Environmental Illness and Having a Car

I have a very contentious relationship with my 16 year old little Honda Civic.  I have owned the vehicle since it was brand new in 1998 and I vowed at that time that I would care for and drive the car all the days of its life. In the first 11 years, the windshield wiper motor was the only part of the car that broke and it once left me stranded on the side of the road when the timing belt blew.  It has been a great little car for me.

In 2007, I fainted at a gas station while I was filling up my tank. This was a very scary experience for me and I have never been able to pump my own gas since that incident.  It was not the first time that I’d had a negative reaction to a neurotoxin, but the incident really was an indicator that life with the car was not going to be easy anymore.  There are no full service gas stations where I live, and so I had to start bringing a friend to fill up my tank.  

In May 2010, shortly after the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster I decided that I needed to address my complicity in oil spills as well as my own oil addiction.  I parked my car for three months to see what life would be like without a car.  I rode my bike to work everyday, used public transit and I joined a Cooperative Car Share program so that I could have access to a vehicle if I really needed one for work.  Living without the car was a life changing experience for me and really broke me out of the habit of driving everywhere.  I loved biking so much more than I thought I would.  It was so freeing to ride and I could actually get most places faster on my bike than in my car.  I continued to ride my bike to work everyday after the three months and the car continued to rust away in the driveway.  The exhaust from the cars that I was sharing the road with was becoming increasingly challenging and one morning, after biking to work, I fainted at my desk and was sent to hospital.  It is still unclear exactly what brought on the fainting spell, the doctor suggested maybe I was coming down with the flu or that my blood sugar was low from my bike ride.  

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In May 2013, I was chemically injured and this time it had a lasting effect on me.  To use Claudia Miller’s terminology, I became 'TILTed'.   TILT stands for Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance.  TILT is a theory of human illness that explains how a person can have a toxic exposure and fail to recover.  I became sensitized to (what seemed like) everything and I was no longer able to ride my bike or walk anywhere outside and I suddently found myself completely dependent upon my vehicle to get anywhere.  

Contentious indeed.

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For the last 14 months, I have had to drive my car with the windows all sealed up tightly and the vents to the outside closed off so that no exhaust from other cars gets inside the vehicle.  It is nearly unbearable in the summer and there have been times when it has been 110°C inside the car because I have no air conditioning. I have to turn the car off and wait a few moments for the air outside to clear before opening my door to get out of the car or for others to get into the car.  

It is so outrageous to me that I should have to drive my car in order to protect myself from car (and other forms of) pollution!  Public transit is not an option for me at all. Of course, I don’t really drive the car or go out very often, but I have a LOT of car guilt.

Gas stations have become entirely intolerable.  I have to wear a respirator mask when at the gas station and can not open the doors or windows at any point while on or near the property.  The person filling the tank (usually my partner) has to get out of the car prior to arriving at the gas station and walk home after pumping the gas because they can’t get into the car afterwards due to residue on clothing, skin and hair.  Once home, my partner has to remove all clothing before entering the house and get directly into the shower. 

Seriously!  This is my life!

What is even worse than getting gas in the car, is needing to have it serviced!  This is a ridiculous amount of trouble.  I can’t go into mechanic shops, so I have to find a friend who can meet me there to drop the car off and deal with the staff.  The car ends up getting contaminated when mechanics sit in it and when they touch the steering wheel with oil covered hands.  Other times, they wipe down the inside of the car with some toxic cleaner.  It can take weeks before I can drive the car again without a respirator mask.  

I have been quite healthy lately and have been venturing out on my bike again in the last couple of months.  I am not able to ride during peak traffic hours and I am not able to ride on the roads at all.  The upside to not being able to ride on roads is that I have been exploring the extensive bike trails within my community. It has been so delightful to ride my bike and to discover new paths to parts of the city I never knew existed.  

What a blessing it has been to be well enough to ride my bike again! There were many times over the course of my illness that I thought I would never be able to ride again.

The car isn’t worth much anymore, so I stopped paying for comprehensive insurance because the deductible was higher than the value of the car. This winter a tree fell on it during an ice storm and since I didn’t have comprehensive insurance on the car, it hasn’t been repaired.  Of course, I couldn’t have tolerated having it repaired anyway, but it is really starting to rust out and fall to crap. The sad truth is that my car isn’t going to last forever and getting another car is not going to be easy.  I won’t be able to get another brand new car due to off gassing and the majority of older cars will have had chemical cleaners and air fresheners used inside of them.  

I can't imagine life without my car because it links me to the outside world. Here’s hoping my little Honda Civic has many more years in her and here’s hoping that I stay well enough to continue to ride my bike and explore the paths and trails hidden within my city.