When I “came down with something” on that warm spring day in April 2007, I imagined it would be like all the similar struggles throughout my life. Some had lasted six to eight weeks. I could always measure the slow progression toward recovery, hanging onto every tiny positive change in order to convince myself I would survive. But in 2007, the slow progression was immeasurable for months. I was forced to accept that my life would never return to what I had known before.

This spring approaches the third anniversary of the end of my former life. In those nearly three years of acceptance of this new reality, I have the memory of one afternoon on Lake Roberts in the mountains of New Mexico, when I was actually able to breathe. After such a long struggle with illness, the act of breathing deeply into my lungs, filling them with sweet clean air was startling. That brief encounter with normal breathing is now the foundation of my understanding that I am not really sick. I am the canary in the coal mine. It is the environment around me that is sick and my body is doing what a body is supposed to do. It’s warning me to get away from the poison that is threatening my life. But in 2009, that poison becomes more pervasive everyday. There are not enough mountaintops left in the world to run away to. And even if there were, they would also be consumed by the cancer that is spreading more rapidly everyday.

I’m writing this on New Year’s Eve 2009. In San Francisco, in December, there have been  21 days of air pollution out of 31. Some of those days are characterized by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District as “unhealthy for sensitive groups.” But the majority are characterized as “moderate.” As a conscious breather, I know the truth. Whenever the measurement of pollution levels have become an inconvenient truth to industry, instead of tightening regulations, they loosen the standards. Moderate has become the adjective of choice for reframing extreme situations. On “moderate” days I wake up with splitting headaches, wheezing and shortness of breath. On moderate days the horizon is a brown haze.        

Psychosomatic. That’s the word most often chosen to discredit the real life threatening  experience of a person with severe asthma and respiratory disease. Many smokers, for example, are convinced their secondhand smoke is not responsible for triggering asthmatic attacks. They believe it’s a disfunction of the asthmatic’s thinking or perception. Many smokers actually believe it’s not any of the 50 known carcinogens in a cigarette that cause asthma. No, their delusional denial of addiction has them erroneously convinced the asthmatic gets stressed by the sight of smoke, that asthmatics then trigger their own asthma because of a misconception and irrational fear that secondhand smoke is dangerous.     

The true definition of psychosomatic means pertaining to or involving both the mind and the body! In  other words, every experience of every illness is psychosomatic. Being embodied and having a mind is a psychosomatic experience. So stating the obvious by framing asthma as psychosomatic deliberately blames the victim in order to distract attention from asthma triggers.

Blaming the victim is good business. Especially when dealing with the realities of asthma and other pollution induced respiratory problems. Here’s the truth about asthma that is harmful to the automobile industry, the chemical industry, the oil industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the cosmetic industry and the tobacco industry. The best treatment and prevention of asthma is to avoid the triggers. Once asthmatics know this they have three choices; they can isolate themselves from the rest of the world by living in a bubble, they can fight against the proliferation of the triggers... OR they can take drugs! The latter choice is partly responsible for an 80 billion dollar pharmaceutical industry that spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year fighting wellness!

This asthmatic chooses NOT to take most of the drugs designed for asthma. I am constantly warned that I am on the verge of permanent damage to my lungs if I allow the severe attacks to continue. Emphysema is the word most often chosen to instill the kind of fear needed to break down my determination to remain relatively drug free. Only once did that fear become pervasive enough to break my resolve. I was suffocating and desperate. I inhaled a steroid called Flowvent! Within minutes after inhaling the drug I became disoriented. Halfway down the hallway, I lost the ability to remember where I was going or what I was doing. Then I became agitated, aggressive, to the point of becoming violent. It was obvious the side effects outweighed any perceived benefit from this particular drug.

Here’s a list of known side effects of asthma drugs:
throat irritation, upper respiratory tract infections, tooth decay, headaches, sinus infections, bronchitis, thrush, nausea and vomiting, fever, hoarseness or voice changes, cough, mood or behavior changes, anxiety, depression, or thoughts about suicide or hurting yourself, bruising, severe tingling, numbness, pain, muscle weakness, stomach pain, loss of appetite, itching, fever, bloody nose, decreased smell or taste, difficulty breathing, tightness in the chest, swelling of the (mouth, face, lips, or tongue), fainting, chills, irregular heartbeat, vision changes, worsening of asthma symptoms ; and last but not least: death!

Let’s face it! We live in a world dominated by multinational corporations, many of them headed by greedy CEOs who would sell their own mothers for the bottom line, profit. In order to generate the kind of consumer loyalty needed to continue to sell their dangerous toxic products, they hired the best PR firms money can buy, to convince people they need things that are unnecessary to life, and in many cases detrimental to the health of both people and the planet. Over the last few decades their political lobbyists have succeeded in removing all antitrust barriers along with regulations designed to protect the public health. Through media consolidation, they now control most of the television and radio channels that disseminate information to the masses. Because of their conspiracy to make profit at any cost, we now live in a world where the burden of proof for safety is put upon those who must prove a product is unsafe AFTER it is already on the market. The global market is flooded with products that are manufactured with materials that are chosen because they are the cheapest, not the safest!

The true conspiracy at the foundation of every conspiracy theory is the conspiracy to make profit at the expense of the environment and life itself. The conspiracy thickens with the ruthless actions needed to sustain the infrastructure of this evil mechanism. It is a machine with the sole purpose of protecting and sustaining itself at the expense of absolutely everything else, including human life!  

I am constantly reminded of the quote from Thomas Paine: “Your right to extend your arm ends at my nose.” When smokers, perfume wearers, wood burners, etc. suggest that I should stay home, “don’t go there if you don’t like it,” I am overwhelmed by the arrogance of the belief that I should sacrifice my health and perhaps even my life for their addictions and their inability to resist commercial advertising. What does that say about our culture or our morality?

They have stolen the air that is mine to breathe. They have stolen the world that is mine to explore. They have stolen the anger that is righteously mine. They have stolen the compassion that should be directed at me. Everything that is natural has been reframed as alternative in order to sustain the illusion needed to sell things that are absolutely unnecessary to life. In order to keep the oil companies, Big Pharma, tobacco and the chemical industries in business, they have created a race of humans who believe life is about consuming and possessing. And to hell with anyone who gets in the way of their illusion by pointing out the consequences!

In the past six months I have had asthma triggered by fabrics purchased from Pakistan and China. I have had asthma triggered by space heaters that have flooded the US market from China, where the parts that were once made from metal are now plastic. I had to replace a Chinese made blender with a plastic base that off-gassed. I had to return a Chinese made refrigerator that had plastic parts above the motor, that off-gassed every time the motor was running. In my attempts to educate the US distributors about the dangers of their products and to inquire about the conditions at the manufacturing source, I have been brushed aside with the excuse that they have to protect the identity of their manufacturing sources.    

Here is the dilemma everyone like me faces. Dangerous toxic goods are so pervasive now, that people who constantly point them out run the risk of being accused of being obsessive, when in fact it is the proliferation of cheap toxic unregulated goods that is obsessive. That’s where the conspiracy of doubt and manufactured ignorance comes into play. Modern corporate monopolies cannot exist among an educated conscious public. So they spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year buying politicians, perverting the media and manipulating public opinion.  

After one comes to terms with chronic health struggles, hope is an important element in healing. Everyday I struggle to find some glimmer of hope to propel me forward. But it’s not easy when I am confronted daily with the signs of a culture that has been dumbed down and hypnotized by rampant consumerism and materialism.

I am unable to go into many retail establishments because of the toxic fumes inside the stores. But other customers and employees swear they cannot smell anything abnormal. I am unable to go into Bed Bath and Beyond because of the chemical scented candles and chemical air scents. I am unable to go into a public laundromat because of the scented washing detergents and dryer sheets. I am unable to go to the Opera or the Symphony because of the misuse of toxic perfumes. I cannot buy most hair products, skin products or other cosmetics because of chemical scents.

Because of my asthma and other symptoms I’m an avid label reader and I do research. The evidence is out there and it is overwhelming. The rampant use of unregulated dangerous chemicals cause birth defects, infertility, cancer, asthma, etc. While China pats itself on the back for its effort to recycle plastic, the Chinese recycling industry is so poorly regulated that dangerous chemicals like dinitrophenol make their way into products sent to the United States.

So here’s my observation as a conscious breather. My shoe polish doesn’t need to smell like vanilla. My clothes should smell clean because of lack of bacteria, not because of chemical scent. Cosmetic body scents should be personal. They should not be smelled more than 6 inches from the wearer. They should not choke the entire audience of “La Traviata!” This is not 1895. Burning wood in fireplaces adds very dangerous particulate matter to the soup we used to call air.

I am the canary in the coal mine. I care about you, even if you do not care about me. If you think this is all a bunch of crap, then I pity you, because I know as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, eventually you will be in the same position I am in now. As a canary it’s my job to know this. So when you find me lying in the bottom of the cage, the last breath stolen from my lungs, you will know for sure that it’s too late for you!