Diary of a mad woman:

Okay, I'm going to give in and continue to write about this mystery that has thus far remained unsolved. My health is a preoccupation. It isn't a preoccupation because that's what I want to do, it seems that I am forced to. When I become lax, I pay by suffering. I like to be lazy, just for the record.

Now, I am going to write this as though someone is doing it to me. Most of the time I'm completely rational about it and I look for normal causes for my symptoms. But the "saltiness attacks" haven't triggered anybody's memory as to a cause so I haven't found help for them yet. I don't really believe that someone is doing it intentionally to me until something inexplicable happens and I can't dismiss the mystery. In this case it happens to be blood . . .

1) Like a red tide:

It is a long story that has taken up most of my week. Becuase I was stubborn, I ended up in the shower at 5:00 AM. It is the story of my life through the past six months.

We'll have to step back a few weeks, three to be more exact. It was the last time I remember being able to breathe easily if I opened my closet door. I remember that one time when I opened my closet door the scent of my perfume wafted out and I wondered if the clothes I'd worn to Church that Sunday were the cause. But then it seems that by the very next morning, I opened my closet to be met by the "elephant pen at the zoo" odor that is, quite frankly, killing me.

My initial response was to wash all my clothes using clorox. Yes, even my colored clothes. But the closet still reeked. The next step was to take everything out of the closet, but the closet still reeked. Do note that this same scenario has played out in two other closets already--except that the closet itself never reeked and laundering the contents of it solved the problem. This time, it didn't help at all to wash the clothes, bind the shoes into plastic bags and, finally, to remove everything from the closet.

My next step was to wash the entire closet--not once, but twice. And then to clean the carpet despite the fact that this carpet is about four months old and it couldn't possibly have any dirt in it yet. I spent three days this week doing that. Still, the closet reeked.

Along with that, my bed has been infected too. I've laundered all the sheets, I've cleaned the pillows and still, and this is why I was so stubborn last night, it makes me sick.

I will say this: It can't be chemicals because obviously it begins before the chemicals do. That is if you consider my own chemicals. I thought it might be some sort of pesticide, but it won't weather out--that's why there were three weeks before the infection culminated in the waste of so much energy and time on my part and why I ended up showering off at 5:00 AM. Chemicals will wash out, too.

No matter what this is, this stuff hits me like pepper. It takes over a closet or, as now, my bedroom in as single night. It reminds me of the red tide. It is a superbug that multiplies rapidly at random intervals and then does nothing more than bother me for several days until that random deluge, tide, comes in.

When I take a whiff--a single whiff, mind you--my vision gets blurry and I feel dizzy and begin to sweat. My mouth and nose feel as though something is drilling in--I envision little screw shaped bacteria. It hurts and tastes nasty, although the taste, I realized last night, is slight and indescribable. It makes me cough and sneeze. I know that I am not alone in this because my poor old dog is suffering the same way right along with me. Foolish dog! He stays right with me even when I am suffering to clean it up, choking and coughing all the time.

I can't be forwarned and avoid it because by the time I detect the smell of it, it is too late. A whiff is enough. It is very effective against me. And one whiff and it might be several days before the saltiness on my skin and in my nasal discharges and even in my mouth subsides. It also makes my lips feel funny, dry, sticky and somewhat rubbery.

To be continued . . . (if I can muster the courage)