What's So Tough About Home Repairs, Maintenance And Construction?

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What's So Tough About Home Repairs,

Maintenance And Construction?

It's not easy when you're living with a family member who has chemical

injury. _http://www.michaelandjudystouffer.com/judy/articles/sotough.htm_

(http://www.michaelandjudystouffer.com/judy/articles/sotough.htm)

Finding materials, techniques and equipment that are safe for the

chemically injured is a difficult job. By its very nature, there are

unanticipated

and unavoidable delays. Gyrations that are undreamed of for the healthy are

essential when remodeling a home for the chemically injured. Here are a

few common examples of challenges that we know about or have run into

ourselves that are outside of the experience of most healthy people. We've

chosen

to use some analogies with everyday experiences to help " make real " some of

the challenges that these projects must address.

 

 

Issue #1: Nails don't come with an ingredients list the way that food does.

 

Analogy 1: Reading Food Labels.

There are at least half a million patents for chemicals granted by the

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Each of these chemical inventions is " new,

useful and unobvious, " or it wouldn't have been granted a patent. Depending

on how you count the number of chemicals covered, there are millions of

chemicals described by these patents. In fact, there are over 370,000

different chemicals listed just in the _National Library of Medicine's

ChemIDplus

database_ (http://chem.sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemidplus/chemidlite.jsp) . If a

person had sensitivities to only a handful of these chemicals, say one out of

1000, this would make the person sensitive to at least 370 chemicals in the

ChemIDplus database and probably thousands more that aren't listed in the

database. The hazards of each of these hundreds upon hundreds of chemicals

must somehow be avoided by a person sensitive to them.

The analogy here might be like reading the ingredients list of your

favorite food. Twinkies, for instance, contain a long list of chemical

additives

from " Polysorbate 60 " to " 1H-Pyrazole-3-carboxylic acid,

4,5-dihydro-5-oxo-1-(4-sulfophenyl)-4-((4-sulfophenyl)azo)-, trisodium salt "

(FD & C Yellow No.

5). Some people can't tolerate certain food chemicals. Others can't

tolerate certain natural food substances: anaphylactic reactions (possibly

deadly) to peanuts and shellfish are examples of this. Reading the food labels

is

a time-consuming activity, but it's an essential everyday task for people

with known food-based sensitivities.

The same is true for building materials, techniques and equipment for the

chemically injured. " Reading the Labels " is a " must " for building a safe

and healthy house for the chemically injured. Each item, from paint to nails

to shingles to drip edge to flashing has the potential to contain or have

been coated with dozens of modern chemicals. When you pick up a package of

nails at a big box store, it doesn't list what it's made from. It takes time

to contact manufacturers and get " ingredient lists. " That information

helps winnow out items that are made with a chemical that's a known problem for

the chemically injured person. After that, however, the item still must be

tested. There is always the possibility that the item might contain an

" unlisted " chemical that is seriously unhealthy for the chemically injured

person.

Issue #2: Resources are limited by what*s known to work and already

available, not by what's sitting on the shelf at the hardware store.

 

Analogy 2: The Apollo 13 rescue.

When you're in a spacecraft, you are limited to the materials and

equipment that are on hand. You must think ahead, before launch, about what you

are

going to need. You can't just run out to the hardware store to buy

something you've overlooked, once you're in space.

An incident in the movie Apollo 13 involving a buildup of CO2 inside the

spacecraft illustrates this. Because of the change in operations on the

disabled Apollo 13 spacecraft (the crew had to live in the lunar lander), the

air became saturated with CO2 gas, endangering the life of the crew. NASA

engineers were given the task of creating a makeshift air filter with only a

limited list of parts that were already onboard the spacecraft. There was

no option of " running to the hardware store " to buy other parts. The

engineers were successful, and saved the lives of the crew.

With construction for the chemically injured, initial plans most likely

will require materials, techniques and equipment which cannot be tolerated by

the chemically injured person. On the other hand, if you start to design

with only a limited supply of materials and equipment (like with the Apollo

13 challenge), designs will likely not meet code or standards for

acceptable workmanship, or the requirements of the homeowners themselves. The

inevitable result is a design that goes back-and-forth between a wide number of

alternatives, similar to traditional " cut-and-try " designs. Unlike most

" cut-and-try " designs though, the number of " tries " is much, much larger

because of the need to examine a greater number of alternatives to come up with

a

workable solution. The large number of alternatives needed to satisfy all

of the requirements and constraints greatly increases the amount of

planning involved in the project. The need to stop work-in-progress and

re-assess

the alternatives when snags occur, can also significantly increase the

work effort and slow down the project.

Issue #3: Finding safe products isn't an easy or safe process

 

Analogy 3: Who wants to be Stuck with a Needle?

When we get to a snag in a maintenance or construction project, we just

might be able to get around the problem with materials, techniques and

equipment that we already have. Oftentimes though, something new is needed.

There

are thousands of products available at stores that can help in this case:

nails, flashing, plastic, paints to name a few. But for the chemically

injured, many of these are off-limits. Worse, it's difficult to know ahead of

time which products are problematic and which are healthy. When there's no

way to work around using new materials, techniques or equipment, these must

be tested for health effects first.

Testing materials means exposing the chemically injured person to a

potentially harmful substance. Testing for harmful substances then, might be

likened to sticking yourself repeatedly with a needle, just to stay healthy. A

diabetic may do this every day, with insulin injections, in order to remain

relatively healthy. But for the chemically injured, the experience is more

like sticking yourself with a needle and hoping that it doesn't result in

the pain and slow healing of a bone marrow punch instead.

Remember also, that the chemically injured person is disabled in many

ways, and most likely undergoing treatments of some sort. There may be long

periods of time where the chemically injured person is simply unable to test

at all because they are too ill to do so. Also, it's practically impossible

to test more than one material at a time, because of the complexity of

figuring out which one of multiple substances caused what kind of reaction.

And, testing can't go on continuously month after month either, because of the

deep weariness that develops from constantly " sticking yourself with a

needle. " The testing process, though necessary, is a major contribution to the

apparent stop-and-start nature of construction for the chemically injured.

 

Issue #4: Testing new materials isn't the only thing happening - all sorts

of other daily life activities must go on simultaneously

 

Analogy 4: Lessons learned from Aircraft Carrier Flight Decks.

We've already talked about intentional exposure to chemicals that

accompanies the testing of new materials, techniques and equipment. However, in

the

ordinary course of living the chemically injured person is also exposed

unintentionally to unhealthy chemicals. These unintentional exposures may be

minor, requiring relatively short recovery times. Or they may be setbacks

that take weeks or months of recovery. They may come from completely

unforeseeable sources. Or they may come from changes in composition of existing

products (batch-to-batch variations or new production techniques),

contamination of the products in shipment, or from other known, but

uncontrollable

sources. Sometimes the source of the exposure can be easily contained, and

sometimes there will be extensive cleanup of the offending substance.

The book " Managing the Unexpected " (Karl E. Weick Kathleen and M.

Sutcliffe, 2007) talks extensively about organizations that handle the

unexpected

well, or at least better than most. Crucial norms of thinking and acting are

intentionally emphasized in these organization. Some of these norms are

mindfulness at all times, tracking small failures (for instance, seeing near

misses as failures with minor consequences, rather than successes),

resisting oversimplification, sensitivity to operations, and maintaining

capabilities for resilience. These norms help teams like aircraft carrier

flight

deck crews, fire fighting teams and nuclear power plant operators to respond

to threats with flexibility, rather than rigidity. The book calls

organizations that practice these principles Highly Reliable Organizations

(HRO).

Households that accommodate the needs of the chemically injured need to

keep operating, just like HROs, when there's an unexpected chemical exposure.

The householders have ongoing needs for sleep, food, water and medication.

Much like in combat, the household of a chemically injured person may

suffer severe losses due to unexpected chemical exposures: lost time, lost

money, lost health, lost property. But like HROs, resilient households take the

time to build capabilities for resiliency, communicate thoroughly and in a

timely fashion and track and correct even minor failures. This is

especially true during times of relative calm. The time taken to hone skills

and

correct minor problems may seem like plodding to some, but it makes a

critical difference when the unexpected strikes.

Issue #5: You call it a pah-tay-toe, I call it a poe-tah-to.

 

Analogy 5: " English as a Second Language. "

Language for discussing chemical injury is often inconsistent and

confusing. Manufacturers, regulators, consumers, industrial users, healthcare

personnel, researchers, emergency workers, shills and conspiracy theorists all

use different vocabularies. They have different perspectives, use different

concepts and have different attitudes and directions. The resulting

exchanges between these parties often seem like unintelligible gibberish.

Many American communities have mixed cultures, each with its own language.

Generally, English is a common language, but not always. Movies sometimes

portray the confusion that results from the " language barrier " . Often times

this isn't just a matter of failing to understand other people. The worst

confusion comes about when people think that they're communicating well,

but are using phrases and words that don't translate well. Often people come

away from these situations believing that the " other parties " are stupid or

acting in bad faith.

Similarly, when it comes to materials, techniques and equipment for the

chemically injured, there is no common language for dealing with the issues.

Even among contractors and suppliers who specialize in working with

" chemically healthy " products, misunderstandings often arise. For instance, two

chemicals (or chemical classes) that are used in detergents and some personal

care products are sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and sodium laureth sulfate

(SLES). A question sometimes arises about these related chemicals: is sodium

lauryl sulfate the same as sodium laureth sulfate? Unfortunately, the

practical answer is " sometimes yes, sometimes no " even though these are

technically different chemicals with different properties. This kind of

confusion

makes finding safe products very complicated. The resulting

misspecifications, lost time, wasted materials and occasional lawsuits make the

task of

creating and maintaining healthy homes for the chemically injured an

especially difficult and daunting challenge.

Putting it all together

We've discussed a few of the difficulties involved in the repair,

maintenance and construction of homes for the chemically injured. This is by no

means an exhaustive list of the challenges. Construction projects for the

chemically injured are markedly different from projects for the healthy in our

communities. We hope that the selection of challenges that we've discussed

in this article helps you understand why this is so.

You can _click here_

(http://www.michaelandjudystouffer.com/judy/articles/Whats_So_Tough.pdf) for a

PDF copy of this article that is already

formatted for printing.

April 2009 by Michael and Judy Stouffer.

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