poison

Two nights ago, Chosa (our 3-1/2-year-old vizsla, shown at left) woke us up at 1 a.m. barking at the neighboring coyotes. What I also woke up to was an acute pain on the left side of my head, not in any of the usual places but rather in an upper quadrant. It did not go away. I had never, ever felt anything like it before and, in the dark of the night, it frightened me thoroughly.

I felt sick the next morning, though the pain was gone (replaced by a more normal, if painful, sinus headache). Still shaken and scared, I went to our local clinic. The conclusion with our excellent PA there was to hope it was an unusual combination of sinus and neck tension, or some kind of cluster headache. I left with the caution, if the pain recurs, to get me to a hospital for a CAT scan.

Later in the day, I went to Bev, our local therapeutic masseuse and homeopathic expert, for some muscle relaxation and to consult her wisdom. I happened to mention to her that I've begun using some new substances in the studio in the last few months -- the cold wax and the alkyd gel. She felt, at the end of my treatment, that the acute pain in the unusual location was probably a result breathing the fumes of my mixtures in the studio.

This resonates. I've noticed the fumes and wrinkled my nose, but after years of painting without problem, it frankly never occurred to me that this could be a source of illness. I have high clerestory windows that are cracked year-round, and I leave the door or another window open as weather permits. But recently, in the intensity of my new work, I have not only spent more time in the studio, but also have been working closer to my palette, and leaning over a table rather than standing before an easel. Combine that with the full day that I put in on Wednesday, on a hot windy day when I couldn't open the window because the winds were too strong, and it all makes sense.

While I'm relieved to have determined the most likely cause of the episode in the night, there is also a lesson here that makes painting even less of a lightweight hobby and confirms it as a serious enterprise that, in fact, can harm. An obvious step is to analyze and improve the ventilation in the studio, and to review the arrangement of my work area, to get fumes as far away from my face as possible. I am fortunate to have had a wake-up call that was not too serious. It has been a sobering few days.