On May 13, 2023 I packed two duffle bags and left my house with an eerie feeling that I was not coming back to my home. It was as if there was a voice like back in Exodus that said "don't look back".
Our story goes further back than this date, but this was the beginning to the mold chapter in our family. As many of you know Mitch has battled various health issues the main one was the most recent TBI that happened August 2021. Unbeknownst to us we were fighting more than one health battle, perhaps even harder than the TBI because it was not something we could see. Mold, or according to info I have read, the more I learn about this, the "silent killer".
About a year later after moving into our new home I started developing some symptoms, symptoms I never had before. Sneezing often around fruits like apples or bananas, a little cough, a feeling like I always had a frog in my throat and on my worst day I was throwing up after drinking a smoothie. Later I came to find out I had a histamine intolerance. I took it for what it was and began a new food regime to avoid all of the histamine related foods. Meanwhile I was losing a lot of weight and struggling to find the right foods that didn't "trigger" a histamine reaction.
Fast forward to another year later and I was a little better, but not completely out of the woods. Then I found out I was pregnant and while I was excited and thrilled that the Lord was blessing us with another child, I was nervous about how to provide nutritious foods to develop a healthy growing baby. I noticed at bed time I would get a terrible cough and one night it was a cough that would not stop until I finally took benadryl, the culprit? Spinach! Spinach is a histamine food and apparently my system was overloaded with histamine... I wasn't out of the woods yet. Meanwhile I was noticing that our son, Micah was waking up with a cough every morning. Congested, sneezing, runny nose- the poor guy! So we put air purifiers in his room and our room, however there was no noticeable difference. Then on January 27th of this year he started taking a turn for the worst beyond "allergies". That night he threw up so much we lost sheets and pillow cases, because there was no way to save them from all the mess. He started throwing up more, losing weight and we couldn't figure out why. We thought it was a reaction to chili powder, but what we quickly learned is that he was also has a histamine intolerance at 4 years old!!!
I didn't understand any of this. Apparently earlier that month during a routine HVAC visit the service guest found mold in our duct work and recommended we get this $1000 purification system that would eliminate the mold in 24 hrs. Since we had a newborn (and our newborn was also showing symptoms i.e runny nose, poor weight gain) and thought this would alleviate all of our symptoms we bit the bullet and went for it. Little did we know this actually spread the mycotoxins into the air and made things worse for us.
Just before Mitch had his gallbladder removed in April his symptoms intensified. He had a strong negative reaction to clothes that had been stored away that were about 10 years old. He described feeling pain in his head and around the bridge of his nose. Finally, he noticed relief when he was not in our home. The symptoms were negatively impacting him to the point where he could not stay in our home anymore. It quickly became very evident that there was something else going on that was the culprit for all of our symptoms. On May 18th we had a Mold Hygienist professionally evaluate our home for mold and the report was very lengthy detailing all the areas of our home that were entry ways for moisture from things not being properly sealed to even more issues in our attic that were were unaware of to not realizing how much our old carpets had been negatively impacting us, possibly the potential source to all of the moisture issues which pointed to moisture in our downstairs bathroom, masonry work and the list goes on. This whole remediation process entails thousands of dollars because this was an extensive list of moisture issues in our home. To make matters worse our home insurance does not cover mold. The hygienist deemed our house "unlivable" based on our symptoms and the toxic mold that has accumulated in our home.
So know we are faced with decisions to make about remediating our home and then selling it. However, in the meantime we are out of our home, and have had to start from nothing because the mold spores are in our clothes. In order to not keep breathing in the toxic mold we had to throw away all of our clothes. The two duffle bags that I packed with our clothes that included clothes for our children, I had to through them in the VB landfill.
Our now 5 year old has lost his stuffies, books, toys, and clothes. We have countless books because Mitch is an avid reader and loves to collect books and now we are unsure of how to recoup them because paper is very porous. I have all of my books for work in our home...that are gone! We are hoping to salvage some momentos but there is still the concern that if not properly cleaned it will spread mold into clean areas.
Today Mitch's symptoms are unbearable and he would benefit from getting special tests done to determine the strand of mold that is in his body to heal him and then he would need to start a specific course of supplements to purify his system and rid him of all the toxic mold in his system. We learned through this process that mold hinders the healing process to any brain injury. It has been almost two years since his last brain injury and he is finally doing better with that, but now we are faced with the challenges of finding resources to pay for the mold tests, supplements and specific providers that treat this since none of this is covered by our health insurance.
We have received clothes and toy donations that have brought so much joy to our children. Your prayers have given us hope and encouragement more than you can imagine! However, we have reached a place where we are in a financial hardship. As we look ahead, Mitch will be up for his disability revaluation in August, so he is not guaranteed a paycheck next month. His health is deteriorating and needs these tests done, and we are going to have to remediate (repair) issues with our home in order to sell it.
Please share our story with your friends and family as tough as this is, we know there are other countless stories out there with people that have encountered toxic mold and we would love to hear from them too!
Thank you for your consideration in helping our family get through this season.
