I Was a Canary in the Coal Mine: My visceral warning about the invisible poison that’s polluting your home, too

My heart sagged heavy in my chest, rolling back in forth like a boulder that couldn’t build momentum. With every breath, I drew less air. I was inhaling, but my lungs felt punctured, like they couldn’t inflate.

Gasping and hyperventilating, I could feel my bodyweight overcoming my dwindling strength, and collapsed onto the bed, using my feeble exhales to scream into the pillow.

Every cell in my body was begging for air. It felt like I needed to claw out of my skin just to get enough oxygen…

…I knew I was dying, but didn’t know why. And no one could help me.

18 Months Earlier

With baby №2 in tow, my husband and I had just settled into our new rental home. Nestled in an energetic suburban limb of a sprawling city, it boasted all the amenities of walkable restaurants, parks, and basic shops.

All from my little kitchen window, I glimpsed condo behemoths, neon signs and and cell towers piercing the skyline. Though it was busy for my tastes, I couldn’t deny the convenience was thrilling. Besides, as a healthy 27-year-old, I was eager to open the next chapter of my life.

Now that I was housebound with a toddler and baby, I was at the mercy of my home — and woefully unaware of how little it would spare me.

A few months in to our stay, I started to feel “off” in a way that I couldn’t put my finger on.

During the tranquil evening hours as I rocked my baby to sleep, a transient, ambiguous sense of unease crept up my spine and tugged on the strings of my nervous system like a sadistic puppeteer, pulling me into a state of restlessness and tension.

Once this frenetic high tide of anxiety receded, it dragged my energy with it, smothering me beneath waves of incapacitating fatigue. Limbs weighed down like sandbags, some days only the desperate pleas from my infant could eject me from my chair.

Even then, every step of the the ten-foot trek to the kitchen exhausted me. Dirty dishes stacked up; loads of laundry lay strewn over chairs while I guiltily assessed the mess from where I sat, immobilized. This was all you have to to do — why can’t you do it? I scolded myself.

Growing desperate, I prioritized self-care.

Despite all efforts to clean up my diet and bathe in the sunny spring air, my brain sunk into a thick, unrelenting fog.

My razor wits had dulled to a butter knife with which I had to awkwardly spar anytime my witty husband challenged to one of his many debates.

It wasn’t just the intellectual discussions that became over-encumbering, either: it permeated even simple exchanges with my family.

During a small gathering for Easter lunch, I sat down at the table, a searing pain encasing my head.

“You’ve been awfully quiet” my mother observed. “You feeling okay?”

Concerned eyes turned towards me as my heart fluttered up in tempo. Blood rushing to my vermillion-flushed face, I looked at her across the table and froze with confusion and inexplicable anxiety. Silence.

“What?” The last 15 seconds had been wiped from my mind.

“What’s wrong?” She clarified.

“…I don’t know” I slowly replied. “I have a…..head….thing.”

“A headache?”

“Yeah. That.”

Though headaches had become a frequent nuisance, I dashed upstairs only to calm the adrenaline. Whether it was because I couldn’t articulate my thoughts or bear how erratic my heart quivered when on edge, confrontation overwhelmed me.

While I laid there in solitude, roars of laughter echoed from downstairs. I sighed, defeated again by my biology.

As we drove home, my husband broke the silence. “If you’re feeling better, want to have a few drinks tonight? You know we rarely get a night without the kids.”

I shrugged, trying to remain optimistic for fear of further disappointing him. “Yeah. Sure.”

Later that evening, sitting sat down to enjoy a quiet house, he handed me a frothy chocolate stout.

“Maybe this is just what I needed after all,” I confessed, cracking a rare smile at him.

But before I had even finished my second sip, my sense of gravity detached from the floor and the room began to spin. My heart picked up pace, and a clammy sweat beaded up on my forehead. Stumbling towards the couch, I threw myself down trying to regain equilibrium. Why can’t I just feel normal anymore?

I felt his eyes travel over to where I was curled in fetal position as he released a sigh. No point in blaming his lack of sympathy: these health disruptions were nothing new anymore. He didn’t understand — no one understood what was happening.

“Oh, you’re just tired from the new baby,” my mother would often excuse, or “looks like you’re having another ‘dead’ day, huh?” my husband tried to make light.

But whatever it was scrambled my entire day-to-day routine. It was robbing me of resources I needed to provide for my family, as well as the joy new mothers are supposed to reap from those precious, early years.

Then, the next morning, I woke up feeling bright, refreshed, and clear-headed. See? There’s nothing wrong with you, I chided, you just haven’t had a drink in a while. You’re fine.

As months trudged into a year, however, the new parent excuses had run dry.

The concern that something external was affecting me had burrowed into back of my mind.

It was like an intuitive itch that just kept scratching at me. Something was wrong.

My lymph nodes swelled into painful walnuts for no diagnosable reason.

When I’d run my fingers through my hair, they’d return with dozens of strands wrapped around them.

My arms were always itching from painful hives that routinely erupted.

The buzzing and wailing of ear-piercing tinnitus drowned out even my children’s cries; its shrill whine kept me awake deep into the night, where I’d lie agitated trying to calm my quivering heart before tossing and turning for a few fitful hours.

I’d lose my bearings a mile away from my home, which always sent me into a panic. Then again, not a day passed when I wasn’t ambushed by crippling anxiety. I guzzled CBD oil and magnesium and eventually capitulated to Xanax just to soothe my overcharged nerves.

And as I became increasingly imprisoned within the viscous goo of my grey matter, I eventually closed out the world and withdrew from social outlets completely.

Though, by now, I’d been to the doctor for suspicions of autoimmune disease and food allergies — all negative or inconclusive, of course.

Somehow, I pressed on.

Until it came for my heart.

“Thump-thump. Thump — — — — Thump.” My heart skipped a beat. And then another.

It began as a night like hundreds before it: I was tossing in bed, dreading the torturous hours of ringing before exhaustion would overcome me.

But now these palpitations were stronger, more forceful. I felt my heart suspending me between each weary contraction before it accelerated into a gallop — harder than it had ever done before. Then a tightness squeezed my chest.

Bolting up out of bed, I instinctively roused my sleeping husband.
I clasped his hand, placed it on my chest and cried, “My heart! I don’t know why it’s doing this!”

“Woah,” his widening eyes pushing sleep from them, “that’s really fast. What’s going on??”

“I don’t know, but my chest hurts. I’m going to the ER.”

At the intake, I watched the minute hand crawl laps around the clock while other patients came and went. Over time, the grip around my chest loosened, and my heart rate had slowed back to adagio.

Realizing my life was no longer in imminent danger, I returned home.

Like any sane human, I soon pressed my doctor to explore further.

“Well, we’ve looked for everything we could.” Flipping through the voluminous stack of papers on his clipboard, he continued, “we ran a CBC, thyroid panel, autoimmune markers; we checked food allergies…”

“But you never got the heart monitor results.”

“Well, your EKGs were normal. We could try it again, but since you mentioned anxiety, I think our next step is a mental health professional.”

A *%$#*&@ mental health professional?!

Torn between incredulity and rage, I gawked at him as blood flooded my cheeks. “I don’t need a psychiatrist. I need help. My brain doesn’t work. I have chest pains, hair loss, hives…” flashing my red, patchy arm.

“Well, it sure is a thunker. Anyway,” he concluded, “I still think you should seek some support.”

All I could muster was a tight-lipped “thanks,” before storming out of the room, sputtering and cursing his name.

Since there were so few measurable symptoms, no one else ever saw anything more than someone who looked chronically anxious or tired.

But I had decayed to a shell of a human being.

And it was up to me alone to get to the bottom of this.

Tears streaming down my face, I dedicated every spare moment of my sleepless nights hunching over pale glow of the my computer screen.

Tirelessly, I scrolled through illness after illness, investigating everything from celiac to cancer; from post-partum diseases to overlooked autoimmune conditions, long Covid (which I never had) to even schizophrenia and early-onset dementia.

What on earth is killing me? I demanded to the universe. Nothing made any sense. Still, I clung to a battery of self-diagnoses to console myself with something within my control.

Their rationale deteriorated, so I turned towards my environment. I tested for mold, carbon monoxide leaks, harsh chemicals being used in or near the house — even meth. No stone could be left unturned.

Alongside mold toxicity, I delved into even stranger conditions and conspiracy theories like sickness from wireless radiation to chemtrails to nanobots. Well, every rational stone, at least. So I thought.

All to no avail.

Until the night that marked the point of no turning back.

It was a typical Saturday night: my husband was sipping a few drinks and tuned into his game.

Then, while changing in the bedroom, it pounced on me.

Instantaneously, fuzz spread from the corners of my eyes as my vision began to blur; the warm glow from the bedside lamp dimmed as my peripheral vision blackened and my senses blunted.

My head became wrapped in what felt like an invisible plastic bag: not only could I barely see, but I could no longer discern what was happening in the external world.

Lightning bolts of electricity cranked my nervous system into overdrive; my perception drowned in a slurry of disorientation, tingling pain, panic, and delirium.

Nothing existed outside this sensation.

And then, it was as if the plastic bag tightened — I couldn’t breathe.

Heavy in my chest, my heart rolled back in forth like a boulder that couldn’t build momentum. With every breath, I drew less air. I was inhaling, but my lungs felt punctured, like they couldn’t inflate.

Gasping and hyperventilating, I could feel my bodyweight overcoming my dwindling strength. I collapsed onto the bed, using feeble exhales to scream into the pillow.

Every cell in my body was begging for air. It felt like I needed to claw out of my skin just to get enough oxygen.

There I laid, catatonic; I was suspended in time until my consciousness slowly trickled back into my body and began inflating my lungs again.

Just when I thought it was over, my heart started racing, but not like it had done before.

It took off like a helicopter. It was a mallet drumming in frantic eighth notes. And it didn’t quit.

My hands flew to my chest, where the rapid pounding met them before they made contact. I could physically see my heart trying to lunge from my chest.

I shakily placed two fingers on my wrist while filling my belly with as much air as I could. 180bpm. Oh my god. I didn’t know my heart could beat that fast.

Too depleted to fight, I laid there, motionless, mumbling to myself that it would soon quiet down.

An hour passed. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thumpa.

Maybe this is it — maybe this time it’s a heart attack. The gravity set in as I weighed my options over driving to the ER. It was almost midnight and my husband fallen asleep after a few drinks — and after umpteen feckless EKGs — why bother?

Summoning all my strength, I sat up and employed more breathing techniques.

Two hours passed. Three hours. Then Four. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thumpa.

Half past three, and surrendering to whatever fate had in store, I thrust a pen into my shaking hands and feverishly scribbled a bunch of characters that formed the passwords to my accounts.

Pausing for a moment, I added, “I love you all.”

I curled up in bed only assured that I wouldn’t be consciously enduring this much longer. Whether it was temporary or final, I no longer cared.

If, by now, you’re wondering whether this was simply a dramatic recounting of a panic attack — the first time I posted this story, I was accused of just that. But friends, a panic attack would have been a carousel ride by comparison. I’d take a thousand panic attacks over living this nightmare ever again.

But live it again I did.

Though I survived the night, these horrific episodes came and went, night or day.

The apprehension that preceded them swelled into panic attacks that followed me everywhere, with no reprieve from their grasp.

A few months dragged by as weight continued sloughing off my body. I couldn’t so much as eat without my heart losing control over its rhythm, so most days I chose a steady heartrate over food.

Watching myself decay into a living, breathing corpse, I plunged into dysphoria.

The last shreds of hope had been stripped from me. I was scarcely a mother anymore, and the furthest thing from a wife.

I knew I was dying, but didn’t know why. And no one could help me.

The only option left was to take my own life before this pernicious evil stole it first.

Before that, though, I resolved to escape to one of my most cherished places one last time.

Known for its small-town charm and breathtaking sights, I booked a cozy cabin in a remote, outdoorsy nook of Wisconsin’s northern wilderness.

Besides, if something “happened” to me, I’d want my final moments to somewhere sacrosanct, somewhere in nature.

At least there my battered soul would find solace.

Here, something remarkable happened.

About three days into our stay, my husband and I decided to attempt a hike up the wooded bluffs of the peninsula.

Stopping for a breath (which, to my surprise, came effortlessly), I paused to gaze out through a small clearing in the woods. The sun’s reflection sparkled iridescently from the horizon line where the vast waters of Lake Michigan met the sky. Rippling past me, the morning breeze carried the breath of earthy, summer blooms.

Curiosity led me towards it, and I gingerly approached the edge of the cliff. Hesitating, I watched the cadence of the azure waves idly lap at the rocks 200 feet below, as if hypnotizing me to join.

Should I? I reflected on the past few days.

Wait a second. How was I able to exert myself without collapsing? I haven’t had a single heart palpitation for a few days. And I could eat.

Something had changed since we arrived.

Sensing the shift in energy, my husband turned and gasped, “what are you doing!?”

Tears welling in my eyes, my voice trembled with the realization. “I’m…better. Something about this place is healing me…”

As he hurried over to embrace me, I chuckled in spite of myself. “So am I just a hysterical woman from the 19th century who only needed some ‘fresh air’?”

I still didn’t understand.

Until later that evening, when the revelation crashed into me harder than storm waves on those jagged bluffs.

Spirits soaring from my sudden good health, we sat down for a movie, first fumbling with my laptop in attempt to connect to some distant WiFi source. About a half an hour in, my heart heaved, skipping beats. It lost its rhythm again — why now, all of a sudden?

Startled, I dumbly scanned the room expecting to find some obvious offender, then allowed my gaze to gravitate back towards the laptop resting two feet away on the coffee table.

The epiphany struck like lightning.

Shooting up off out of my seat, I yanked my perplexed husband off the couch (nearly giving him a heart attack of his own). We dashed out the door to the desolate dark sky park, where I could announce my discovery without further scattering my thoughts.

As I guided him through the endless black, I was greeted by the outstretched arm of Milky Way sprawled across the sky in its seraphic display.

It’s all electromagnetic, I mused. Still piecing together all I had read about this bizarre medical condition, I revered, just like us.

Perhaps, this time, I was on to something. And perhaps the universe had permitted me to live after all.

Returning to the present, I blurted out, “you’re not gonna believe this, but it’s the electromagnetic fields from the cell towers— and the power lines — the ones right by our house. That’s what’s been making me sick. I think I have something called ‘microwave radiation sickness.’ My heart skipped only after we turned on the WiFi.”

I explained that despite the fact the signals from our devices are considered “safe,” the FCC’s exposure limits were set in 1996 only to prevent RF from physically cooking our flesh like a microwave oven.

And even though the industry-funded research claims they’re safe, thousands of independent studies have found these pulsed, manmade wireless signals to not only be carcinogenic, but to affect the heart and nervous system, too.

Even in the pitch black, I could feel his eyebrow raising with skepticism.

“There are other people out there,” I added, “lots, who have developed severe sensitivities to manmade electromagnetic fields, so I’m not the only one this has happened to. That must be why only a little bit of WiFi caused palpitations. And why even more destroyed me.”

The man who always had a retort was now lost for words. He finally mustered, “so what do we do now?”

“Well, first, we test it. With a meter. And then we get the hell out of that house.”

Before we even arrived back home, I had a meter shipped out and ready to measure the house’s electric, magnetic, and radio fields.

The moment it arrived, I tested every corner of that house, with WiFi on and off (of course my neighbor’s remained on), and with cell phones on airplane mode.

My reaction vacillated between appalled and horrified.

Even with the WiFi off, the signals in and around my duplex reached 20+ times the most liberal limits set by independent researchers (and the WiFi exceeded their maximum readings!).

Since so much cardiac activity had occurred there, I paid special attention to the bedroom — which housed two smart meters on the external wall. No wonder my heart was worse at night!

Even then, my inner skeptic compelled me to take another trip just to confirm my hypothesis. It did.

Though I was still terrified that moving wouldn’t be the answer, that this was all some fluky coincidence, my defiance of “reason” saved my life.

Once I fled that “perfectly safe” house a few hundred feet away from cell towers and power lines (and turned off my WiFi for good!), all my acute symptoms evaporated — the gripping pain, the erratic heart rate, the brain fog, even the rash disappeared and hair loss stopped.

In its wake, however, it left me with PTSD, chronic fatigue, histamine issues, and a severe sensitivity to all forms of wireless radiation, otherwise known as Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Syndrome (EHS).

Aside from disabling my WiFi, this meant I could no longer use my phone, car, stove, washing machine, breaker box, hair dryer, etc., without reliving the torture I had barely escaped.

My healing journey has been long and arduous, but every day I thank the universe for providing me with the tools to conquer every one of these ravaging chronic conditions — even my “incurable” sensitivity.

But if it could happen to me, it can happen to you.

Do not dismiss my story as “sensationalism” or a one-in-a-million chance: I’m just a “canary in the coal mine,” or an early warning of the impending danger.

Besides, you don’t have to go into cardiac arrest to still be harmed by these signals: at least 30% of us are already affected by them.

Our technology is not safe; it has never been proven to be safe, so we must tread lightly.

This is why 5G has been such a hot topic: even those 5G “small cells” popping up around cities emit signals that are just as strong as giant towers for those within proximity.

For those who succumb to severe sensitivities, however, EHS is an incurable death sentence.

We all deserve a safe environment, and those with debilitating health conditions deserve safe spaces free of wireless emissions polluting the air.

This is why we must actively fight for our freedom from widespread wireless exposure — why we must fight the unbridled expansion of 5G.

We must advocate for stricter regulations, as European countries have already done.

And we must also recognize debilitating conditions like Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Syndrome (EHS).

Because the longer we wait, the fewer safe places there will be, and the faster this will swell into a silent pandemic.

If you’d like to learn more, check out credible sources like the Environmental Health Trust, and start pressing your congressperson to demand safety testing be conducted prior to installing more towers in your neighborhood.

In the meantime, please share my story. And trust your body; trust your instincts. Turn off your router at night.

And for God’s sake — please don’t blindly trust “the science.”