Risky Business - Part 1

One fine spring day in 1990, my wife Mary set out in her Taurus station wagon on the long drive southwards to her seminary in Berkeley, CA. The road climbed out of the valley where we lived and twisted through an apple orchard. Just as she was coming around one of the sharp bends, a farm worker on a tractor, towing a big spray rig, reached the end of his row and turned the tractor around to head in. Because the car windows were open, the spray hit Mary full in the face, drenching her. She immediately felt sick and a burning sensation, so she turned around and headed home.

I met her at the house and helped her into the shower. She was dripping pesticide. I scrubbed at her for 20 minutes, we both were soaked in the pungent stuff. Fifteen years later, she was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, a disease that invariably leads to death by gradual killing of certain nerves - including the ones that enable breathing. She died here on the salt marsh on October 26, 2010.

Last summer, I spent 11 days in intensive care in two different hospitals because among other things, I had lost 80% of my ability to breathe. I was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis at the beginning of August, although like Mary, I had had the illness for years before it was correctly labeled. This neuromuscular disease causes problems with nerves firing. Like ALS it isn't curable, but due to medications created during my lifetime, the rate of mortality has fallen from 70% to the low single digits. Among other things, I asked the neurologist who figured out what was wrong with me what the odds were of two unrelated people having these two illnesses at the same time. He quickly said, "Astronomical." I said, what could have caused it? His second one-word answer leads us to today's post: "Organophosphates."

When people I know hear this story, they often express one of two reactions. The first is a fierce anger. People say, find that orchard owner, find that farm worker who broke the law by not turning off the sprayer at row's end. Sue them straight to hell.

An Ice 'Shroom on the Marsh, 2/19/12

The second reaction is a gentle skepticism. People want to know - how can you be sure the incident you describe is what caused this tragedy? Where's the proof, the science?

About the first. I sometimes picture the man who killed my wife. Probably, a quiet, deliberately-moving guy from northern Mexico with a dirty white straw cowboy hat. Maybe right now he's sitting in his home village playing in the sun with his grandchildren, certainly oblivious to the horror his carelessness caused. Or maybe he is long dead from constant exposure to the poisons he sprayed for his employers.

Even if I could find any of this out, and I can't, I'm acquainted with the corrosive effects of hatred. My family - and I - have suffered enough at the hands of this chemical, this employer, this farm worker. So I try as in so many things in my life to emulate Mary. Her attitude about this story was, in her phrase, to "not go there." She put her attention to her life, her family, her work.

In struggling with the sometimes overwhelming desire to engage in my own personal witch hunt, I've started to learn the difference between revenge and justice. And between a addressing a personal wrong and social change. This is an on-going piece of work - some days are better than others.

Tomorrow, I'll be addressing the next item, how I can know that the spraying in the orchard was the cause.