Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone? God will, like he waters the flowers on your window sill.
I do believe that I just may have solved the case of the mystery ailment! YAY! It's really a long story with gory and boring details, so here goes.
There had been a rotten egg odor in my house for a few weeks now, but I did not take much notice of it. I had tried to not to put much food in the wastebasket and tried to stay on top on garbage detail hoping the odor would leave, but it never did. Then I thought about all the many people in the neighborhood, and perhaps a family pet had ran off somewhere to die, like underneath my house. I know that sounds strange, but my home's foundation is the pier and beam construction opposed to a slab, so a small animal could very easily slipped into the crawl space under my house. The thing that did not make sense about that was the lattice that secures the perimeter of the crawl space had not been disturbed in any way, but I have learned to never question the ability of animals. The dead animal theory made perfect sense because of the rotten odor especially with this incredible heat we are having. I thought surely that odor will soon end. Even a decomposing animal will stop smelling after a couple of weeks. But the stink lingered.
Meanwhile, I was feeling like total crap. I was nauseated, tired, and had no appetite whatsoever. I was thinking that I have been pregnant, because I had never felt like this before. Well, the Snicker's incident had alot to do with that idea too. I purchased an EPT. Negative. A week later I walked into the doctor's office and described how I was feeling to a nurse practitioner. She wanted to do a blood test, just to make sure. She told me that earlier that week she had seen a patient who had done FOUR EPTS, which all came out negative, but her blood test stated otherwise, so there was possibly a bad lot of early pregnancy tests out there sitting on the shelves at the stores. When the blood test come back negative, I was perplexed. The NP told me that if I was not feeling better soon, to come back and see her again.
That's right, perplexed, until this morning. Last night, I paused in front on the bathroom door while walking down the hallway. The stench was still in my house with no sign of easing up. I poked my head into the hallway bathroom, which I never use, and turned the light on. It hasn't been used since my husband returned to work on the boat around the 1st of July. I know this because the seat was still up. I thought to myself about how tacky that looked and decided to put the toilet seat down. When I looked into the toilet I noticed that the bowl had NO water in it at all and thought that can't be good. So I flushed the toilet which in doing so refilled the bowl. I guess the water in the toilet bowl had evaporated, because, like I stated earlier, the outside tempurature here has been hotter than west hell. It could not have possibly drained out, because there is a P-trap located in the bottom of all toilets which insures that the water stays at a certain amount of water remains in the bowl after flushing.
This morning the rotten smell had subsided considerably, so I decided to check with the internet about side effects of inhaling sewer gas. Sewer gas contains a compound scientifically called hydrogen sulfide which has a rotten egg smell at low concentrations, but has no smell at higher levels. Weird huh? I also found out that there is a plethora of symptoms which some or all may effect a person differently depending on the intensity and time exposed. This gas is also extremely flammable. Thhank goodness I do not smoke in the house. Inhaling a low concentration of hydrogen sulfide for an extended period time can result in a lack of appetite, fatigue, dizziness, headaches, nausea, irratibility and general lassitude. This sounds all too familiar to me and uncannily like a few of the early symptoms of pregnancy. This afternoon, I am starting to feel much better and I have been able to eat again, even though I was still mildly grossed out by my salad. The odor is finally gone!
Guess what. I'm not pregnant. I was just ill from inhaling toxic fumes that were coming from inside of my very own home. That's all. Nothing major to worry about. As, far as the blood test coming back normal, that's cool, but one thing is for sure, my life is anything but typical.
There had been a rotten egg odor in my house for a few weeks now, but I did not take much notice of it. I had tried to not to put much food in the wastebasket and tried to stay on top on garbage detail hoping the odor would leave, but it never did. Then I thought about all the many people in the neighborhood, and perhaps a family pet had ran off somewhere to die, like underneath my house. I know that sounds strange, but my home's foundation is the pier and beam construction opposed to a slab, so a small animal could very easily slipped into the crawl space under my house. The thing that did not make sense about that was the lattice that secures the perimeter of the crawl space had not been disturbed in any way, but I have learned to never question the ability of animals. The dead animal theory made perfect sense because of the rotten odor especially with this incredible heat we are having. I thought surely that odor will soon end. Even a decomposing animal will stop smelling after a couple of weeks. But the stink lingered.
Meanwhile, I was feeling like total crap. I was nauseated, tired, and had no appetite whatsoever. I was thinking that I have been pregnant, because I had never felt like this before. Well, the Snicker's incident had alot to do with that idea too. I purchased an EPT. Negative. A week later I walked into the doctor's office and described how I was feeling to a nurse practitioner. She wanted to do a blood test, just to make sure. She told me that earlier that week she had seen a patient who had done FOUR EPTS, which all came out negative, but her blood test stated otherwise, so there was possibly a bad lot of early pregnancy tests out there sitting on the shelves at the stores. When the blood test come back negative, I was perplexed. The NP told me that if I was not feeling better soon, to come back and see her again.
That's right, perplexed, until this morning. Last night, I paused in front on the bathroom door while walking down the hallway. The stench was still in my house with no sign of easing up. I poked my head into the hallway bathroom, which I never use, and turned the light on. It hasn't been used since my husband returned to work on the boat around the 1st of July. I know this because the seat was still up. I thought to myself about how tacky that looked and decided to put the toilet seat down. When I looked into the toilet I noticed that the bowl had NO water in it at all and thought that can't be good. So I flushed the toilet which in doing so refilled the bowl. I guess the water in the toilet bowl had evaporated, because, like I stated earlier, the outside tempurature here has been hotter than west hell. It could not have possibly drained out, because there is a P-trap located in the bottom of all toilets which insures that the water stays at a certain amount of water remains in the bowl after flushing.
This morning the rotten smell had subsided considerably, so I decided to check with the internet about side effects of inhaling sewer gas. Sewer gas contains a compound scientifically called hydrogen sulfide which has a rotten egg smell at low concentrations, but has no smell at higher levels. Weird huh? I also found out that there is a plethora of symptoms which some or all may effect a person differently depending on the intensity and time exposed. This gas is also extremely flammable. Thhank goodness I do not smoke in the house. Inhaling a low concentration of hydrogen sulfide for an extended period time can result in a lack of appetite, fatigue, dizziness, headaches, nausea, irratibility and general lassitude. This sounds all too familiar to me and uncannily like a few of the early symptoms of pregnancy. This afternoon, I am starting to feel much better and I have been able to eat again, even though I was still mildly grossed out by my salad. The odor is finally gone!
Guess what. I'm not pregnant. I was just ill from inhaling toxic fumes that were coming from inside of my very own home. That's all. Nothing major to worry about. As, far as the blood test coming back normal, that's cool, but one thing is for sure, my life is anything but typical.
posted by Nikki | 5:54 PM
1 Comments:
Wow, that's bizarre. I'm glad the path to feeling better was as simple as flushing your toilet. But how strange.
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