I had a call from someone this week who was concerned about me. He had heard that I was sick.

Sick from allergies? Sick from a virus?

Sick of people assuming I’m sick?

I do appreciate the concern, and I am thankful for all those who have expressed their well wishes and prayers for me over the last several months.

There’s all kinds of sick that a person can be. I’m honestly glad I had the kind of sick I had, which wasn’t much of a sick at all.

It was more of a complete and total beat down in which I and the surgeons and the nurses and God above kicked the ever-living crap out of cancer’s attempt to get a toehold in my body. No treatments necessary.

I’ve had mosquito bites larger than my speck of cancer was. I’ve had viruses where I wished I could crawl in a pit and die. Recovery from a broken leg (I’ll have to tell that idiot story sometime) was much worse than recovery from a mastectomy.

At least, it was for me. I’ve heard from other ladies who have gone through a mastectomy and various methods of reconstruction that almost killed them. 

So what is sick?

It’s a world that tells women that they have to use various cosmetic products full of cancer-causing endocrine disruptors–phthalates, triclosan, parabens, and synthetic fragrances–in order to be considered beautiful. 

Shampoos, soaps, shower gels, shaving cream, makeup, hair products, hand sanitizer, perfumes, nail polish. All things that I enjoy using, and all things that I’m looking over much more carefully these days, especially the ingredient list.

It’s knowing that teen girls use, on average, more of these products on a daily basis than adult women. 

It’s knowing that the health and beauty industries are continuing to use these chemicals despite research that shows they are harming us. 

I’m sorry if I sound like an environmental activist. That’s not the most popular position to have in rural northwest Alabama, unless you’re wanting to save the big poplar in the Sipsey Wilderness, which is already on its way out, bless its heart.

I’m also sorry that this isn’t the most uplifting post.

Forgive me, I’m just sick.

It’s the use of cleaners, full of the same kinds of chemicals as personal care products, to make our dwelling places sparkle and shine. We light candles and use air fresheners to make a cozy home, but what they’re really doing is putting just one more molecule into the air that we can inhale and use to poison ourselves, slowly.

It’s foods or drinks that have been exposed to pesticides and herbicides and then placed in plastic packaging, which is showing up in our organs. It’s not just about saving the whales anymore. Studies show that the human brain may contain up to a spoon’s worth of microplastics and nanoplastics.

I’ll think of that every time I drive past the plant that makes fiberglass products. I can smell its noxious fumes inside local businesses. Maybe I’m growing an entire tiny shower in my brain, where my do-good sensibilities can get squeaky clean.

I guess that would make me sick in the head, technically.

And males, it can get you too. It’s not just Yellow #5 that you have to worry about anymore, which is supposedly only an urban legend. The truth is that endocrine disruptors reduce sperm counts and testosterone, and, by the way, they can also cause cancers in you.

We wonder why the infertility, why the autism spectrum disorders, why the autoimmune diseases, why the inflammation, why the this and that and the other?

Why the cancer, especially in younger people with no apparent genetic mutations?

I’m no researcher, but I’ve got my ideas.

Our world is sick, and it doesn’t appear to be getting any better.

As for me, I’m the best I’ve ever been.