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Gloria Jean Cheever: State Representative for Oregon
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The Chemical Connection:
When I was around seven or eight year old I had a life threatening reaction to Penicillin and Sulfa drugs. I also had severe, but non-life threatening reactions to Tetracycline and Erythromycin. Then in my teens I began having reactions to perfumes and things like permanent ink pens; nothing serious, just a general feeling of being "unwell".
As time passed that feeling of un-wellness became more acute, producing a reaction much like cold symptoms; stuffy/runny nose, sore throat, achy-ness, headaches etc. Nowadays, I have reactions to deodorizers; deodorants, foods, perfumes and cigarette smoke (just to name a few). Worryingly, that list keeps getting bigger!
My skin has now become very sensitive to water - or more accurately, the numerous "additives" in water! These can cause my skin to dry and crack until it bleeds. Consequently, I have come to dread unfiltered showers, and that is just not how it should be!
Recently I discovered that prolonged exposure to perfumes affects me in a big way. My heartbeat becomes irregular. I shake. My basic perception of reality around me takes on a kind of surreal quality. And an oxygen hunger makes me feel like I can't take a full breath of air no matter how deeply I breathe.
Background Information:
Growing up, I had some pretty rough times health wise. My first really debilitating experience happened at age seven with a rare "self contained" (not contagious) but deadly flesh eating strain of the Staph bacteria. I spent more than a year with baffled doctors on various treatments (hence the reactions to penicillin, etc.) and missed out on grade school. I also missed the second grade almost completely, having to repeat it the following year. My experience with these various health problems was a long and painful one - and life changing to say the least.
After a fairly prolonged period of dental problems involving serious dental abscesses, a rare dental tumor, and skin problems, I started to experience a range of odd symptoms in 2003 while working in a gas station. Symptoms like unusual and prolonged fatigue, nausea, pain in my lower belly region, and colds that just would not go away. Even though I suspected that the gas station fumes were affecting me, like most people I just kept plodding on anyway. In 2007 I went down with a serious infection that could have killed me. Then, after many tests, it was discovered that I had a slow growing tumor in my colon. This was finally removed, along with other tissues that the tumor had damaged, in April 2007.
The Wider Context:
In April 2009 I happened to meet someone who not only helped me to understand my health better, but also introduced me to the basic realities of chemical injury and the multiple chemical sensitivity illness. In retrospect I can see that I had been ignorant of so many things, and now feel that I have slowly awakened to a whole new way of life. Consequently, I am now on a mission! Not to just continue improving my own health and life but also, whenever possible and appropriate, the health and lives of those around me too.
It seems to me that there are so many people out there that just do not even realize that the miserable symptoms they feel physically are not normal. Some people seem resigned to go through their life feeling sluggish, and achy, and generally ill, finally blaming their genes for all their woes because their doctors "can find nothing wrong" with them. But I know now that those health problems go much deeper than that. It seems quite clear to me now that many of our health problems are actually man-made - and I want to make a difference in helping to end that. I want to help spread that kind of awareness. I want to help give people those important "Ah!" moments that really make a difference in peoples lives.
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