When people hear my story, most will think that I am crazy and not believe me. However, anyone battling will know this is real and definitely not in my head.
I am a 51 year old well educated woman with an MBA. Unfortunately, a traumatic event from a leaky roof has forever changed my life and the lives of my entiire family. I share my story and hope some day it will become a movie and change the laws about renting and selling places in California and Federally. In addition, I hope that Eastern and Western medicine will come togehter on this and expose the government and drug companies from all they hide in the name of greed for money and not doing what is truly honest and for the best interest of all.
My story starts when I was young as that is when I believe I was first exposed to mold and several events later in life had made me disable today. Hopefully, no forever and I will be divinely healed.
When I was about 5 years old I lived in Sun Valley, CA in an old 1940’s style home. I got a lot of nose bleeds in this home. (I believe from a mold that causes nose bleeds.) Also as an infant a dark brownish spots appeard on my right arm. Perhpas this was from some sort of mold as it looks like two people’s mold damage that I have seen except there’s was red and mine is brown. This home also had lead paint. I lived her from about biirth thru Kindergarten.
In first grade I moved to a newer home in Burbank, CA. No nosebleeds, no depression; however, some attention issues when reading. Just minor attention issues. This home had a chlorine pool that I swam in all the time from first to six grade. I got migraiines during these years. I did not know what caused them then; however, having a genetic test done by my nutritionish and doctor, I figured out that I was chemically sensitive andt hat perseratives in foods caused my headaches. Now, I don’t eat anything with perservativies and try to eat organic when possible. No more headaches. Yeah! Too bad I never knew this when I was young.
In this newer home, I did not have any medical problems, other than headaches once in awhile. I played softball and swam for years. This home was built in the early 1970’s and I do not think it had lead paint; howver, I am not 100% sure about this.
In the middle of sixth grade, I moved to Glendale, CA into a newer home. I don’t think it had lead paint. However, we did have a water heater leak and get the carpeting in the room next ot my bedroom wet. My dad pulled the carpet up, put a fan on the carpet for days and then put the carpet back down. I lieved here from the middle of sixth grade until I left for college at age 18. During this time, I was a little bit chromically fatigued and I had depression. I am sure this was from the toxic VOC fumes from the wet carpeting gassing off mold for years.
Around this time (sixth grade) my mother took me and my brother and sister to a doctor that put mercury filling in our mouth. Today, he is no longer to be found or around. I wonder why. In my 20’s I had the filling redone, with amalgem. I did not know until my 40’s that amalgem was mercury and that I was sensitive to mercury.
In my early twenties, I became a real estate agent working for Coldwell Banker in Glendale, CA. The office that I worked in for 10 years had a continuous leaky roof. So, ten more years of breathing in VOC”s. Plus, many homes I must have sold and viewed for all these years.
The next two homes I lived in were newer and had no water damage or lead paint. This was from about age 24 to age 30. My health was good. I gave natural childbirth to two very healhty girls in 1988 and 1991. They are now 27 and 24 years old. This marriage lasted 7 years and I left my UPS driver husband adn took my girls downt he street. We shared custody and worked together to take care of them. At this time, we moved from a newer home to older homes with lead paint. At this time, 1994 I also changed jobs from real estate sales to selling armored car services for Brinks. Here I had truck fume exposure and I am sure lead paint exposure from the old building I was in for 11 years in downtown Los Angeles.
I commuted on freeways from San Diego and Santa Barbara for 11 years. More fume exposure. In 1997, I remarried my second husband who is a Western Medicine ER Nurse. He helped me raise my girls since they were 4 and 7. Now, 27 and 24. Then seven years later, in 2004, we had a duaghter together. She is now 11, chemically sensitive and he is in denial about it even though she had seizures from the thiemerasol in the shots and most likely the formaldyhyde. Based on a blood test by my Eastern / Western Medicine doctor did for my daughter she is sensitive to lead, mercury and formaldhyde. She has seizures aftert the 4 year old shots. Sorry, got a litle side tracted. But, this is part of my story and I want to help other and their children regarding environmental issues that affect our health.
Gong back to my story, my second husband and I owned a home in Montrose, CA from 1998 to 2012. this home was built in the 1940’s and it had lead paint and mold that I never knew about until I started getting really sick and an Immunologist / Allergist (Dr. Kaslow in Santa Ana, CA) and Dr. Huy Hoang in Lawndale, CA (Internal Medicine and Environmental Specialist).
This home had a wall air conditioner that had damaged the wall and hardwood floors in the living room. The wall had patched up stucco and the hardwood floors had water damage across almost half the floor. I never knew the water damage could gas out mold vapors (VOC’s). So, we covered the hardwood floors with carpet and lived here for 15 years. On top of this, years later the toilet leaked and the wall air conditioner did also. This was the time that I began consulting knowledgeable doctors and they told me to call the homeowner’s insurance company and have them get a machine to get the water out of the hardwood floor and toilet floor area right away. At this timie, my daughter was 7 and I had a special test done and it showed her lung was imparied. This had to have been from the damaged floors that I never knoew about. Today she is 11 and I want to redo the test to see what it shows. However, my husband abandoned me when I got sick and go asthma from a mold infested rental we lived in after we sold our home.
Not knowing about the lead paint, I removed wall paper that had lead paint over the wall paper, In 2010, I started having some serious health issues that no doctor seemed to understand until I got to the right few. I was chronically fatigured, had fibromyalgia, depression and severe anxiety and could barely eat anything except raw vegetables. I had yeast so bad that I used Monistat 7 for an entire year and it would not go away. Then, I found the correct doctors. Thank God.
I had excruciating pain on my left side. They took my ovary out. The pain still was there. Then I found out, I had mercury, heavy metals and lead paint poisioning. I had an old mercury filling that was left in a tooth and the tooth was cracked and leaking in my stomach. The yeast was there trying to protect me from the metal (I think). I got rid of the yeast in a year and a half. The ovary was not the problem. The lead and mercury was. I had 50 IV’s over a year and a half to chelate the lead and mercury out. The pain went away, my stomach healed and so did my immune system (until exposed to more mold) and I went back to work teaching college.
I would have died of cancer if it went not for these doctors and my nutritionists.
In 2009, while still in this home my husband changed jobs from and ER Nurse to working for the County of Los Angeles. Now, during the entire time we were married he put his scrubs in the regular laundry basket which means I was exposed to tons of mold from patients coming to the ER from his scrubs as mold attaches to clothing.
On top of this, when he changed from the ER Nurse job, he started bringing in mold on his clothes from leaks in the county building. This is when I started having a problem sleeping not knowind why. In 2012, we had to sell our home due to refinancing it and me changing from full time to part time work to be home for my daugther and my husband and myself.
Then, we moved to a townhome with a roof that we were told was fixied. Half the boards in the garage were missing and when we moved in the leak was not fixed. There was mold in both showers, and a leaky sink in the kitchen and then when we moved out 10 months later because I got asthma after I shampooed the carpet, we immediatley to move out and trash everything, including a car it go into.
I got infections in my lungs, asthma and we had to get rid of everything. However, my husband rexposed me from things he kept and then cross contaminated. Plus at this time we did not know mold was coming in from his work. We noticed that after we moved a few times and it came back in and after he eventually left me.
It has been two years that we have separated and we have gone thru three cars and a scooter and clothes and carpets and paper and trshed things again. Now, I can not tolerate clothing as it get easily cross contaminated and my voc tollerance is so bad that I can not go in many many buildings. None with leads and on with any VOC”s in them that have come from people’ s contaminated clothing.
My muscles are statting to get stiff and I can smell clear air vs. air with VOC”s. Some think I am nuts and others know that I am not. I got a fungal infection in my hair from the mold and I am still trying to get it out. It is so bad, I had to shave my hear. I can feel VOC’s on items that get mold on them and then I have to trash them. I got to hotel or motels leaving my clothes outide so I can breather all night long without having a HEPA fan or VOC mash.
Don’t know what I am going to do to survive. Trying to get disability and with husband leaving I can not function in society due to not having a car now. I have an immune deficiency from this and trash clothes every day. I sleep at 24 hour restaurants until I contaminate them and can’t got there any longer. and then have to go some place else. This is a living hell….
I hope this helps others.
Questions:
Is there any place that sells bags that block Voc’s so you can carry contaminated cltohing or items without harming others.