I (Unintentionally) Poisoned Matt — A Warning About The Chemicals We Use

If you’re a regular reader, you know all about Matt. If you’re new here, Matt is my husband of 24 years. After we had been married only two years, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and over the last 22 years, his health has slowly declined to the point that he is now considered a “functional quadriplegic”. The short explanation is that he has no independence and he relies on me for everything.

Over the last ten years or so, one of the most interesting things about Matt is seeing how certain things affect him immediately. It’s almost like Matt is the canary in the coal mine, and watching how certain things affect him immediately is like a warning to me to be more careful.

And example is sugar. Eating sugar is not good for any of us. Our bodies don’t need sugar, and an overload of sugar in our diets isn’t doing any of our bodies any favors. But for most of us with generally good health, we can eat a sugary treat and we don’t really see the effects. Sure, it might make us tired and lethargic as we experience that “sugar crash” that comes after indulging, but we don’t really think much of it.

But for Matt, it’s completely different. If he eats a sugary treat — a piece of chocolate cake, a bowl of ice cream, etc. — the effect is immediate and it’s dramatic. It affects everything. His already diminished strength is zapped completely. It affects his speech. He has a hard time staying awake. You get the point. And when I see sugar have such a dramatic effect on Matt, it’s a stark reminder that those sugary treats are having a negative effect on my body as well, but those effects are not as observable because I’m in generally good health. Matt hasn’t eaten sugary treats in probably two years because it affects him so dramatically.

So while he eats a very limited diet, and I’m very careful about the types of foods I buy and bring into our house, I often forget that I need to be just as careful about the products that I use in my projects. On Tuesday, I primed and painted the walls and ceiling in the storage room.

The drywall in this room is new, so it needed to be primed before I could paint it. And because I’m really trying to spend as little money as possible through the end of the year and use what I have on hand, I searched through my stash of paint and found only one can of primer that had enough to cover the walls and ceiling in that room. It was my favorite oil-based primer.

I love this primer. It used to be my go-to primer when I wanted to paint a piece of wood furniture or wood cabinets, but it stinks to high heaven. The smell is very strong, so I always try to use it outside. If I have to use it inside, I try to remember to open up some windows so that I can get air flow. But there are no windows in the storage room that I could open.

I knew it would be stinky, but I was on a mission to get the project done, so I didn’t give it any thought. I took it into the storage room, opened the can, poured it into my paint pan, and rolled it onto the ceiling and walls. I could tell that the smell was strong, but I brushed it off because I was only in there about 30 minutes. And as soon as I was done, I closed the doors and walked away.

I asked Matt, who was in the bedroom close by, if he could smell it, and he said he couldn’t. But a bit later in the day, I left the house and went to Home Depot. When I came home, I could smell it as soon as I walked in the back doors of my studio. And when I went into the bedroom to check on Matt, he was having a little bit of a hard time. But honestly, he always has a harder time late in the evening, so again, I didn’t really think much of it.

When we went to bed that night, it seemed like a normal night. I got up yesterday morning and could still smell the primer. I checked on Matt, and he was struggling. He wasn’t his normal rested self. He was struggling to speak. He had a headache. He wasn’t feeling well at all.

I felt horrible that I had made the decision to use that primer just to save time and a few dollars. I opened the bathroom door and the bedroom door to air out the room, and while it helped the smell dissipate more quickly, the effects had already taken hold. Matt had one of the worst days he’s had in a very long time. He felt unwell all day long. He struggled to talk, and I don’t think there was any single time yesterday that he tried to speak that I actually understood him. He was completely exhausted and struggling all day long. By the time he went to bed last night, he was pretty much in tears with the sheer exhaustion of the day.

It was a big wake-up call for me. These products that we use for our DIY projects are no joke. Some of them contain chemicals that just should not be used indoors for any reason. And while we generally healthy people sometimes take for granted that we can handle them, and it doesn’t seem like they have any real effect on us, they do. Just because we can’t see the immediate effects on us, and the effects aren’t as severe as they are on someone like Matt, they definitely have an effect, and they should be treated with the utmost caution.

Obviously, I’m preaching to myself just as much as I’m cautioning anyone else. It was a dumb decision for me to use that primer just because I had it on hand. I should have given it more thought, and I should have made the wise decision to take the time for a trip to Home Depot, and to spend the money on the proper primer that can safely be used indoors.

I let my guard down. I made a stupid decision for the sake of time and a few extra dollars, and Matt paid the price. I’ll never make that mistake again.

Fortunately, today is shaping up to be a much better day. I let Matt sleep late because he needed the rest after such an awful day yesterday, but I checked on him about an hour ago, and he’s back to his normal, rested morning self. His speech is good, his voice is strong, and he feels good this morning. I apologized profusely for being so reckless and of course, he forgave me. He laughed about it, but it’s not a laughing matter. And these products and chemicals that we use are no joke.