It might not come as a surprise to most who know me, but I have a SEVERE allergy/sensitivity/aversion to disinfecting wipes- namely the super toxic ones that everyone is obsessed with, Clorox and Lysol. One whiff of them is enough to send me in to a full blown asthma attack at times. Somedays, I can tolerate them so long as I'm not touching them, but it snowballs the more exposure I get.
Case in point: today. Part of my responsibilities at work at to clean the office at night. Everyone chips in, but due to my work schedule, the bulk of the responsibility falls on me. Yes, this allergic girl is responsible for cleaning. Stupid right? When I got hired that wasn't the case, we had a part-time cleaning person, but as the economy would have it, to save cost we let him go at the beginning of the year. Hence, I am now responsible since I work the late shift when there are less people in the office. Well, I have managed to continually pawn off the vaccuuming duties to other coworkers (which makes my nose bleed from the dust) for the most part, but the one job that continually falls on me that is most irritating to my nervous system is sanitizing the doorknobs and adjusting tables. For a long time we had these great hospital grade, fragrance free, germidical wipes. I loved them! They didn't irritate my lungs or skin or eyes. However, we stopped purchasing them because of cost and switched entirely to Clorox/Lysol wipes. A month or so ago when the last of the good fragrance free wipes started running out completely I mentioned to our person who orders supplies that I really needed the non-toxic wipes and could he please buy the Green Works or Method "natural" disinfecting wipes. Well, he forgot and then when he went to look he said he couldn't find them. How he missed the large section at Wal-mart, I'm not sure.
Anyway, cut to the last few weeks. Most of the time I wear gloves while using the disinfecting wipes (did you know that it actually says on the box that, basically, because they are so toxic you should always wear gloves while using them? Makes you wonder if you should use them around your children then, huh? Oh, wait, it says they aren't safe for children right on the box as well!), however I didn't few times last week because I was feeling brave. Go figure, ever since then I've been having issues with occassional asthma symptoms as well as some other strange feelings in my body- my liver seems to be kind of upset with me, but in the "attack" sort of way I usually get. Today, was apparently my body's last straw. Less then five minutes after I was done using the wipes, I developed asthma, my esophagus started spasming, and a large rash began to develop on my chest. My nervous system went in to full blown freak out mode- hence the uncontrollable crying that followed a few moments later.
Thankfully, I have an understanding supervisor and I told her that I was not disinfecting anything anymore. She is going to personally talk to our supply manager to make sure the natural wipes are purchased so I can still do the job that is asked of me- but safely. Fingers crossed everyone follows through and I can breathe safely at work again. And for the rest of my coworkers' sakes who have to use the wipes several times throughout the day, I hope they get the more natural wipes too.
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