Greetings to all who read this. We have had many questions about from friends and family about our health and situation. I hope that this blog may make it easy for those interested in keeping up with our challenging living situation. Below is a brief summary about our summer. I will expand on sections later but this gives a brief introduction into what our summer was like. Pictures referred to in the blog will be moved over later but for now, are on my facebook account. This first post is long but sketches the challenges we've faced.
As a family, we have been sick for many years and getting worse. Leila and Emily were essentially incapacitated and the rest of us were experiencing declining health. Leila did an awesome job of researching our symptoms and matched them with mold toxicity. We had our house tested for mold in October 2009 and found slightly increased levels of dangerous molds. Unfortunately, the tests weren’t done right (controls failed) so we don’t know what the real levels were. However, we had a friend directed us to Curtis Wright of Envirotech LLC, Anchorage who remediates mold in houses. He reviewed the tests and identified our crawlspace as the major source of mold. We made arrangements to go to Benson AZ to see Dr. Michael Gray who specializes in mold exposure and environmental and chemical sensitivities. Members of our church volunteered to remodel our bathroom (it had mold) while we were gone and Curtis Wright was going to come up after we got the bathroom fixed to remediate the mold.
We flew to Phoenix June 16 and arrived in Fairbanks at 2 am July 7. We had a busy time visiting numerous doctors including an endocrinologist for Kevin’s diabetes, oral surgeon to remove Erika’s wisdom teeth, Arny went to Mayo clinic for chronic pain and many more. We saw Dr. Gray in Benson as well. (see my Arizona photo album.) We did have some fun. Leila’s sister and family paid for tickets on the train from Williams to the Grand Canyon the first weekend we were there and that was a blast. The kids enjoyed the pool at the apartment we stayed at (got lots of burns) and we were able to see 4th of July fireworks from the lawn of Wriggly Mansion! Clear blue skies the whole time! Arizona Mills, a mall in Phoenix area, was really cool. We completed approximately 28 doctor visits amongst all of us.
We arrived back in town to a difficult situation. A pipe was leaking in the bathroom after remodeling. Instead of flooding the house (whew!), the water went into the crawlspace resulting in a more serious mold growth problem (see the mold remediation photo album.) It turned out we had 3 different leaking pipes including a leaking drain we found after remediation. Yikes! Having environmental sensitivities and asthma in our family, the construction dust in the house was a disabling problem. So, our house was temporarily unlivable and we slept out in our popup trailer until Curtis Wright came up. It took >3 weeks but we were able to sand and finish the bathroom walls, paint, and clean up the bathroom and house before Curtis came up Aug 2-7. He took all the insulation out from underneath the trailer and re-insulated. He sprayed an antimold compounds under the trailer and throughout our house. Mold tests indicated that mold levels in the master bedroom were up to 26K spores per cubic meter (SERIOUSLY BAD LEVELS!) and Emily’s bedroom was up to 8k spores per cubic meter. Both rooms were identified as having stachybotrys, the toxic black mold. Post-remediation tests indicated that the mold was not gone so Curtis Wright came back up to Fairbanks Aug 21. Although mold levels were closer to background, we found stachybotrys mold in Emily’s bedroom walls and re-treated the house. Post treatment tests AGAIN showed unacceptable levels of Stachybotrys in one room so Curtis Wright is coming up again Sept 25. This time, we are going to rip out all the sheetrock in Emily’s room, strip the lower level sheetrock in the garage, and sheetrock along the southern outerwall of the home. Wow! Curtis Wright really stands behind his work. This has truly reached the point of being a crisis for us.
On top of the mold problem, Emily and I developed viral pneumonia late August! At least we think it was viral. It is never good when the doctors get excited about your case because it is so strange. They thought it might be “valley fever”, a fungal infection common in the desert but that was negative. Emily had double pneumonia and I had it in one lung, just before I had to go to Valdez for work and just before school started for Emily. Many of us were sick from the virus but only Emily and I developed full pneumonia. We are doing better but it is tough. There have been some tough weeks following where we’ve had to accomplish certain tasks even though we can hardly breathe and have no energy. Emily is hoping to play some tennis this fall and I am wishing I had the energy needed to complete the work ahead!
We are grateful for those who helped us by providing air miles to get to Phoenix, financial assistance to help with bills, and the help we received remodeling the bathroom. Thanks to everyone! Thanks to Curtis Wright for helping us!
No comments:
Post a Comment