort is paying off. I now have the energy and care to cry, but I haven't felt like it. The feeling of hope that has developed has me too happy and excited to want to return to how dark and painful those times were.

I sincerely hope that my story reaches your heart and helps build a sense of empathy within you. It's so easy to make assumptions about people who are sick. It's so easy to say, "Gee, maybe he'd feel a lot better if he didn't eat fast food all the time," when in reality that person is overweight and lethargic even though he's eating only whole foods and goes for daily walks. It's so easy to say, "Well you know that person just wants attention and isn't trying to do anything about their perceived pain; I mean, if you're in pain, go to a doctor and fix it," when in reality that person has spent $10,000 on doctors who haven't been able to help. It's so easy to say, "That person is useless to society, look at the way she brings everyone around her down with her depression and weak body," when in reality that person might be desperately trying to hold on to friendships and a social life so she feels like she does have meaning in her life, despite her constant pain. Please, avoid judgment. While many people do actually make themselves miserable by eating a stereotypical fast food diet and refuse to see doctors, many people are sick despite their best efforts to be well.

I ate mostly organic non-processed foods before I got that sick. I did get some regular exercise in (in that I wasn't a couch potato.) I did see doctors. I did try to get help. I still had a complete break down.

You should know that my memory was very bad during the time when I was my most sick. There's a lot that I simply cannot recall because my brain wasn't healthy enough to form memories. This post is probably lacking a lot of detail because of this. I sincerely hope that you cannot relate to this problem, but as I've been reaching out I've been meeting many people who, unfortunately, can relate. If you're one of the people who can relate, do not give up. Healing is possible. You probably won't find the help you need through western medicine, surgery, or drugs (as you probably have already learned,) but help is out there in other forms. That is what this blog is about. Don't give up.

The Importance of Inspiration

Chronically ill people have it rough. First, they're in pain and suffering. Second, their brains don't work as well as they used to. Third, people around them typically don't believe them and may even assume they're hypochondriacs. Fourth, it's hard for them to find the energy to fight to get their life back.

Finding inspiration to fight to get my life back was very important in my healing process. At first, when I finally collapsed from sickness last fall, nothing mattered. I was so deprived of energy that I couldn't think well enough to gain inspiration. The only things on my mind were: fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, arthritis, aching joints, and pain. Lots of pain, and no energy. All I had was raw willpower. It was all that got me out of bed to eat, go to the bathroom, and stay alive.

My first wave of inspiration came from my parents when they invited me out to to their state to see a doctor who came highly recommended by a friend who suffered similar issues to me. Someone else had recovered from fibromyalgia and was able to work a full-time job? This doctor actually understands fibromyalgia and successfully treated someone? The hope this gave me helped me get on a plane and travel - I didn't know I had it in me to travel. After meeting the doctor, I was even more hopeful. Being a naturopathic doctor, he treats differently from conventional western medicine. His regimen for me didn't include drugs, but did include a lot of effort on my part. I was willing to take the challenge. I had hope, and I was very inspired by my parent's friend who got better.

After a few months of the regimen, I was feeling better enough to start enjoying myself, even when I was too lazy to move. I couldn't manage to read books - that took too much brain power. I would read a sentence over and over before I finally was able to form the image in my head - if an image came at all. I decided to try something much more simple: graphic novels. I found many of them were still way too heavy, so I went even more simple: manga. As a kid, I was obsessed with Sailor Moon - the cartoon. I loved it to no end. I never had the chance to read much of the manga it was based on, though. Coincidentally, the manga series was being re-released with a new translation that same month that I was looking for a manga to read. Inspiration! I got a hold of both box sets and dug in.

I found myself absorbing the story in Sailor Moon, easy as drinking a milkshake. It was easy to read, easy to follow, and highly enjoyable. For the first time in a long time (maybe a year?) I was really enjoying reading (and I've always been in love with books - you should see the library in our living room.) It could just be that I really wanted to read it. I was actually excited about something. It could also be that it was actually easy to read. Either way, I found a way to really enjoy myself while laying in bed in pain. Better yet, the story of Sailor Moon was inspiring. I could write a whole dissertation on the brilliance of the story (the children's anime was very loosely based on the original manga, which were not written for little kids as they contain mature subject matter - it's Harry Potter quality in that all ages can really dig into the rich vibrant story with lots of morals and messages.) In particular, I was inspired by one character: Hotaru. Her life was miserable - way worse than mine. Her house burned down and killed her mother. She was also almost killed, but her father made a deal with an evil entity in order to save their lives. Hotaru was turned into a cyborg in order to stay alive, though was in poor health all the time, and her father had to do this evil entity's will. Hotaru, though, had a greater purpose than to barely stay alive with the help of machines. She was a Sailor Soldier - a mythological goddess reborn on earth as a human in order to fulfill her soldier's mission. She had to find a way to fight the illness, break free of the machine, and save the world - essentially. Her spirit led the way to her recovery, and things eventually worked out - though there was a lot of pain and suffering first. I won't spoil. I needed a story like that. Fictional or not - super hero or not - it was inspiring. I too had a more important mission in life that I needed fulfill. I took my supplements, ate my diet, and continued to do my pathetic little work outs with a renewed sense of importance and vigor.

I found myself drawn to more manga stories with inspiring messages of hope and purpose. Within the past year, I've read and really enjoyed Legend of Basara, Vinland Saga, From Far Away, A Bride's Story, and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. Each of these stories were about characters who stepped up to take on a higher purpose, finding the wisdom, strength, and inspiration to succeed.

A few months ago, I attempted to read a novel again. No pictures to do the imagining for me - an actual novel with only words to tell the story. I picked up Donita K Paul's latest book, One Realm Beyond. I loved her other series, Dragon Keeper Chronicles.  It was slow going at first, but I managed the first chapter. It was tiring to read - it really wore me out. I read the next chapter the next night. Eventually, after a few months, I did finish the whole book and LOVED it. It was a slow read, but I did read, and it was so worth it! I renewed my hope with this book!

In the mean time, I was also attempting to take on video games again. I've always been a big gamer. I'm a nerd, and I have no shame. There was no way I could handle action, platform, or any type of game that involved getting my adrenaline up. Anything with a timer was off-limits. I didn't have the energy, but I also didn't want to ruin all the work I've been doing to heal my adrenal glands. I pulled out my Nintendo DS and played Pokemon in bed. Great games, for the record. They let me rest while giving my brain something to work on. Recently, I decided to replay an old computer game of mine: The Longest Journey. It's an adventure game, meaning it operates under a "point-and-click" system. You can't die, nothing is timed, and the point is to work your way though a story by solving puzzles in order to move forward. Simple, but a great story line and a system that kept my brain working. This game also gave me a renewed sense of inspiration. The main character, April Ryan, is an 18-year-old girl art student at a college who is living paycheck-to-paycheck and doesn't know what to do with her life. She slowly uncovers that she has a special destiny to give up her life for 1,000 years in order to keep the balance of both worlds. Sounds cheesy when I put it that simply! Anyway, I had to navigate this young girl through a gigantic crisis of the worlds until she could fulfill her purpose in life. This girl, with seemingly no hope to make a good successful life for herself, ended up being a hero that the worlds praised through stories for the rest of history. Totally beyond the realm of my possibilities for my life - but getting to play a girl who struggles greatly in order to achieve a higher purpose is very satisfying. It definitely inspired me to fight for my higher purpose. I can't believe that that my higher purpose is to remain sick forever.

I love stories. They're my favorite form of entertainment. I play video games for the story. I read books and graphic novels for the stories. I watch movies for the story. If it doesn't have a good story,  I'm unlikely to care about it. So for me, finding these stories, no matter the medium they came in, was the best way for me to find inspiration and hope.

This inspiration and hope motivated me to stick carefully and diligently to my doctor's difficult regimen. It got me out the door and into the YMCA for work outs. It kept me away from temptations that I know will poison me, like too much chocolate. It got me to go out with friends every so often and pretend I was well. It got me to take on necessary house repair projects. It got me to work harder on being a good wife to my husband instead of a pile of skin and bones he felt obligated to care for. It got me to feel better. It's the reason I worked so hard on getting my life back, and I'm half-way there!

In the past month, the need for money is my newest source of inspiration. I've been trying to refocus my slightly higher levels of energy onto projects that will make money. I've graduated from resting in bed most of the time to actually being up and around the house most of the time, so it seems right that my entertainment graduates to a new level too. One of those projects has been looking for a job in town that won't make me sick. Another project has been starting a Zazzle shop. It's giving me the need to get back into drawing and designing, something I used to love to do. I don't have much up right now (one of my two designs was removed for being too similar to something copyrighted - oops!) I am, however, working on more and will build up my items for sale soon. Please support me by checking out my shop: http://www.zazzle.com/paper_constructions*

I encourage you to never give up. Please remember what you used to love to do, and find a way to involve yourself in those things. Find inspiration. Renew your vision of a good future for yourself. Give yourself purpose again. Don't remain a slave to your chronic illness. You CAN do this. Mental willpower and prayer (lots and lots of prayer!) are more powerful than any drug on the market. If I could work my way out of the hardest health slump of my life, you can too.

How do I make money while suffering medical issues?

The past 2 1/2 years have been a rough, long, and unfortunate journey for me. We moved from Idaho to North Dakota 2 1/2 years ago, because my husband was offered a great job and we had a very affordable place to move in to here. The move was extremely stressful on me - I never had so much anxiety in my life! I needed several months to relax and recover before I found a job and started working. I was exhausted from working 50 hrs a week between two hard jobs in Idaho, and the move took every ounce of energy I had left. When I finally took a job, it was an oddly relaxing job. I worked as a church secretary for 30 hours a week. Back then I knew I didn't have it in me to work full time, so the lighter hours appealed to me. The job was not stressful in the least. I enjoyed creating the weekly bulletins, registering new members into the church, working with all the Faith Formation students, creating posters... it was not a draining job by any means. I liked it, and I loved that I was working for the church. Despite this, my health steadily became worse and worse while working there. At first I was just tired all the time, making all sorts of stupid mistakes and stumbling over my words. Then both of my hands, one after the other, swelled up and became unusable. Then I started to get the general feeling of being "unwell," and shortly after that I started to feel unwell every day, all the time. Eventually, I could hardly stay awake in the mornings at my job. My brain fog was so extreme that I couldn't remember the names of regular visitors. I couldn't look people in the eye when talking to them because I was too tired to keep focus. I kept working, even though I kept growing worse. I had been seeing all sorts of doctors in town, racking up some absurdly expensive medical bills (and received no help from them.) After flying out to see my naturopathic doctor for the first time and finally gaining answers and hope, I came home and quit my job. The regime he put me on needed full-time dedication, and I needed a lot of rest too. It's been a year, almost to the day, since I quit. I've been willingly unemployed every since, allowing my body to heal.

I'm doing a lot better now, but I'm not healthy. I have a ways to go. I'm better enough that I feel I can manage working 10-15 hours a week, for now, to help bring in income to pay our bills. And so, I'm currently in the process of looking for ways to make money. This is a challenging process. I have no lack of jobs to choose from here in ND - there are way more jobs than workers! I could have any job I wanted if I were healthy. My health is the challenge.

At first, I thought I should take my old job back at the natural foods department in the local grocery store. I worked there for 2 years about 7 years ago, so the learning curve would be minimal and the work would be simple enough. I figured it would be a good fit for me. My only concern was MCS reactions, because the store isn't that clean. I thought that a dirty environment would be a lot safer than a clean environment where toxic chemicals are regularly sprayed. Well, that plan got shot down, quickly. I waited a week too long to offer myself to the job. They hired a full time person the week before, which is what they really wanted anyway. Dang!!

So what was next? My husband is a piano teacher, and he told me his student's mom was asking for help at her store. One thing led to another, and I decided to attempt working in her store. It was a bridal store, which intrigued me. I should not have accepted the job at the interview, though. I was feeling a bit sick just being in the store for that hour. She had Air Wick fragrances plugged into many outlets around the store, which caused me to react the moment I walked in, like a brick wall. I didn't understand how sever my sensitivity was, though. I thought that if that was the worst I'd react, maybe I could tolerate the job for 15 hours a week. The job was appealing because of the relaxed, slow atmosphere, and I thought it would be worth minor reactions if it meant the job would otherwise work well for me based on my other medical issues. After 4 hours of my first day of work, I had to quit. I was in serious pain. I had no idea I would react that harshly. At first my heart was palpating, then I had burning eyes and throat, then I felt a bit nauseous, then the fatigue was taking over, and then I lost all focus. Brain fog. After I got home, I started to feel the old fibromyalgia type pain: muscle cramping, electrical-like pain flowing through my muscles, dull aching, and tenderness. This was a week and two days ago. I'm still recovering.

I now know that I have to be very picky about where I work. There is one store in town that I think would work from an MCS point of view, but I have the feeling it may not work for other reasons. The idea of applying there is simmering on the back burner. It may be my back-up plan. So I've been monitoring job postings this week, keeping my eyes open for something that may work well for me.

Yesterday I applied for a job that sounds perfect for me in every way except from an MCS viewpoint. I thought, however, that it would be easy to make reasonable accommodations for me. The job would be administering tests on computers. I'd check test-takers in, answer their questions, and make sure they don't cheat. I would also do the basic cleaning as no janitors are hired. That, to me, sounded perfect. If I can have a say in the types of cleaners used, then I could use non-toxic products that would be safe for me! Perfect fit, right? Besides, the pay and the hours are great. Definitely very interested. I just had a phone interview for the job, and I was very open and honest about my MCS trouble. I thought I sold myself very well, because I have quality experience in administering tests and I can be very quite for hours with ease, but the the interviewer kept saying, "I don't think this will work for you." She explained that the company cannot change out the types of cleaners they use. The company buys cleaners in bulk, then distributes them to all the branches around the country. They will make no change for one employee. I even offered to bring in my own cleaners, but she said they may not be approved. She did, however, promise to ask around and see if it's possible for me to use my own cleaners, and she will call call me back later this week with an answer. I have hope that they're willing to work with me - afterall, Bismarck is lacking workers, right?

This was a great learning experience for me, even if I don't get offered the job. I now have a better idea of how hard it may be for a company to make reasonable accommodations for me. In some situations, yes, employers legally have to make reasonable accommodations for employees. I need to be an employee first.

I should probably try to make money online. I have a few ideas for how, and I'm pretty sure they would do well. The first problem is that making online income requires a ton of work. More work than I have the energy for. The other problem is that it always takes a long time before making any money from any online business. It could take months, or longer! If I could find the right job in town, it would not only be easier, but I could potentially make more money more quickly.

So where do I go from here? Maybe I should go apply at that one place that's simmering on the back burner. It might be worth being in an MCS trigger-free environment, even if the other aspects of the job could be slightly troublesome.

I'm open to suggestions or tips! If I do find a job that works well for me, I'll be sure to report it in hope that I help others with MCS who need to make money.