So I've been reading everything I can find about asbestos and honestly it's making me more anxious instead of less. My mom worked at a manufacturing plant in Tempe for like 3 years back in the 80s, that's it. Just one job. And now she's Stage III pleural meso. I keep thinking if she'd only worked there 2 years instead of 3 would this not have happened? Or is there just no safe amount and I'm driving myself crazy looking for a threshold that doesn't exist.
I teach fifth graders so I'm used to looking stuff up but this is different because the answer actually matters to me and I can't find a straight answer anywhere. Is it the intensity of exposure or the length of time or both? Because some people I've read about worked for decades and didn't get it and my mom was just there three years and got diagnosed at 67.
I'm not trying to blame her or anything I just need to understand if there's a point where you're safe or if everyone who was exposed just has to wait and see. Sorry if this is a dumb question. I'm just trying to make sense of why this happened to her and not to other people who were around asbestos longer.