Monday, April 9 Part II: The Asbestos situation is really getting to me.

The catastrophizing goes something like this:

• I'm worried about my cats, what if they actually ate some crumbled bit of asbestos?
• And what of my bedroom upstairs...I had carpeting installed over some other 'possibly' asbestos tiles. What if the little tack strips they use for carpeting went through the tiles and are now acting as an upwards dry asbestos conduit sprinkling system, filling both the cats and my lungs with tiny hazardous bits of asbestos while we sleep?
• And the attic storage area, right next to my bedroom is filled with insulation which some squirrels ripped and tore apart when they got in through a hole in my roof before I had it fixed. I need to clean that area up, but what if that old insulation is asbestos as well?  It probably is -- I certainly can't go in and vacuum up a bunch of torn apart asbestos fibers, I may as well find a pile of asbestos and roll around in it.
• And what if that insulation was asbestos -- what about those poor little squirrels -- what will happen to them?  Are they okay?
• When I was originally mopping that floor in the basement and the tile went skidding across the floor, I also mopped up a bunch of peeling paint from the wall, noting that with my luck it would probably wind up being lead based paint. What if it IS toxic lead based paint? My Jimmy cat eats everything. What if Jimmy has eaten some bit of lead based paint!
• I have been sniffling and sneezing A LOT, and my eyes and throat burn. Is it allergy season or is it the asbestos? Maybe when I was in that attic storage area after it was all stirred up and torn apart by the squirrels I got such a heavy concentrated dose of it that it's taking its lethal hold on me already.
• Or maybe the itching and burning in my eyes and throat is due to mold that exists somewhere in the house and I don't even know about it.
• My co-worker is currently testing for radon in her house - is that another thing that I need to be worried about?

They say April is historically a very horrible and tragic month.