I’ve been working on my room, so I thought it would be fun to start a YouTube channel under my blog alias and put them on there. Any readers could check you the channel on their own if they like, but this is the most recent video:
After all this cleaning on Saturday, I finally had to force myself to go to bed because even though I wanted to keep going, I was physically shaking from exhaustion. I noticed my lungs burned a bit when I was lying in bed, but I figured it was just from inhaling massive amounts of mouse poop. I was also hot from cleaning so even though it was cold outside, I slept with the window open. Then yesterday (Sunday), I woke up and closed the window. I had become accustomed to the smell so it was a bit of a nuisance but not too bad. Then I went to a friend’s house for several hours and when I came back, I went to my room. At this point, the window had been closed for long enough for the fumes to build up. I tried to ignore it, but my lungs were starting to burn worse and worse. I freaked because turtles’ lungs are their greatest vulnerability. They have a shell, so their whole mechanism of breathing is different from ours. I couldn’t believe I had just left my baby home alone all day. I began to worry because I had cleaned the floor with Pine Sol and then with an enzyme cleaner and I had thought I’d gotten all the Pine Sol up before spraying the enzyme cleaner and I had also thought that the enzyme cleaner didn’t have anything in it that would interact with the Pine Sol, but technically I had mixed household cleaners and now my lungs were burning so that was concerning. I felt dumb because it had been about 24 hours so I thought maybe I was just imagining it, but I was really worried about my poor little turtle. I was freaking out that he was going to DIE.
So I loaded him in his travel case and took him down to the living room. I live in a group home, and the paranoid schizophrenic guy was in the living room, so things started to go downhill fast.
Roommate: “That’s a turtle”
Me: “Yep, that’s my turtle”
Roommate: “Do you have any other pets?”
Me: “No”
Roommate (suspiciously): “Are you SURE? You don’t have like a rabbit or something?”
Me: “No, I’m definitely sure that it’s just the turtle”
Roommate: “Have you ever cooked a rabbit?”
Me: “No.”
Roommate: “I see, but you COULD cook a rabbit, couldn’t you?”
I tried to end the conversation and deal with the potential of there being mustard gas in my room, but once the conversation spiraled and my roommate thought I was recording him with my phone, I took my turtle and we sought refuge in the bathroom. I was worried people would freak out that I was hogging the bathroom but it was the only room that locked and also had breathable air so we made due.
I called the emergency vet but they said the best thing for my turtle would be just to monitor him for signs of respiratory distress. I tried to get a box fan with Instacart because I don’t have a car, but apparently it’s not possible to get a box fan delivered late on a Sunday night in the dead of winter in a cold part of the country. I even tried doing google searches of the cleaners I used, but I couldn’t find anything about their chemical properties. I posted on facebook and somebody told me to call poison control. I hadn’t thought of that, so I called, but their veterinary line was closed so I had to pretend the sick person was me. (Which wasn’t technically a lie; my lungs were killing me.) Poison control said they had no idea whether the substances would interact, so I should go to the ER for a chest x-ray, which at first didn’t seem feasible because I didn’t want to leave my turtle in his carry case in the house because my roommates have some really strange thought processes sometimes and I didn’t know what would happen to him. However, then I thought that maybe I could be the canary in the mine. There was little chance that I would be able to get my turtle a CT scan on a Sunday night without being independently wealthy (you can’t really do a very effective x-ray on a turtle) but if I got my lungs checked, I figured that could provide some insight into whether I should be worried about his lungs.
So at that point I thought I should enlist the help of staff. They were actually really nice about it. They promised to keep my turtle safe and sound and locked in the office so nothing would happen to him. At first they thought they wouldn’t be able to give me a ride to the ER because it was after sundown, but once the found out that it was technically an emergency according to poison control and that there was just no chance at all that I would be willing to go in an ambulance, they changed their minds and took me. It definitely was not fun having to confess to them that I may or may not have accidentally made mustard gas while trying to clean, because I’ve had to work really hard for months to convince staff that I’m smart and mixing chemicals is not conducive to making people think you’re smart. But again, they were nice.
The local hospital is not always the greatest environment, mainly because I’m pretty sure at least two-thirds of the patients there come in for being life-threateningly inebriated. I was also freaking out about my tiny little turtle. My lungs burned and I felt like his lungs must feel way worse because he was home all day, and he was trapped in his carry case in an unfamiliar room to boot. I called the house to make sure they were keeping him warm and they said they were. When I thought about it, it wasn’t surprising because his species has a broad range but it’s basically from warm places in sub-Saharan Africa, which conveniently is exactly where 100% staff is from and they usually keep their offices pretty warm so I figured he was in good hands.
I as I continued to rack my brain to think of someone good at chemistry, I remembered my sister’s husband was in medical school. My sister has been a lot more reachable now that I’m out of the hospital and have my phone more often and she provided moral support. My brother-in-law said that I should absolutely NOT leave the hospital or anything because I needed to be checked out, but he looked at the chemicals in the cleaners and said the fumes were probably just strong and irritated my airway, but hadn’t produced mustard gas. I’m really, really thankful that he was able to provide that expertise because most people aren’t chemists and were limited in what they could do. It also calmed me down a lot and I was able to stop worrying about my turtle and just get through the ER experience. I felt stupid both for mixing cleaners, and for showing up 24 hours later instead of right away, but the nurses and doctor were all kind and respectful. They did an x-ray and physical exam and said my lungs were “beautiful” and I was set to go. I arrived at like 8:15pm and got discharged at like 12:15am.
Once I was home, I had to deal with the fact that my room hadn’t finished airing out and I still couldn’t go in there, so I had to sleep in the living room. The roommate with paranoid schizophrenia was still in there, and now he was watching Joel Olsteen. I had never actually watched Joel Olsteen before, but now I can definitely see why people hate him. His message was disguised as positivity but actually was just shaming. Basically, everything bad that’s ever happened in any of our lives apparently happened because we didn’t believe HARD enough that everything was going to be great. He tried to use the Bible to confirm this, but he had to fall back on a bunch of Bible stories in which the protagonist was in a bad situation and then was in a better situation, and just kind of read between the lines that probably they went from bad to good because they manifested good things to happen with their positive outlook on life. I’m the farthest thing from a biblical literalist, and even I thought that was a stretch. Fortunately I was so exhausted that I eventually managed to get to sleep and nobody accidentally got extra paranoid and killed me so that was good.
This morning I let my room continue to air out until 11am, at which point the windows had been open for like probably about 17 hours. I continued my search for a box fan but gave up when the only place nearby that had one was Home Depot, and their cheapest one was about $70. I brought my turtle back to his tank. He looked very scared and dejected after spending so long in his tiny carrier, and he also hates the cold and our room was freezing, so he burrowed deep down into his dirt pile. He is remarkably talented at burrowing. I still don’t understand how he manages to burrow in such a way that the dirt above him is flat and it’s impossible to tell where he is without searching and searching for the tiny hole that he leaves above his tiny nose. I lowered his lights and heaters in hopes that it would help him warm up faster. The actual vet (not the on-call person) got back to me and sent more reassurance.
There may have been a chemical reaction (I am not familiar with each chemical and could not find any specific interactions when researching them), but you could also be having symptoms from just being in close proximity to the cleaners in general. I would monitor [turtle] for now. Reptile respiratory tracts are not as sensitive as birds or mammals, and they can hold their breath for prolonged periods of time as well. It would also depend on how close he was to the cleaners. Because his tank is most likely not close to where you will be cleaning (elevated off the floor) he is most likely okay, but monitor for respiratory signs regardless: increased rate or effort to breathing, open-mouth breathing, nasal discharge.
-The vet
So I guess it’s okay now. I’m surprised by how nice the people around me were. I knew I had good friends but I’m usually skeptical of “the system” which in this case, actually was quite useful and very kind.
And, like, I’m not gonna lie, my floor looks AMAZING right now!
